The Crazies

I have made many promises to update my blog the past 2 months, and I’ve just been slacking. And I know I have already said this before, but starting now, I will try to post more (at least once a month : ) At the end of term 2, Peace Corps had all of the volunteers on a travel ban because Kenya was having a voting for a new constitution and they wanted to be prepared in case there was a repeat of violence. So for the travel ban period, I traveled to a fellow volunteers site in Lamu, which is on the coast :D. Great decision.


For a vacation, I met my mom and sister in London/Scotland! Leaving Kenya was kinda surreal and I had slight culture shock just at the airport in Kenya because there was so much candy from the states!! Why cant that be found IN Kenya and not just in the airport!? But the entire trip with my mom and sister was just wonderful and it was very very hard to leave and say goodbye again.

I’m not going to lie. It was hard for me to return to Kenya, and at first I wasn’t very happy. But when I returned to my site and saw some of my teachers I work with, they seemed genuinely happy to see me there and greeted me with the Kenyan double hug/kiss thing! And some of my students greeted me the same way. Having that happen really helped me to feel better about being back and I was able to get back into the swing of things. The start of term 3 was the first time I have been at school the first day school is to officially start. So on that Monday I go into the school at 8am as normal… and I am the ONLY teacher there… I have heard from the other volunteers that this is what happens, but I just thought my school was pretty good about starting on time… but then I realized I was never actually at school when it started, I was always at meetings for Peace Corps the first week and then arrived at school the second week. So I started to teach anyway since most of my students were there. The first class of chemistry I had I decided to play Hangman with chemistry words. It was the first time my students had ever played, and they caught on pretty fast. When one of my students came up to pick the word, instead of drawing a man… she started to draw something else which turned out to be a duck. Then the other students followed suit and when they were at the chalk board would draw other things instead of a man. I though this was great since they often don’t show too much creativity.

This term is also the first time I am teaching a hearing class (don’t get me started on why there are hearing students at this deaf school). At first I didn’t want to teach the hearing class, but the other teacher really needed me to because his schedule was too full to take it. So the first day of going in to teach the hearing class, I was really nervous and not to excited about it. But when I came out of there, WOW… I didn’t realize how hard it really is to teach the deaf chemistry until I was able to teach the hearing! But I still love my deaf classes : ) After any class which I take them to a lab or show a demonstration, there are a few students who will thank me. And one of my life skills classes asked me to teach them life skills on Friday night because we had missed life skills class in the week. I find the Kenyan students just wonderful. I mean would any american students ask to have an extra class on a weekend??

My school is having 3 new classrooms built since we don’t have enough at the moment. The first 2 days the construction workers were at the school digging out the foundation and they got a lot finished. I was thinking to myself “wow they are going to have these classrooms built in like a month!!” Oh how silly of me, I must have forgotten I am in Kenya were everything happens at a glacial pace. Since those two days…. There has been no work done what so ever. That was 2 months ago. That’s Kenyan time for ya.

One of the workers at my school has been trying to teach me Luhya, the local tribal language. It is nearly hopeless but I have been able to learn a couple of greetings. So one day when he came in to greet me, there was a hearing student standing nearby. He saw her and told her to say “mulembe“ to me. The student gives him a questioning look and says it to me. I reply with “mulembe mno”. The student has a shocking look come over her face. Then the worker tells her to say “amacheni” to me. She does, so I say back “gaouma”

The student goes running out of the staff room. About a minute later I walk out of the staff room to see the one student now joined with another hearing student. One of the girls calls out to me “teacher teacher!!” I stop and look over. The one student is whispering in to the ear of the other. Then the other looks at me shyly and says “mulembe“ . So I say ““mulembe mno”. With a look of absolute astonishment she continues and asks “amacheni” to which I reply “gaouma”. The two students turn to each other with wide eyes and go running off laughing a squealing. They just could not believe that I know some Luhya.

As I have mentioned before, the crazies in town tend to be attracted to the mzungu. So one day I was walking to town with Lee to go eat at a hoteli. As we’re walking along, this man with one eye comes up in between us and starts rambling about god knows what. And of course he has no personal space and decides to get in mine by talking to me with his face half a foot from mine. So thinking the best thing to do is to ignore him, we continue to walk on. But no the crazy man doesn’t get the message and he thinks us not talking to him is an invite to join us at the hoteli. He follows us all the way to the hoteli and into it, and he decides the best seat would be at the table right next to ours. For about 5 minutes he continues to sit there all the while harassing the waitress and just being annoying. So finally the cook comes out from the kitchen and kicks him out, and throws his bag out the door! Haha I seriously felt like I was in an old western movie or something. In the same hotel right after the crazy man is kicked out, this woman comes in with a small baby and she sits in the same seat that the crazy man was in. While Lee and I are eating, she just sits there… staring. (What can I way, watching a white person eat is great entertainment) Once I’m finished eating I go up to the counter to pay. I am standing in line and I so happen to be right next to the woman who is staring. As I’m standing waiting, I feel some one hit me on my leg/hip. I look down and it’s the same woman. She looks at me and says “habari yako?” (how are you?) and just turns around. I seriously couldn’t help myself and I just laughed out loud.

This past weekend I left my site and will not be back for 2 weeks. I went to a fellow volunteers site to help teach and also to learn some self defense so I can teach it to my girls for life skills. I have been at Danielle’s site in Litein which I have been to before. The students at her school all remembered me and were really excited for me to come again. The little ones are all just so cute and cant get enough of me. They will come running up and hold my hand, pull my arm around them as Im walking, pinch the fat on my arm, examine the arm hairs which they find so weird since they don’t have any, and so many other things. You cant help yourself but to smile because they are just so cute and funny.

At one point in the day, I was sitting in Danielle’s staff room waiting for her to finish some work. As I was sitting there one of her fellow teachers started to talk to me saying how all mzungu look the same. So I replied that she is only saying that because we have the same skin color and in that case I could say the same about Kenyans, that because they all have black skin, they all look the same too. But she just didn’t understand the point I was making and said “no no because some of us are brown and some are black, we have different tints of skin color. If you and Danielle stand next to each other, you two look the same” I continued to disagree with her for some time because Danielle and I look nothing alike. However, I eventually had to just give up because this woman just would not understand and continued to think that all mzungu look the same. So if you ever come to Kenya, expect to look the same as all the other mzungu that have come to visit, hah.

On the journey to get to Danielle’s site I was sitting in a matatu waiting for it to fill with people. As I’m sitting reading my book by the window, a man who is selling gum walks up to the window and just leans his head in and puts his forehead on my shoulder. I then lean away from the weird man. When he moves his head out of the window, I sit back again and begin to read my book. Then the man again does the same thing, so this time I push head forehead back with my finger and tell him “no”. I must say I think that the times on a matatu tend to be when the most entertaining things happen.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Nairobi to meet the new group of education volunteers that are coming in fresh from the states. It is just so weird to think that I am now one of the older volunteers and will be helping to train them. It seems like just a month ago that I was freaking out about leaving for Kenya and trying to gather all the supplies at last minute. Wow how time is flying by!