Tag: Phone

Categories
Mombasa

Safaricom Unlimited Package

OK fellow volunteers, this comes up a lot in conversation, so I thought I’d mention it.  Safaricom now offers an unlimited Internet package, which everyone’s been waiting for.  It’s 200 shillings… per day.  That’s a lot if you do it every day, but it’s not so bad if you just use it every now and then for Internet splurging with downloads and video Skyping.  Just send a blank SMS to 555 to activate.  For some reason this info isn’t on their website, but they spammed me with an SMS ad telling me so.  Enjoy!

Categories
Loitokitok

Loitokitok Photos

As much as you love my lengthy prose, I figure I owe you a few photos with simple captions.  Also, I’m avoiding having to study for tomorrow’s exam, so reviewing photos seemed really appealing.  So without further ado…

This is where I sit at home in the evening and respond to blog comments on my phone.  I took this photo today.  There is always hot milk for me in that thermos.

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This is a very accurate drawing of me.  I received this during the Secret Santa gift exchange.

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And here is the gift I gave to my Secret Santa.  Businesses and homes in Loitokitok usually have at least one positive-message baby sign.

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This is my homestay brother.  He is five years old and he is holding the electric Christmas Tree that I received in a care package on Christmas Eve (great timing!).  This picture was taken in the kitchen.  In the background: my homestay sister and auntie (the house helper).

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On the left is the front gate of my home.  In the distance is Mount Kilimanjaro.

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And here are all the Deaf Education trainees. The guy on the bottom right is always asking too many questions in class.

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Categories
Loitokitok

The Challenges Ahead

What am I worried about these days?  Well, let’s see:

  • Language: I am likely to test as "Intermediate" in KSL on the 31st.  I am regularly dreaming in sign language, but because training is in Loitokitok, where there is one deaf man in the whole town, our entire group is lagging compared to previous years.  I hope that when I go to my final site sometime around Jan 6, there will be a supportive deaf community to help me out.  I also know zero Swahili… basically only what’s on the inside cover of the Lonely Planet quick reference book.
  • Secondary project: The Peace Corps recommends that in my down time, rather than sitting around doing nothing, I should pursue a "Secondary Project."  Before coming here I anticipated that this might involve further development of the Adobe Flash sign language tutorials that I saw online, but…
    I do not yet have access to original source files.
    I am not sure what else might have been done already on this front.
    …so when I go to Nairobi for the swearing-in, I am going to scour the Peace Corps office to see what I can find.  There is an overall sense here that things got lost when everything shut down during the election violence, but there is another, most systemic, problem with "memory loss," that is, the lack of a structured year-by-year progress tracking for the overall deaf education project.  I worry that any progress I make might be forgotten in a few years— how can I help this organization to make sure my own work builds effectively on progress already made?  "Sustainability" is a key part of the Peace Corps’ mission!  Ken, the Country Director, seems keenly aware of the problem and has already taken some steps in organizing some of what’s out there, and he also mentioned some initiatives that I hope I can be a part of.
  • Connectivity: I’m getting pretty good at surfing the Internet on my phone, but I’m still seeking a better solution.  The fact that I got Skype Video to work with ErinRose makes me want a better laptop solution, because the pay-by-the-megabyte model would be painful for video chatting (and it’s also the reason you never see high-res photos on my blog).  There are now four mobile operators in Kenya and their data plans are shrouded in mystery and hearsay.  Ultimately I will wait until I move to my site to determine which carrier(s) are even viable, but it’s nonetheless frustrating to try to do research in advance.

Here is your reward for reading this post, a picture I took when walking home today from town, thinking about all this stuff.  You can see it raining on my home in the distance.

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And here is a picture I took in Ohio not long before I left for Kenya, at the 102nd Annual Circleville Pumpkin Show.  The goal is to grow the biggest pumpkin, but clearly this farmer had a secondary project of his own.  Perhaps there is a lesson for me here somewhere?

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