Tag: photos

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Malindi Mombasa Nairobi Watamu

Term Three Begins!

Today was the first day of the third and final term of the school year.  Out of 160 students, not many were here yet.  To be precise, I think 5 kids showed up.  This is relatively normal, as first week is really the “ramp up” week. We had a teachers’ meeting (which I rustily interpreted for the two deaf teachers) and then I ran some errands around town.

As I walked around I reflected on what I want to do differently this term.  Most significantly, I want to make a real effort to de-prioritize my own projects in favor of putting my weight behind other people’s ideas.  I’ve been here long enough to get a sense of which people I respect, so instead of working in my cave (AKA my house) on projects that I’ve concocted in isolation, I want to be an enabler for other people’s projects: people who have been here much longer than me, and whose ideas I trust.  The person I want to help the most is my counterpart.  He’s the youngest teacher on staff, and he’s Deaf—a product of the school he’s now teaching at.  He’s also a volunteer’s success story—a previous volunteer tutored him heavily here when he was a child.  He’s proven himself to be smart and reliable, and he has ideas for the community here.  We’re going to start small, and I’m going to help with the filming of the school’s video/print yearbook once more kids return from break, maybe next week.

I also want to put as much time as possible into the Nairobi project.  I’m in research mode right now, trying to get my hands on all previous similar efforts.  Anyone know where I can get a copy of this?

Anyhow, by changing my approach I think I can not only do some good for others, but I can help myself out a bit, too.  Developing workbooks for the class and picking software for after school computer time is fun, but because my peers (the other teachers, etc.) aren’t a part of that process, I think it makes them wonder what I do all day.  Working on more visible projects would improve my standing and, as a result, probably my own morale.

On an unrelated note, last weekend I got together with some other volunteers in Malindi and Watamu, which is an area about two hours up the coast.  Here we are bickering over the bill at the fancy Italian restaurant, where I has prosciutto and melon and olives as an appetizer!

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And here’s the Malindi airport.

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And, in no particular order, here are some random pictures that you may enjoy.  I figured you should catch up before classes start again.

Busted socket in my house (second one I’ve had to replace— why does this happen?!?!)

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Another Nairobi slum view from the train:

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Mombasa views from the bus: 

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I know monkey pictures are always a hit, so I’ll finish this post with one.  I took this picture from my front door.  There were four of these in my tree the other morning! 

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Categories
Mombasa

It’s raining cats and millipedes!

Rainy season continues here, and it’s great.  I sometimes even turn the fan off in the house.  The rain, though, brings with it animals.

The giant millipedes come around more when it rains.  It seems to put them into “reproductive mode,” as I seem them in pairs far more often (and then I see baby millipedes not long after).  The kids think they’re gross and try to squash them.

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I’m still unsure what to name the cat, but that doesn’t stop him/her from coming inside when it rains and enjoying the dried fish I leave on the ground.

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Categories
in transit Kilifi Mombasa Nairobi One Love Island

Catching up

So much has happened since my last post that it seems like the best thing to do it just show you a lot of photos.

After my stop at a fellow volunteer’s in Embu (“Fun-bu,” as she calls it), we moved as a group to a nearby volunteer’s site, which is an amazing Deaf school.  (After we left, apparently this area of Kenya became a bit rough because the matatu owners stopped paying for local “protection,” and some people’s limbs were cut off.)  Here’s the school:

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Just look at that gardening!  Apparently they have an awesome computer lab, too.  This is the one school that performs consistently above the guessing average on their standardized tests, and it was run for many years by a former Peace Corps volunteer who decided to stay.  A sad site at the school was a deaf-blind child who was not picked up by his parents, so he was staying there for the whole month.

After one night there, it was off to Nairobi for more Peace Corps training.  This mostly consisted of Powerpoint-style presentations for a large group, although we split off into smaller groups for the afternoons.  The highlight was catching the kitchen on fire during the cooking seminar.  Let’s peek into the kitchen:

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Yes that is a nun.  For some reason out hotel was run by nuns.  While in Nairobi I did things I can’t do in Mombasa, namely I ate sushi and tortilla chips (but not together).

At the end of training ErinRose flew into Nairobi and we traveled the next day back to the coast with a good number of Deaf Ed volunteers.  Here were are in front of One Love Island, where we camped and ate delicious calamari:

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Here is the closest village, where one of the business volunteers live.  This place basically has nothing in common with Mombasa, even though it’s only a few hours away.  A telling example of this is that when we walked through the village, children ran up to us with their palms out and open.  I instinctively ignored them, because I see lots of begging children ever day who will grab my arm if not my pocket if I stick around too long.  The volunteer saw this and said something to the effect of, “This is a local greeting.  Give them your hand and they will kiss it.”  Which is what happened.  I was humbled and astounded.

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Over the next few days we worked our way back down the coast, and I got to play tourist for a bit, which was amazing, but I’m not used to A/C anymore so I got a cold.  Here’s a view from our room in Kilifi.  Its hard to see, but there is a pool and the ocean is behind it.

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Here’s a look out of the side of a tuk-tuk (three-wheeled covered motorcycle) on the drive into town from the hotel:

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ErinRose took this one while the group was idling after snorkeling.  While she was taking pictures, I still had the taste of vomit in my mouth from getting seasick.  It was worth it, though, because I saw a puffer fish.  And a humuhumunukunukuapuaa.  I surprised even myself that I remembered that fish’s name from long-ago Hawaii snorkeling.

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And here’s our last group dinner before we all went our separate ways:

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As it turned out, back in Mombasa, the first week of school was a a false alarm, since a lot of the kids weren’t back from break yet and it is apparently customary to not hold classes until more show up, so ErinRose and I has a surreal week in Mombasa, where I lived a life of luxury just minutes away from my home where my toilet is a hole in the ground and my bath is a bucket.

Here is one of the places we stayed (that’s the Mombasa bay out the window—I live just on the other side of it):

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Monkeys on the patio (I’m no camera quickdraw, unfortunately):

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Is this luxury, or just bizarre?  A fish tank as the water source for the urinal.

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The second week of school just finished (although it was the first week where I actually taught anything), and things are going well.  I bought a printer finally and I’ve been making lots of worksheets for my classes.  I also have been putting to use many of the items that people have been generously sharing.  Vocabulary Bingo in particular was a gigantic hit!

So there’s a one-month summary for you.  Now it’s back to normal.