August holiday

At school, the kids were on holiday for almost the whole month of August. I’m just going to write about a few of the things that I did during my time off. Sorry it is going to be long and out of time sequence, so bear with me…but after this I should be almost caught up!

A friend of mine called Selina who is a British journalist here in Nairobi had her good friend Niall visiting, who is an Irish sailor in the British Navy. The three of us spent 2 days and 1 night in a place called Naivasha, which is a town northwest of Nairobi. It is famous for being the home of Lake Naivasha, and we stayed in a little banda on a campsite called Fisherman’s Camp right on the lake. The lake is meant to have a bunch of hippos in it, but we never saw any during the day. We spent most of the evening sitting by the fire in the bar, and late in the night there was a hippo sighting! It was just one, and it came all the way up to where the electric fence was that is meant to keep them away from the campsite. Since everyone gathered, it ran away pretty quickly, but it was still cool to see. It was a fun mini-getaway to escape the rush and pollution of the city.

Me, George, Zenek and Loren who are all volunteers and Izzo, who is Kenyan all went to Mombasa for several days on the 20th of August. Mombasa is a coastal beach town that is kind of a tourist destination but somewhere I definitely want to go back to before I leave. We took the overnight bus that left at 9:30pm…worst bus ride of my entire life! We sat 5 across the back, and literally felt every pebble that bus went over and bounced and jostled to no end. Everyone else in the other seats was reclined and sleeping, but there was no comfort or sleeping for us; we were absolutely miserable. But once we got there, we had such a great time! The beach was white sand and beautiful, and the water was incredible and warm. We stayed at a place called Diani Beachalets in a little 2-room cottage with a kitchen and the beach right outside our porch. We spent a lot of our time on the beach, going out to some of the local clubs and bars, and wandering around the city of Mombasa, because where we stayed was Diani Beach, which is about 30 minutes past the actual city of Mombasa. The only real touristy outing we did was when we went to Fort Jesus, which is a historical monument and also had some very good views of the awesome beaches. It was so nice to get away and do a vacation-y trip where I could just relax and play in the ocean and hang out. It is much hotter there as well, and there is a large Muslim population too. There is a bit of anti-Americanism and anti-western sentiments, which are evidenced by the flashlights that shine with a picture of Osama bin Laden (whose face is everywhere on gadgets, cars, etc.), but we never had any problems with it. There is a lot of history in that town, and I kind of wish we got to see some more of the sights, but maybe when I go back I’ll do some of that.

Since I didn’t have anything to do on a daily basis during the holiday, I went out to Mama Tunza’s childrens home where George and Zenek work quite a few times. It is located right near my school in Kibera, but is basically on the opposite side of the spectrum from Olympic. The conditions were despicable, there were over 130 kids staying in space fit for maybe 20 at the most, kids were sleeping 3 and more to a bed, many kids had malaria or other diseases which spread very easily when so many people are living in such close quarters. It was just a filthy place, words can’t even begin to describe the way you feel when you walk into that place. You can smell it from a mile away. However, the kids are somehow still always happy and busy playing and laughing…just proving that life’s conditions cannot kill the spirit. The teachers (because it is also a school too) haven’t been paid in months and are on the brink of being penniless, if they aren’t already. But the staff seem really great and George got along with them very well. While Tunza’s in Kibera is still around, another volunteer called Livy and Zenek were about to organize for the kids to be moved out to a town called Ngong to a brand new center which is about a 20-30 minute matatu ride (crazy VW bus-like public transport that sometimes get stuffed to over 20 people) plus about a 6 minute boda-boda (something resembling a dirt-bike) away from where we live. It was a really difficult procedure to get all the kids moved, and it took a lot of hard work and persistence, but they made it happen, which I think is pretty incredible. They faced so many obstacles, and that move never would have happened if it weren’t for them. I went out there with them the first day they brought the kids to the center to their new homes, and it was such a special experience. The kids were overjoyed; it is such a contrast to what they had in Kibera. The new center is really nice, with brand new buildings, beds the kids don’t have to share, a slide, teeter-totter and swings, and 30 times the space they had in Kibera. It is isolated out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but cornfields and cows and Maasai houses and people around. The kids seem infinitely more happy, as does Mama Tunza. They are still facing a lot of issues with the staff not living up to their duties, sponsors pulling out, and all the typical issues in anything that happens in Kenya with corruption, lack of money, disorganization, and all that, but they seem determined to get the center up and running adequately. It has been a very interesting process to observe from the outside, and I learned a lot from it. The kids are really fun…my 2 favorites are Kimtoh, who is just so adorable, and Jackwell, who is such a clown and so sweet and also HIV positive. Speaking of HIV, I also went out with George and Zenek to the Ngong center to do HIV tests on all of the kids there who hadn’t been tested before. It was an incredible experience that I know I most likely will never have an opportunity to do again in my life, so I am really glad I was a part of it. We did this on the 3rd of September, and went out with one of the workers called Lucy at a clinic in Kibera called Leototo. All of the services offered in the clinic are free, testing, counseling, and treatment, which is pretty amazing. The only thing we had to pay for was the transport for the person from the clinic to get out there. When we got there, we set up a table with 2 stools and a long bench to place the tests on as we waited for the results to show up. I ended of kind of being Lucy’s assistant, because George and Zenek were doing a lot of administrative and organizational work trying to sort the kids and get them in the right places at the right times. How the test works is this: there is a plastic tray that has a long part with a little circle on the end. On the long part is where the results turn up, and one line at the top means negative and two lines is positive, while anything else is invalid. Lucy would pinprick each of the kids’ fingers with a little plastic thing that looked like a thumbtack, and then she squeezed a couple drops from their finger into the dish circle at the end of the plastic test. We then had to let the tests sit for 5-15 minutes, which was exasperating! My job was to take the tests after Lucy put the blood in, set them aside, and wait to read the results. I also handed out candy to the kids after the pinprick, but really only the older ones needed it…they were such babies! All the younger kids were just exceptionally curious of what was going on. Then I discarded all the old tests after reading them out loud to George and Zenek. I was literally holding my breath the whole time, my chest was so tight- I was just waiting for a second line to appear and for me to have to read it as positive! It was so nerve-wracking. Luckily though, none of the kids ccame back positive. We only tested the ones who had never been tested before, and 4 of the kids living there are already positive. The tests aren’t 100% accurate of course, and HIV is a tricky thing to test for with respect to the window period and time issues, but we were still so glad no positives came up, especially with on little girl called Zoardia. She was showing signs like mouth sores and thrush, which usually marks the beginnings of HIV, and one of her siblings is also positive, so it was a big relief when even she came up negative, but they are still planning on retesting her in a couple months. I am determined to organize testing like that for IDP camps since now I know how to do it. The only barrier we are facing is that Izzo rightfully says that if we are going to test the people and potentially have to tell some of them that they are positive, we need to have a solution readily available for those who turn up with HIV. We can’t just test and leave them to their own accords, so we will need to find a nearby clinic that people will be able to go to for free for treatment and counseling. I think it’s definitely doable, but we shall see.

There is this awesome place in Nairobi called the monkey park, which I went to a few times during the holiday. It is free, and it is just a park in the city, but there are monkeys EVERYWHERE! These are not just regular monkeys either, they are aggressive and people-loving monkeys who steal from you and take your food and jump on you! The last time we went was with me, George, Izzo, and Izzo’s good friend Tony. I dragged them there after we spent the day renewing George’s visa and replacing the SIM card in my phone, mostly because there are these roasted sweet potatoes that you can only get from a street vendor near there that are to DIE for, and you put lime and chili powder on them and I am borderline obsessed with them. Anyway, we ended up having such a fun time! My sweet potato was wonderful, and Izzo got some roasted maize as well that I tried for the first time. However, as he was holding it out and I was taking a bite, a monkey ran up, jumped up to the maize and bit on it right on the other side of where my mouth was! It literally snatched it right out of my mouth. It was pretty funny. We also got lollipops, and a monkey pulled the stick out of my lollipop that was in my mouth, and Tony and Izzo both got their lollipops stolen out of their mouths. I also got bitten by a baby monkey and scratched by another one, and some pretty hilarious pictures came out of that. We fed them peanuts and they jump up on your shoulders and back, and it is a bit scary at first but really fun after you get used to it.

The 31st of August was my home-stay brother Roy’s first birthday! We had a cute little party for him with cake, juice, chapati (sort of like Indian Naan but more moist and a Kenyan staple), biscuits, and popcorn. A bunch of our host mom Grace’s friends came over, and several neighborhood kids too. I played games and chatted with the girls, who were so sassy and full of attitude but in a really fun way. Roy also has started walking since I first got here just recently, so it has been so much fun. I am so excited to see him with all the time I will be here for…he’ll be running circles around me and talking up a storm by the time I leave here!

A while ago, Zenek and I took Karanja (first name Dennis, but goes by his last), Grace’s 8 year-old nephew who is an orphan and the sweetest boy ever to Nairobi National Park for the day. Zenek drove a car we borrowed from another host dad names Oliver, and we spent the day hanging out with Karanja and trying to spot animals. He was most interested in spotting the animal poop and airplanes and also steering while Zenek drove, but he still had a really great time. We saw a bunch of zebras, giraffes, gazelles, warthogs, ostrich, a huge crocodile, lots of birds, and monkeys and baboons. There was a pretty close call with a baboon who we were looking at with all out windows open…it started walking toward us, then picked up speed and was suddenly sprinting at MY open window! I froze and then shrieked and ducked away, but luckily Zenek acted quickly and closed my window for me as the baboon jumped up with full force on to my window and then climbed on the windshield and just sat there staring, Zenek says, directly at me. It was a really nice day, and I’m glad we got to take him out for some quality time together.

On August 8th, me, Loren, George, Sarah, and some other volunteers went to the wedding of Bonface, one of the guys who works for the Fadhili organization. It was so cool to witness a cultural event and see the similarities and differences between what we are used to. The bride, Maureen, wore a traditionally “western” looking dress, and Bonface wore a white suit. One thing we noticed was that they never looked at each other at all until they were faced each other about to say their vows. They also have different traditions with cake; they do not give it out to everyone and often times they will have several cakes, but most of them will be made out of cardboard. The bride and groom actually hand feed cake to their close family only, while everyone else got pre-packaged biscuits. Gifts were literally presented to them while they stood at the front alter, and were categorized by things like “work friends,” “volunteers,” “his/her family and friends,” etc. There was so much singing and dancing, and it was a fun experience.

Loren and I also went to Izzo’s mother’s ordination on August 9th. The ceremony was extremely long and drawn out, but Izzo specially invited us and I figured it would be another new thing for me to experience. There was a lot of preaching, especially because it was an evangelical church, and a lot of reading in Kiswahili and ritual that I didn’t really understand. The most interesting part for me was right before what I guessed was the moment they got officially ordained. The candidate was knelt down next to who I assume was his or her “sponsor” or something like it, and for most people that was their spouse, and after some prayer/ proclamation, the ceremony leader poured oil from a horn all over the person’s head, after which each person burst into tears of joy and pride. There was a lot of singing and music here too, and we were definitely fish out of water as the only 2 mzungu people (white) there, though they made us feel very welcome.

My work at the IDP camps is still plugging along as well. I’ve been out there I think maybe 6 or 7 times now, and this past weekend on the 18th-20th of September was my first time actually running the whole thing with Izzo and without Loren, who went home much to my dismay the beginning of September. We had a group of about 26 volunteers come out with us for a medical camp and food distribution combined. On Friday night, we bought the food and packaged it, then Saturday all day we brought out the doctor and had him see all the patients and distributed medicine and all of that. Sunday was food distribution day, but I got extremely sick and Izzo took me back to Nairobi that morning on his way to the airport to pick up a previous volunteer who was returning to Kenya with money to donate to IDP. It was such a different experience doing ALL of the organization and all of that leading up to the weekend and also the whole time we were there, especially with so many volunteers. Izzo and I spent a lot of time buying medicine, talking to the doctor, writing lists, going to meetings, making the budget, and doing all the other prep work even before the weekend even began. But it was really rewarding to have done all of that after the weekend was through, even though I was and still am battling with something that according to Kenyans is closely resembling swine flu but with ear infections added on to the list of symptoms, haha. There is a team of volunteers and Kenyans working together to try to make this IDP camp work into a legitimate and separate from Fadhili non-profit organization. There are a lot of hurdles and barriers and issues to work through before this can become a reality, but it is well on its way there. Eventually we hope to have our own source of volunteers who will come to Kenya specifically to do work with IDP camps, but there is a lot of business to take care of first before that can happen. Izzo and I also attended a meeting with a couple people who work for an organization here in Kenya that is looking to potentially sponsor our IDP project, which is very exciting, and also maybe build a children’s home out there for the kids who lost their parents in the post-election violence and have been staying with friends or other family members or on their own. We are also still working on nailing down the land that we hope to start building on very soon. Hopefully we will not only be building the maize mill on that land, but also a few other businesses such as a chicken coop and greenhouse, which will all also be a huge benefit for the IDP people not only as a source of income but also for them to have access to these things so close to their homes. There is a lot of buzz and excitement around IDP right now, and I can just feel that it is waiting to explode into full force growth, mostly because there are so many passionate and dedicated people helping it along, especially Izzo. I am very proud and thrilled to be a part of it, and will keep everyone posted on how it’s going.

I promised that I would write a little bit about each one of my students, so I am going to just do that here because this post isn’t long enough yet, is it? I really feel like I have the best class ever, and I am growing very close to them and love spending time with them. I will go through and list each kid and then something really short about each of them. ROCKY: so spirited and sweet, also dyslexic and cannot read. He is the smallest kid in the class but makes up for it in charisma and football skills. He is super smart and can do any math problem if you read it to him, but is really struggling and not getting the one-on-one attention that he so badly needs. BILDAD: so well-mannered, most intelligent student in the class and always comes out number one in the exams. He is such a cool kid, sweet, and genuine and overall a real pleasure to have in a classroom. MANYANGUE: first name Gilbert but goes by his last name, a goofy jokester who always has a smile on his face. Sometimes he can seem a little out of it, but when he tries he is always on point. I can tell he also has a particular liking and knack for CRE (Christian Religious Education) and loves to hear the stories in this subject and remembers more details than anyone else. His smile is contagious! CHELIMO: first name Francis, but also goes by his last name. He gets bullied a little bit by the other kids, but takes it in stride. He likes to show off his intelligence, but in a harmless way. He loves to talk and tell stories, and has a great imagination. ENOS: seemingly very serious much of the time, and concentrates very hard when he wants to. He is ery logical and straightforward, and eager to please. MISATI: first name Geoffrey, so quiet and timid, but heartbreakingly gentle. I will never forget the time I saw him playing alone at recess with a newborn puppy, he was so unlike all of the other kids who were poking it with sticks and chasing it…all he wanted to do was pet it softly and hold it. Has beautiful eyes and eyelashes, very reserved and a sweetheart but struggles a bit in class. AMKALI: tough guy, proud with a good sense of humor. Needs some academic work, but when he tries can usually do fairly well. It is the sweetest thing because he gets very bashful around me, like if I try to look him in the eye or speak directly to me, he becomes like that dwarf from snow white and can barely even hold his head up! BRIAN JOHN: has a severe stutter, the worst I’ve ever heard, but doesn’t let it phase him. He was number 2 in exams last semester and is also very naturally smart. He is a great artist, and draws pictures for me all the time-my favorite was the Obama one I got during the second week of school! VINCENT: very small, reminds me exactly of a young Dave Chapelle, but better looking! He is a bit quiet, but extremely obedient and well-behaved. OBUYA: I LOVE this kid!!! He has become one of the students I am closest with. He knows how to command a classroom and the attention of other people in general. Unconventionally smart, says things and asks questions that you might not expect, and always seems to be looking out for me. He is hilarious and has great timing. He seems to be liked by everyone. A lot of the time he hangs out with me during breaks and we play games, and even a couple days ago he spent break singing for me! It was the sweetest thing. I feel like he is one of the kids that really respects me the most, and I think with the proper care he could turn out to be a stellar and well-rounded student. ANDREW MUSANGUE: also a bit quiet, but a big smiler. He is very sweet and curious but unassuming. A good kid in general. The other students love to talk about how strong he is. ANDREW OTIENO: when he smiles, it makes me so happy! He is a very smart student, but in a very reserved way, as in he doesn’t boast about it or even show it to the class all that often. He is really good at his multiplication tables. He is very respectful and sweet. CLINTON: my dark horse! He has a bit of a temper and can be mischievous, but he is very smart and eager to learn. You can tell that he loves to do well in school and is very proud that he does. He was the most improved student in last term’s exams, and came all the way up to number 3. He is also another great footballer. ERIC: I’m so sad, he hasn’t been at school since the beginning of the new term. I think it is due to fees, and I’ve enquired about potentially sponsoring him for this term because he has so much potential and is one of those kids that I really enjoy being around. He is a little quiet, but when he smiles it lights up a room for me, and there is a sincerity in his eyes that fascinates me, but also makes me wonder what he has seen in his short lifetime. He and Bildad are the 2 most clever kids who know that they are smart, but don’t need to remind everyone, and it is a natural ability. ELVIS GISORE: beautiful eyes and a sweet face. He gets frustrated a bit easily, but also is willing to do the work, even when it is hard with him. Likes to feel validated I think, and gets very proud when he does his work well. CHARITY: a new student this term. I do not think her English is very good, which makes her painfully shy. The only times I’ve seen her come alive are when we were playing hangman and around the world as a class. I can tell she is eager to please, but definitely needs academic help. ROSE: such a firecracker, but in a subtle way if that makes sense. Her jokes are few and far between but always funny. She isn’t afraid to give anyone a hard time or tell what she’s thinking, and doesn’t take shit from anyone. PAULINE: sensitive but very smart. I can tell school is very important to her; she is very serious about it and she always works hard. She is the tallest in the class, and also I think one of the oldest, and she can be very silly and fun. ROWENA: also a new student this term, but polar opposite of Charity. She is strong-minded and feisty, and always eager to give answers aloud in class. She’s also not afraid to give it right back to the boys, and she does have a bit of a troublemaking streak in her. But she means well, and I think she really looks up to me. EDINAH: Also quiet but in a shy way, and once you get to know her out of the classroom setting that almost disappears. She has improved immensely according to my teaching partner, who says that when she first came to Olympic she could barely speak English or read. She is very good at math; she still lacks a bit of confidence, but is definitely getting better each day. I absolutely am in love with my students, and you all should definitely check out our class picture…there is a link to it on my twitter to the right of this post! I am so proud of them, and can’t wait to spend the rest of my time watching them grow. That’s it for now, thinking of all of you and sending love from Kenya! xoxo