Pineapple woman friend or foe?

Whoa, two updates in one week! Unbelievable, I know.

So several weeks ago when I moved here I could only find one woman in town that sold pineapples and she was hell bent on over charging me. I refused to pay 120 shillings for a pineapple but I continued to go back and eventually got her down to the same price she charges the cook in the main house, 90 shillings. Since then I have started buying all my vegetables from her. I see her almost everyday. I don’t get the feeling that she loves me to pieces (but she will eventually… give it time) but I also don’t get the feeling that she hates me, so it’s a good situation so I’d say we went from foe to friend.

I finally feel like I’m starting to fall into a schedule which is nice. I’ve started going back to the school after lunch to tutor one of the teachers in Kenyan Sign Language. I am really glad that he has the interest in it, but I’m kind of a crappy tutor because I’m still not sure of what his main objective is, but I’m working on it. Tomorrow he is coming to my class in the morning to present the alphabet which will hopefully be really exciting. Every morning I have each of my students go the front of the room and recite the alphabet and also count as high as they can and then I write their name next to the number so they can see how they improve. They can all sign the alphabet, but only one of them can sign it without having it right in front of them which is frustrating since we do this EVERYDAY. I’m hoping though that they will be encouraged by another teacher coming to sign the alphabet.

I also found out there is a chance there will be another PCV coming to Sega. I talked to his supervisor today and it sounds like they’re having a hard time having housing. If they find it though, we will be 4 mzungus in Sega. It’ll be interesting. Balances out the Germany to America balance but throws the male to female ratio even more out of balance. On the bright side, the Germans and I have really started to get along. I went running with one of them today for the first time. I’ve never been one for running with other people because I always feel like I’m holding them up, but since I’ve never run here I didn’t want to go alone. He was super patient with me and pretty encouraging which was nice.  We seriously ran to what felt like the end of the earth. It was nice to finally get to run though. They’re talking about going again tomorrow. As long as they’re willing to deal with my slow pace I’m in.

I think the biggest challenge about being here is food. My cooking skills were somewhat limited in America but here, whoo. Yea. Every week or so I’m able to add one more dish to my menu… I’m at about 5 different things. I like them all but I know I’ll get sick of them eventually. I also eat a wider variety here than I did in America for the most part. Since being here I’ve started eating pineapples, tomatoes, oatmeal, bananas and I’m sure a variety of other things. Interesting how the body and brain just adapt. It’s like a switch flipped when I got here.

That’s all for the updates. Tomorrow should be jam packed. I’m supposed to visit a fellow teacher’s house and hopefully make it back in time for the girl’s soccer game and then possibly another run with the Germans.

As always, thanks for reading!

p.s.- Kenyans have no concept of heat so today I burnt not only my tongue but i'm pretty sure my esophagus and several other internal organs thanks to boiling hot tea.

Off the grid...

Hello to all! I have been off the grid for about 2 weeks since I lost my internet modem. I'm not sure how this is possible because it's not like I live in a mansion... but either way, the situation is rectified. I am in Kisumu for the weekend because one of the other volunteers had a birthday bash so I bought myself a new modem.
Coming to Kisumu is a special treat for me even though it is only 2 hours. I always end up spending too much money because the shopping here is great and the food is even better so that's where most of my money goes. So last night we went out dancing and now i'm hanging out on the roof of our hotel taking advantage of the free wi fi and waiting for the video of my house to upload so everyone can see where I live!! I know, it's so exciting!
So the last two weeks i've just been diving into teaching. I have 4 students and some days I really love them and some days... I really don't. Love em or not I can see that progress is being made so that is really what matters. I'm sure eventually we will all get used to each other but at the moment they are still testing the waters and pushing the limits (and my buttons).
Other than that things are pretty calm here but I guess I can take a minute to tell you about all the barnyard animals that live on the church compound with me. We have a few cows and one of them insists on eating right outside my window really early in the morning... it's a wonderful sound to hear as soon as you wake up. We also have geese which I don't mind. I think they are beautiful, kind of loud, but nice to look at. Before we just had one and it was white and just waddled around and minded its own business but now there's another one and it's gray and it hates me. It has chased me out of it's territory about 2 times. You'd think it wouldn't be scary since i'm bigger than this creature and could probably kick it to the moon, but i'm terrified to be honest.
Oh! In other news i'm getting indoor plumbing. I don't know when. There's not like a big sign at my site that says "RUNNING WATER COMING..." followed by a date. At the moment they are digging the borehole but it is still going to take quite a bit more work and quite a bit more money but i'll keep you posted. I'm so excited that I might one day be able to flush my toilet it blows my mind.
I think that's it in Cindy world. I'm adding a link at the bottom of the blog so you can see the video I took of my house. Enjoy! Thanks for reading as always!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aHJUuBXov4

la la la la life goes on...

I'm running out of creative titles for my blog, don't worry, it won't stop me from blogging :-) Sorry.

So the days here are coming and going. This is the first real week of teaching, but we don't have any syllabi to use for planning and scheming so this week I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants just praying I have enough work to keep all my kids occupied all morning. I've developed a behavior chart that could be working better but basically if you have a smiley face above your name at the end of the day you get candy. 1 out of 4 kids got candy today. That's how my day went. They'll catch on... hopefully!

In other news i've done yoga 2 whole days in a row (I know... not really a streak, but gimme a break!) and I think it'll become a daily thing for me. Both days I walk back home and I'm so frustrated with either me or my kids or all of the above but yoga turned out to be a great stress reliever (go figure). I've also FINALLY started cooking for myself which is also making a world of difference. There's something nice about having complete control of what goes into your body... especially in a foreign (even though it's not so foreign to me anymore) country. ... with the exception of the chai and chipati that i'm required to have at tea time at school. If you refuse food here well.... you regret it, we'll just leave it at that.

So I guess i'll give a run down of my schedule since nothing earth shattering has happened since my last blog. I get up in the morning usually between 6:30 and 7:00 and take a bucket bath and usually have fruit for breakfast, grab my crap and head to school. I teach from 8:00- 12:35ish and then am done for the day since the little kids don't come back. .. and believe you me I need almost all that time to plan so i'm glad I have it. When I get back i've been doing yoga and planning a bit and then I decide what I want for dinner and walk to town and buy everything I need to make that happen. I come back and plan a little bit more then cook dinner and then spend the rest of the evening planning and scheming with a movie on in the background.

This is only the second night i've actually cooked. The first few nights I stuck to sandwiches out of laziness mostly. Last night I had spaghetti... the sauce came just short of being a total bomb but I ate it anyway. Live and learn. Tonight I had breakfast for dinner! I made a tomato egg white omelette and skillet potatoes with green pepper and onion. The best part is every single thing I ate at dinner was completely fresh. I feel a little bit limited because of the selection in our market... I seriously only found one woman today with peppers and some things I just can't get here... mango however, is not in that category. Sega is bursting with mangoes all the time. I don't know that i've ever actually had mango before Africa, but they taste great and i eat 1 pretty much everyday :-)

Anyway, hope all is going well in America, I hear some are getting hit by some pretty big snow. You're welcome to come here! It's 80 and sunny!

Also i'm planning on posting pictures or a video of my house but i'm waiting for my furniture (still).
Thanks for reading!!

Ni Maisha

It’s life.

Long time, no blog, sorry about that.

So I reached my site in Sega safely and quite tired after the long trip. I’ve been here now for almost 3 weeks and think I have a better perspective on my home and my village so although you may disagree I think it was a good idea to hold off on a blog update until now.  Since this has worked for me in the past I’m going to break this blog up again in categories and hopefully I’ll touch on anything but as always if you have questions feel free to post them and I’ll get an answer to you!

The people

The people here are great. I live on a Catholic church compound so mostly I see the Priest and the guy training to be the next Priest and they are both super fun and really down to earth and they always speak English around me which I appreciate beyond belief.

I also live with 2 Germans. They are also volunteers and they live in the house right next to mine which cuts down my privacy but beefs up my security.  They also have a dog named Viper (it’s a girl… I know, go figure) but because of their accent it sounds like they call her Wiper which is now what all the Africans call her also. I’m the only one that pronounces her name properly. It just so happens this week the Germans are on vacation to I’ve started training this creature to not maul me when I walk in the garden gate… I’m doing surprisingly well for someone that’s never had a dog before.

There are 2 other teachers in my unit and they are both really nice and seem to want to teach me things and at the same time learn from me so I think it will be a good partnership… no complaints there. Because the primary school I’m in has 1,000 students there are also several other teac hers for the hearing students and they all also seem to be pretty nice and welcoming.

Lastly, I’ll throw this in here. Surprisingly … and awesomely a very good friend of mine was not able to go to her site because of an insect bite and she needs to be flown to her site since it’s practically in Ethiopia. She’s pretty much been chilling in Nairobi and then at other Volunteers houses and after my New Year’s celebration in Kisumu she was able to come to my site with me and visit! It was awesome to have her here and it definitely cut down on stress for the first few days of school.

Ok, not lastly. Since my students are people too I guess I’ll touch on that in this section. They are pretty great. I have one with a bit of a behavior problem  but I think I can get him in check. I also have another student who is about 15 ( all my other students are about 6) she was in a hearing school until Class 3 and then quit since no one could communicate with her but when the Deaf Unit here opened up she came! In all I think I’m going to end up with about 5 students that as of now all seem to be on different levels so it’s gonna be interesting.

The house

So I don’t want to say the people that filled out my form lied… but I’d say it was a gross exaggeration  of what my house actually looks like.  So my house is basically a big room. It already had a bed, dresser, coffee table, and 2 chairs which helped my wallet a lot. I bought a mattress that fits the bed and am having a kitchen table to cook on and 2 bookshelves made which should be done any day now.  I’ll be excited to get a table and get my gas cylinder filled so I can start cooking for myself. At the moment I’m eating in the main house with the Priest, Priest in training and the Germans, it’s fun and I’ll miss that interaction but I like choosing what I’m going to eat. Anyway, back to the house. My bathroom is just outside my house, I have a western toilet but I don’t have running water so I have to fill up the toilet tank with practically a whole bucket of water before it will flush. It won’t flush toilet paper… ever. As far as the general set-up there is basically the Germans house and my house enclosed with a brick wall so I walk out my door and about 12 steps to the left and I’m at the Germans back door. There is also a door in the brick wall that is mine, it’s how I get in and out of the garden/yard situation, it’s not ugly to look at unless Wiper drags trash outside which she is known to do.

Oh I almost forgot! While my friend was here we went shopping for fabric and basically carpeted my ceiling with 12 different fabrics and it turned out really awesome and definitely makes this home feel more like mine. I also made curtains.

Daily living

I’m not sure what to put in this section other than it rained last week and I put all my buckets out to collect water and was able to do all of my laundry and clean my floor and flush my toilet like 5 times. It was awesome and I was really proud of my creativity and resourcefulness.

The town

Sega is a pretty nice little town. Pretty much everything I need for daily survival I can get here. There’s a little “supermarket” in town and the owners love me because they have a daughter named Cindy. Instant friendship.

It takes me about 15 minutes to walk to town, but we don’t have a bank so I have to go to another town about 20 minutes away for that but it’s ok because that town has a really awesome market.

My feelings on the subject

So now that I’ve been here 3 weeks and I’ve started the first school term (kind of. Apparently this week is opening week which means we don’t do much and can’t do much because we don’t have a syllabus yet. I do have an English one… I don’t know if teachers in America have to make schemes of work but if you do, God bless you they are a giant pain) I feel  like this is just life for me. Now that training is over and I’m not constantly surrounded by other Volunteers I get up in the morning and do what I need to do that day just like all of you are doing in America… it feels less like Peace Corps and has become the norm for me which is kind of a nice feeling. However, I always feel more Peace Corps-ish when I pump and carry my water to my house or jump up and down at the site of rain so that I don’t have to pump and carry my water.

I think that’s all for me. I finally have internet at my site to hopefully I will be updating much much more!!!

Thanks for reading, again apologies for the tardiness of this update!!! Happy 2011!

It's official!

Well, today was the day. I'm an official Peace Corps Kenya Education Volunteer, I swore to loads of stuff and ate loads of sweets that I regretted almost immediately after.
I guess I'll backtrack since I haven't updated in a while...
Last week was alot of just last minute training and packing and such. It took forever to get all my stuff packed... and as much as I didn't plan to I did bring my bucket... full of books and PC manuals, 2 suitcases, a backpack and a purse with a mosquito net and medical kit hanging off my luggage. Last Friday we had our host family appreciate which was nice, we got free lunch and made fools of ourselves by putting on skits about life in Kenya for the families. I headed back home with my family and exchanged gifts with them and then started the packing process. Peace Corps luggage pick up began Saturday morning and then I caught a ride with family to our hotel in Machakos town and had a SHOWER and I, Cindy, SAT ON A TOILET SEAT. It was wonderful. That night the hotel arranged a really adorable parting dinner for us, they put candles on the table and tried their hand at American food. Sunday morning we loaded our mounds of luggage into the PC vehicle and grabbed a matatu to Nairobi! We've been in Nairobi since then doing trainings and such.
Yesterday we met all our counterparts for the first time. The man that came for me is actually not from the school but from the Parish... so I don't have much information on what i'll actually be teaching, but he's really nice and he's tried to answer all my questions. Ok, so now i'm up to today! I got up this morning and attempted to make myself America beautiful. We took buses over to the ceremony at the second in command under the Ambassador, the house was beautiful and they had loads of sweets out for us after the actual swear in. We've had the rest of the day off and quite honestly I haven't done a thing. I've  been pulled in every direction since we landed here and for the first time I feel like i'm on my own schedule and no one else's. Becoming a Volunteer is kind of like turning 18, suddenly you have loads of freedom and it's just so nice to know you're allowed to do things now. Tonight will most likely be a pretty gigantic "yay we made it through training" party and then we head out tomorrow morning. I'm so excited about finally seeing where i'll live for the next two years and getting in my house and having time to myself and not live out of a suitcase anymore. I'm also nervous that i'll walk in and it'll literally be a giant empty house and i'll need to buy EVERYTHING.... but we'll see. That I can update you on later, but tomorrow I plan to question the heck out of my counterpart on the way to Sega, on the way to home.
Thanks to everyone for all the support i've gotten through training. All the cards and boxes and blog comments and fb messages are what kept me going some days.
Speaking of mail.... for the time being just hold off on sending mail until I get my new address. If you've already sent mail or boxes don't worry, they'll make it to me, it'll just take a tad longer. As soon as I get an address I'll try to get it up on the blog.
Thanks for reading!

A brilliant collection`

So PST is coming to an end (thanks goodness) and I thought i'd recap with a collection of some short stories that you may not have heart yet. I'm not holding anything back this time, so enjoy!
"No one will catch you"
Piki pikis are motorcycle taxis, you've never heard me mention them before because they are against Peace Corps law. My sister was harassing me that I was too scared to ride one and I quickly explained, "if Peace Corps catches me on one, i'll get kicked out, no questions asked." So the next morning i'm walking to town with her and she gets a piki piki and tells me, "get on, the PC won't catch you." Now for those of you who don't know, I live the furthest out of town and I pass about 5 PC houses on the way in... and oh yea there's only 10 white people here, and oh yea i'm one of only 2 blondes. I think i'd get caught. I politely declined.
"Tuk tuks"
Since i'm on the topic of transportation, i'll tell you about tuk tuks. They're taxis. They look like little tilt a whirls with a driver. You drive it like a jet ski. They're quite ridiculous.
"Compromising the bucket"
Due to various digestive issues several people keep buckets in their room just in case it's the middle of the night and they don't have time to unlock 1,000 doors, walk across the yard and get to the choo. I have one bucket, it's for water purification, so it would have to be the most urgent of emergencies for me to use it because I refuse to compromise it's cleanliness. Well, remember the new bakery i told you about? I made one too many stops there Saturday maybe. So i'm talking to Mom on the phone, "no i'll never shit in my bucket, I use it to purify water." At midnight that very night i'm proud to announce I did not shit in my water purification bucket... I did however throw up into it. At least it made it to week 8.
"Close call"
Since i'm on the topic of bodily functions... let me tell you about the time I almost crapped myself. Yea, about ten minutes into my 3 mile walk home I felt the urge. By the time I actually reached the choo I was shuffling and trying to remind myself I was an adult, adults don't crap themselves. I did make it, just barely, and I was overwhelmed with pride in myself.
"The insanity factor"
My family thinks i'm nuts... and rightfully so. Because of the communication barrier almost everything I say turns into a game of scherades. I also sing along to the Safaricom commercial and have told them numerous times I should have been chose as the lead singer for it.
"The hunger factor"
I'm always hungry here. The food normally lacks nutritional value and therefore doesn't stick with me. It's quite annoying and makes me mad, so people tend to stay away if they know i'm hungry. I turn into the Hulk. This is not an exaggeration.
"So you wanna know about the cow"
So I kind of told you in passing but I got chased by a cow. It was Thanksgiving day and I'm walking down the street with another trainee, Karl, and also flashing someone in America. So i'm counting the rings and Karl is all, "there's a cow on the loose, there's a cow on the loose." He was so calm, so I just ignored him and then hung up the phone. The minute I look up I see several Kenyan children and adults running and flailing their arms in the air, as we cross to the other side of the street I see it. There is a cow on the loose! It's running full speed towards anything it thinks it can trample. Luckily Karl found us a spot on the other side of a drainage ditch that the cow couldn't cross over, but it did head towards us anyway until  it saw the ditch, then it went on chasing some kid that probably instigated being chased by a cow. Anyway, once everything was settled, about 3 minutes later the cow owner comes running down the street, full speed, "where's my cow?!!" Now you know the cow story.
"The new crab chip"
Mom sent Old Bay (Thanks Mom) and people have started trying it and i've been carrying it around with me and putting it on french fries which in africa are called chips. Crab chips.
Old Bay tastes like home.
"Mzungu monologues"
So I renamed my blog. Mzungu is the word used here to describe you or get your attention if you're rich and/or white. We hear it all day long. Most days i'll hear it in the distance, the high pitched yell "MZUUUUNGUUUUU" usually it's some kid halfway up a mountain looking down at me and waving.
"Activities for boredom"
If you're bored and would like a taste of life in Kenya, may I suggest the following activities..
Try to wash your clothes in a bucket
Try to go #2 while hovering over a toilet seat, it's harder than you think, but my legs are getting pretty strong.
Try to hover over a toilet seat, hold and umbrella, hold your skirt up, and not touch anything around you, and oh yea, close your eyes, there's no light in the choo, silly!
"Standards of cleanliness"
So it was evident almost the moment I arrived that things being clean would matter to me less and less. Most of us are happy if our clothes touch a bucket with soap. Once I flipped my sheets over and deemed it clean sheet day. I've also almost completely given up on ever getting my feet clean again.

Thanks for reading!

Down in Africa

Hello to all! I finally finished model school yesterday! I think in all I taught 13 lessons this week. It was exhausting but really beneficial, I think all of us are more comfortable with teaching now. So tomorrow begins week 8 of our training. I'm guessing its going to be a variety of information they just forgot to tell us in the last 7 weeks. wow, 7 weeks i've been here... doesn't feel like it at all.
In other news, we just got a new grocery store in Machakos town! It's beautiful! I've been trying to get there all week but I wasn't able to make my first trip until this morning. It's I think 4 floors but right now only the first 2 are open. It also had a bakery!!! When I walked in I could smell it, it smelled just like Mom's kitchen when she makes chocolate chip cookies. I literally almost cried right there in the market. It's like a little slice of America. I got a chocolate muffin, it was warm... still tasted like it was made in Africa unfortunately but it was one of the better pastries i've eaten here.
Before I forget i'm going to add to my list of  interesting things about Kenya list:
They name buses and matatus the way Americans name boats, but weird stuff like Speedbird, and Mac Master
Apparently weddings here last 8 hours. There's no dancing or alcohol so I don't know what they do but when I find out i'll be sure to let you know.
The food/drinks here have far less ingredients than in America. No lie, the ingredients listed on my peanut butter jar are as follows: peanuts, salt. the end.
If you drink beer from the bottle, you're a prostitute
if you wear jeans, you're a prostitute.
i might be a prostitute.
Okay, I also started learning Kiswahili. It's going well so far and it's really helping me communicate with my grandmother at home. That's all I have to say about that.
The plan is to move out of home stay next Saturday and stay the night in a hotel that night and then head to Nairobi Sunday sometime. We'll train there for a few days and then we officially swear in next Wednesday! Thursday we leave with our Kenyan counterparts and travel to our sites!
P.S.- We got our PC cookbooks recently and i've been torturing myself by reading it pretty much everyday, I can't wait to cook my own non kenyan food.
I'm so excited to get to site but at the same time, every time I go home and walk in my room all I can think is "look at all this crap you have to pack up Cindy"
Well that's all for now. Oh! Wait, I forgot to tell you I was chased by a cow, yep, a cow, on Thanksgivng day. Never a dull moment. Hope all is well in America!
Happy Birthday Chuck!
Oh and I titled this blog this because I heard "bless the rains" on the radio in Africa...priceless (Ashley please relay this information to Phyllis, i'm sure she'll think it's funny)