Farmer and Sandal Tans Galore

Being just south of the equator and employing proper Kenyan dress expectations causes some of us Americans who are mzungu (white people) with interesting tan lines. We are starting to look like a bunch of farmers (who wear sandals, tho, the tan lines on our feet is debatable as we are not completely sure whether it’s because of the mud or the sun) which works perfectly in this area as everyone is a farmer or has an association with a farm. Kenyans are very conservative in their dress, even for men (it is almost like an obsession – even in hot and humid Mombasa you rarely see men going shirtless), and it is proper to wear short-sleeve or long sleeved shirts, rarely anything without sleeves, with trousers (don’t use the word pants unless you want the kids to giggle at you – pants is what they call underwear) or skirts past the knees. Even the music videos that my sisters and brother play all adhere to the dress code – it is definitely a little jarring for me to see the well known singers wear shirts up to their neck, with skirts down to their ankles and singing like there’s no tomorrow … I wondered about how the videos of Britney or Madonna would have gone over here!

This week we had a volunteer who was evacuated from Kenya during the election last year and moved to Zambia to finish up his service come in and we did a few sessions on how to teach the Deaf community about HIV/AIDS. We went over many of the challenges that the Deaf have (access to media / information, communication issues, language barriers, etc). All the information will most definitely be useful throughout our service. We also were really happy to see a new Deaf person – and to practice our KSL! Unfortunately the poor guy learned Zambian Sign (which is really similar to ASL), and we were going back and forth with all the various languages – KSL, ASL, and Zambian, which were pretty funny.

Last night I was cooking dinner with Mama and my sisters, when Loitokitok lost its power (which is pretty typical out here in Kenya, even if this was the first time it happened), so we set up candles around the table, the kitchen, and I went in my room and came out sporting my new nifty headlamp, and came in the kitchen to see my sisters collapsing on the floor in peals of laughter. They thought that me wearing the headlamp was the funniest thing they have ever seen – they said that the headlamp was a very practical thing for a person, especially for a Deaf person who signs, but they associate headlamps with miners, or people doing major cave work, so it was really funny for them to associate me with being a miner. It is always funny to see how little things really show huge differences in Kenyan and American cultures.

It is difficult to believe that training is more than half completed, so we are all excited about finding out where we are headed, going to Nairobi for the swearing-in ceremony (which is supposed to be this huge thing according to the current volunteers), and basically getting into the real deal.

I have gotten a few requests to post pictures, and I just wanted to say pole sana (many sorries) for not being able to upload pictures via the internet access on my phone [okay, that’s a lie, I’m able to upload pictures, but dude, it takes forever], so bear with me until I get to a bigger town where they have broadband internet access, then pictures will definitely be posted!