Back to School!

Last Thursday, the teacher’s union and the Kenyan government reached an agreement for the next three years (so I am guessing that for the rest of my two years of service, I probably would not experience another strike, but who knows). Rejuvenated by a day of swimming, much laughter on our stellar farmer tans, and a night of dancing to music that skips frequently with a good number of PCVs out in Mombasa, I was (and still am – well I wrote this entry in the beginning of the week, and due to the bad internet connection, I could not post it until today) ready to tackle the week. We have started teaching some of the kids, and this week we are focusing on finding out what the children knows.

The class that I’ll be teaching is basically what they consider nursery class out in the States, but it is the class before Kenya’s version of first grade (they call it Class 1 or Standard 1). I have seventeen kids, from ages of 4 to 16. Their language abilities are as varied as the ages are, from having no languages at all, to being able to have a basic conversation in KSL. A few of these kids, I could see immediately, had issues in addition to their Deafness that could be a factor in their education as well as in their relationships with the other classmates. As one of the other teachers explained, Kenya does not have the legal responsibility to send the kids off to school, as well as the issue of disability (which is a huge taboo and a major embarrassment for some families), and these factors greatly contributes to why the sixteen-year-old is just finally starting nursery class (and as well as why the other disabilities have been lumped into here).

This week, I spent some time working with my counterpart, looking through the classroom for a variety of materials that I could use, observing my counterpart teach a few classes, and figuring out what to teach the kids. We also cleaned up a lot of junk out in the corners and just basically getting a better idea of how to start this year.

Speaking of cleaning up, I realized that I was definitely becoming used to all the bugs around here, as I now flick off the ants that crawl on me without a second thought, and in the kitchen, the ants does not bother me as much as it used to (granted, there are a lot less now than when I first moved into the place). Additionally, when I was cleaning up in the classroom, I saw a few water bugs (or at least what I thought were water bugs, as they’re approximately the same size and looks just like them, about five centimeters [trying to get used to the metric system]) and I drew away my hand, but then went right back in the box, looking for anything I could save out of there as the bugs scurried around.

Okay, enough about the bugs, back onto the kiddies (I know all of you’re hanging on my every word about the bugs, especially you, Steph, but I’m trying to not allow the bugs to distract me from the general idealistic Peace Corps Volunteers’ aim of saving the world) – I have started to learn the personalities of the kids, they are starting to realize that I am here for a bit, and they’re starting to give me a little more respect (which means I’m actually able to control the classroom for about an hour before it descends into Dante’s Inferno and I need to get rescued by my counterpart’s Kenyan Mama stare).

Not only that, I realized today that today is the one-month anniversary of departure from Loitokitok. Training seems such a long time ago – and in a completely other parallel universe – and it makes it all the more clear why the saying goes for PCVs is that the first six months will feel like one and a half year, and the last year and half will feel like just six months.