Sneak Preview of Photos!

While I'm still figuring out how to resize some photos, upload some of 'em, setting up blog entries so the photos appear somewhat in order, I thought that I'd treat y'all with a couple of photos of a beach in Kilifi where I have swam in a few times - enjoy!

The term ended last week, and while you'd think that with a month's time without classes I'd have time to rest up, it hasn't really happened ... this week was crazy with the Deaf Games in Mombasa, where all the Coast kids come together to compete, this weekend I'm off to Kakamega to check out the National Deaf Games, and then I'm probably headed to Nairobi for the IST - an 10 day training thing with the Peace Corps, so it's a bit crazy, but I've been enjoying it so far!  

Wish me luck with posting some more pictures!

Collectiveness vs Individualism

[Before I jump into this entry, I just wanted to say that I got the USB drive, woo hoo, and I tried to upload some photos on the office computer, but technical difficulties is holding me back. Hopefully by next week I will have enough patience to upload some photos without wanting to throw the monitor through the window …]

As I mentioned several times already here on this little website thingy, one of my biggest adjustment I need to make and am in the process of making with my move to Kenya is adjusting to the collective mentality of Kenyans. They value time with your family and friends highly – time alone is unheard of, and privacy is such a luxury it is now at the point where privacy is considered unhealthy and unnatural. All the teachers who live on the compound have a family with several children, and their families live in the same size space I live, a two-bedroom apartment and it is considered a good sized house for them.

My neighbors – the teachers and their families – have a difficult time with the fact that I need alone time every now and then. That is the tough thing about living on the school compound – the loss of privacy. Everyone basically knows where you are and what you are up to, seriously – if I need to find another teacher who lives on the compound, all I need to do is to ask one of the kids, and they’ll be like, oh he’s at the office, he’s out in town, or he’s walking out back to the local shop.

When I lock my house for a few hours to get myself lost in one of the high brow literature that mama and baba sent me (I think they’re enjoying the fact that I have no choice over my books and they’re taking advantage by sending the recommendations that they made that were ignored by me …), the teachers and their families ask me if everything is all right, if I’m sick, that it’s really not healthy for me to hang out at home for few hours, and that I need to have my Peace Corps Volunteer friends visiting me. After several weekends of not subtly observing me, they’re now used to the idea that I am actually fine with spending a few hours by myself doing a variety of things, and that I DO have friends who I go and visit and who come and visit.

This aspect of Kenyan culture influences every part of Kenyan life – I definitely can see some of the influence in the classroom. The students greet the teachers who enter the room by all signing together at the same time “Hallo, Good Morning (or whatever time it is) Teacher” and they understand how to work together, much better than I ever did when I was a grammar school or secondary school student myself.

The issue rears its ugly head when I start asking critical thinking skills questions and talk about looking at a sentence as a whole, rather than reciting words one by one as an entire group – the way they grew up learning how to read. The students are slightly taken aback with my style of teaching, especially asking conceptual questions on how stories work, getting out meaning from the sentences, figuring out who pronouns represent, and the are slowly getting used to the back and forth, using a different part of their brains, rather than just copying down exercises and regurgitating it back to me / the other teachers.

I realized that I could use the individualism aspect in my background, from my upbringing in the States, and incorporate it into my teaching, just to add a new perspective in the teaching process. In no way will I transform the Kenyan education system, but it makes me happy to think about students thinking about the stories they are reading and actually understanding what the story is all about rather than just reading it word by word, not understanding the point or moral of the story.

I also believe the collectiveness of the Kenyan society has a huge influence on the test-taking ability of the students. They are trained to respond as a group, in a group, their ability to answer or focus on individual assignments or on their own test paper is just a completely different experience, one that they have very little practice or experience in, and because of this, I think that their test results are greatly affected. Paul wrote a bit about the KCPE test, the test that is required for students to enter secondary school, and after asking and talking with some of the other teachers, I find that I still have a lot to learn about what the KCPE measure, how the test-taking skills of the students affects the result, and how much of a factor Deafness / language skills is in the whole she-bang.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I will be around for 22 more months, yes?

Whatever It Takes

Watching Kenyan Mamas touch too-hot-for-my-wimpy-hands pots and pans (there’s no handles out here, only rims to hold on), they merely grab the pot and move to another surface while I look at amazement. I would need to use a rag and fold it several times then it’ll finally get to the point where it’s not too hot for me to remove the pot from my stove. All the Kenyan Mamas always giggle when they watch me remove the pot.

“You need to work your hands harder!”

“Hahahahahahahah!”

“You have very soft hands, not Kenyan hands!”

“You are so funny!”

As I gingerly walk on the hot sand barefoot, hopping to and fro all the way, the kids standing on the hot sand right in the middle of several ants’ nest started laughing.

“What’s wrong with your feet?”

“Why are you jumping?”

“Do you want us to jump too?”

Watching the kids lean onto the barbed wire as they wait to be looked at by the infirmary (seriously, they would send the kids from the assembly to an area near a bush and tree area that is wrapped around in barbed wire, and they are really leaning right on the sharp bits), I gaped in amazement for a few minutes. After recovering, I started wondering what was the point of the barbed wire if it does not work on people? I asked another volunteer that exact question and he wondered the same thing, and over some palm wine, we agreed that it really was not worth all the mental energy spent thinking about it, and that some things are probably better left unexplained.

When I sat outside in the shade, doing nothing except fan myself, and sweating buckets, I was watching all the kids play a furious game of football (what people back in the States call soccer) at high noon when it was the hottest part of the day and the sun did the most damage. I did a double take and saw a few kids who were playing soccer wearing sweaters. Yep, you read that right - they were wearing school uniform wool sweaters on top of their school uniform.

I asked one of my Form One students standing next to me, “Why are those kids wearing their sweater at noon when everyone is sweating?”

“Oh, probably because their shirt is dirty.”

Eyebrows raised, I wordlessly asked for an explanation.

“Right, you know, school uniforms has to be completely clean or they get punished.”

When I looked at him in amazement, he started laughing.

In between all the laughter some of the kids started to ask me questions about my home.

“In America, is it hot like this?”

“In some parts, yes, but, right now, my mama and baba’s home is really cold. Remember I explained about ice? I showed you pictures of snow? That is what my parent’s home looks like.”

“No!”

“Really?”

“Do you mean [from an older student] [numbers converted to 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit]?”

“Oh, no, we wear what you are wearing right now in that temperature, it gets much, much, much colder!”

Nothing but horrified looks of silence from the children for a few seconds as a small smile grows on my face.

“Impossible!”

“Do you mzungus have special powers?”

“We wear coats and hats in [70-75 degrees F]!”

“[70-75 degrees F] is wicked cold!”

“Witchcraft!”

Of course, this led into sort of a scientific discussion on how our bodies become used to the areas in where we grew up, and as we finished it up, the children continued playing happily a version of monkey-in-the-middle on hot sand in the middle of several huge ant nests barefoot, and me clad in my trusty flip-flops, walked home happily thinking about what I plan to cook for dinner, perfectly content to use a thick rag as a pot holder.

Happiness in a Heavy Duty 100L Barrel

Yesterday I bought a 100L barrel to keep in my kitchen and filled it up while the water tap was working (which because I bought the barrel will never stop working again, a la Murphy’s Law). I had a broad smile on my face, as I dumped bucketfuls of water into the barrel, thinking of the times I had to lug water from the tap behind one of the teachers’ house, about 200 – 250 meters away, and if that was not working (which it was not over the past couple of weeks), I would have to walk over to the school kitchen area which is twice the distance and use their water (usually a kid would run over to me and grab my bucket before I could do it myself). It gets especially annoying when I needed like 30 liters to do the laundry, like on yesterday morning when I finally gave up and decided to quit putting off buying the barrel.

Over the last couple of months, I have become much more aware of how much water I am using on a daily basis – I know my bucket holds 10 liters, so does my bathing basin, and I am really keeping a tally on how many liters I am using. I know for sure that I am using much less water than back in the States, and I am curious about if this awareness will continue when I get back to the States where I do not need to think about where my next liter of water will come from, and where things are not measured by buckets or basins.

Not only that, I am suffering from slight OCD-ness in regards to having safe water to drink (to the delight of my mom and to the bemusement of the older PCVs). I boil water on a daily basis and keep at least three to four liters in my fridge just so I have something to drink – I think this stemmed from my experience on New Year’s Eve party when we had a lot of booze and soda, but no safe water to drink. Needless to say, that was a mistake that none of us are prepared or plan to repeat, and the concept of just using tap water and drinking from the tap seems so far removed from reality that I probably would have to go through a bit of culture shock to get used to the idea again.

All in all, who said that you could not find happiness in a big ugly black plastic barrel with “HEAVY DUTY 100 LITRES” spray-painted in white on the side?! Not me!

How Did I Learn English?

Teaching English to Form 1 (freshman level) students, and pre-language to nursery students really made me think about the concept and process of learning the English language as a Deaf person. Naturally, I started a philosophical conversation with myself (I am seriously going through a philosophical phase over the past couple of months – everything I read is somehow connected to everything I am doing, feeling, or thinking – feel free to skip this entry if it is not really your cup of tea), and this conversation begins with the question -

How did *I* learn? I’m probably not the best person to ask this, so bear with me as I go through the process of figuring this out!

How did all the grammar rules and exceptions become so innate to my writing? Right now, off the top of my head, I could only rattle off a couple of rules because they are the rules I had a hard time with (damn you, subject-verb agreement), but the other rules, when I type or write something I can just sense that it was not correct or did not jibe, and I just fix it. As I type this entry, I become much more aware of these self-corrections and I try to think about each grammar rule, after all, I will have to teach or re-teach many of these rules to the Form 1 students.

Past tenses, verbs, nouns, adverbs, spelling … of all this, I think the biggest obstacle for Deaf students is confidence.

There were a few memorable teachers from elementary school through graduate school, who, in addition to my parents, encouraged my love for reading (I think I picked up a lot of the innate grammatical rules from reading), encouraged me to write, and basically did not allow me to even consider the idea that I could not or would not.

On the other hand, I also have many clear memories of exceeding people’s low expectations and surprising the hell out of them, and wondering why that was so shocking. For example, I remember one teacher telling me on the first day of the year in her class in eighth grade that Deaf kids never did well in her class (self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?). In hindsight, I realize that they were basically telling me that they did not expect me to excel, to be able to read a variety of material, be able to write as well as I do (granted, I’m no Shakespeare, but I think that I am slightly better than the writers for the National Enquirer), and because I had the support of all the other awesome teachers, my family, and my friends, I was more or less able to ignore the low expectations most of the time.

And, my kids? Most of them are not able to communicate at all with their families (basically expected to just shut up and help out with the house), have no access to books, and eagerly look forward to coming to school just so they have access to a language with their peers. Some of them are orphans (and that created another conversation and issue in itself), and the school is the only thing they really have in terms of communication and support. If someone like me, growing up with basically a silver spoon in my mouth in comparison to my kids, gets in a funk every now and then because of patronizing attitudes, low expectations of me, or audism, then I wonder, what the hell do my kids do? How do they do it?

Maslow and his theory of the hierarchy of needs plays a part in this – Maslow believes and I think it makes sense, if a person’s basic needs are not met, then he/she cannot move up to the next level of need – the basic needs at the base of the pyramid are food, water, and shelter, and then you move up to friendships, family, relationships, and then onto to material things and other factors that makes up our lives. If the kids have no decent support system, it is difficult to think about doing something like learning a second language, when you are just trying to build a support system.

So, sure, yeah, there are many issues in learning the English language as a Deaf person, as the idea of bilingualism is only starting to grow onto some of the teachers, (tho one thing that Kenya is light-years ahead of the United States, is that they have an official government sponsored curriculum for Kenya Sign Language and teaches KSL by itself in a full class period, while we have nothing even remotely close to that [as American Sign Language is only taught alongside all the other subjects, or for the lucky hearing students as a foreign language]), the struggle of the teachers with the idea of teaching without using phonics (Hooked on Phonics, people! That television commercial has scarred, I tell you, scarred me for life), and the challenge of the transition from a visual and three-dimensional language into a linear and two-dimensional language, I think the biggest thing that I can do as a teacher is to provide a safe space and expect more from the students than the other teachers normally expect.

See, I went off on a philosophical tangent and took all of you for a ride … back to the question –

How did *I* learn?

That will be an interesting thought process for me as I use the student workbook / teacher’s guide / curriculum to teach Form 1 English this year, and I am sure I will dredge up a few tidbits and stories of my own educational learning process, and if you are lucky, I will philosophize a little less.

Home Sweet Home?

Sipping my freshly French pressed cup of coffee, watching the school herd of cattle make its way around my front porch, and admiring my new sitting room curtains this morning, I was struck with the thought that I have started thinking of my two bedroom apartment out here at Kibarani as home.

My place is starting to feel like my own with the adding of some of my personal touches, somewhere that I can escape to and chill, the food I am cooking is more like what I would normally cook and eat, and I have settled, more or less, in a daily routine. I think the strike threw off many of us from our day-to-day routines, really, before we were able to get into a day-to-day groove.

The adjusting process is long from over (as is all too clear with my struggle with the Kenyan sense of non-privacy and my American sense of privacy), but I think I am starting to feel comfortable and as each day goes by, the more I talk with the teachers and the students, the more I understand and see what the school needs, I feel more comfortable, and understand better what my role is. Tomorrow I have a meeting with a couple of teachers to discuss the HIV / AIDS club, and to share some resources I got from Peace Corps (including a few short films in KSL), and see what kind of involvement they want on my end.

As I finished up my coffee, greeted the groundkeeper who was herding the cows and a couple of bulls around the porch, and started walking to the office for the morning assembly, I thought, wow, I am starting to feel like this could really be a place I can call home for the next two years.

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.