Swearing in, hallucinations, and condom relay races!

It's officially been a little over 7 seven weeks that I've been in Kenya, but it feels like 7 months. We have one more week of training left and then we head to Nairobi to become real volunteers! And even though I'm extremely excited about the prospect of swearing in, I have recently been scared silly about the fact that it's not a given. Apparently people have taken the whole swearing in thing for granted and it came back and bit them in the ass, AKA they were sent home. I have already passed my language exam, and I think I've done everything else ok throughout training, but I am now fully aware of the fact that this is a privilege and swearing in is not something that's owed to me. As anxious as I am to get going, I'm still going to work as hard as I can this last week, and just hope for the best. The thought of being sent home after the past 7 weeks is absolutely unthinkable. So I won't think about it. One week till swearing in!

On a funnier (maybe scarier?) note, I forgot to post about my first meph hallucination a few weeks ago. Mephaquine is the malaria phrophylaxis drug they have a lot of us on, and it's super super strong. It can really screw with your emotional well-being and also can cause very vivid, sometimes lucid dreams. And if you're REALLY lucky, you get hallucinations too :) So a few weeks ago I woke up standing on my pillow. I don't remember getting up to stand on my pillow. But I also was spinning in circles. What's funnier is if you picture it because the mosquito net is only so high, so I was hunched over, standing on my pillow, spinning in circles, and that's the position I woke up in. I was doing this, of course, because there were thousands and thousands of those giant scarab beetles from The Mummy Returns inside my mosquito net with me. I'm not sure why spinning in circles would have helped this situation at all, but whatever. It took me a couple seconds to fully come to, and realize this was the meph talking, and the beetles slowly disappeared. It was uber scary for just those few seconds, and from then until now it's just been really funny. Hope you enjoyed the story! I will definitely continue posting about the hallucinations, as long as they're not too crazy.

So this is unrelated, but still very funny. My 5 year high school reunion just took place over Thanksgiving and I was given a little reminder here in Loitokitok, Kenya. There are these things here called piki pikis, which are essentially a motorbike-taxi type situation. They drive WAY too fast and scare the jibblies out of the mzungus on a frequent basis. Anyways, I was walking through town the other day and saw a piki piki driver (old Kenyan man probably around 50) wearing a QOHS Cheer jacket. This was an old cheerleading jacket from Quince Orchard, my high school in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and since no one else in Peace Corps Kenya went to QO, I was the only one blown away by this. Once I told my friends that the piki piki driver was wearing a cheerleading jacket from my high school, they recognized the craziness of it too. Ahhh!! Feels like home! (Just kidding).

I said before that I would update on the whole Model School situation. The week actually went just as fast as I was hoping and I am much more confident about teaching now. Though Amanda and I only had 6 students for the week, we both taught about 8 lessons, and even gave exams at the end of the week. The students did way better than I expected, considering 25% is passing in Kenya. I got better at organizing my lessons, at explaining things in sign, and also at understanding the kids when they sign to me. Just being around them all week helped my signing improve. Lord knows what two years will do! All in all, I think Model School was a success, and it definitely would not have been without the help of the current PCVs. I could not be more grateful for them. I'm even more excited now to start actually teaching, the way I want to, not the way the Kenyan teachers want me to. I'm thrilled to start up a Life Skills class in Kilifi, and I just can't wait to be teaching the deaf kids. I may just be a little partial, but I am so happy to not be teaching in a hearing classroom. Deaf kids just seem more well-behaved, more attentive, and they definitely participate more, which is key. I did only have 6 kids all week though. Oh well! We'll see how it goes :)

Model School consisted of teaching in the morning, and playing Life Skills games and doing things like Science Fair in the evening and afternoon. Wednesday afternoon was a Life Skills day. It was dedicated entirely to the proper care and use of condoms. Hooray! It's a great thing for these kids to learn, since it can mean the difference between HIV positive and negative. The Peace Corps in their infinite wisdom supplied us with about 50 wooden penises, and TONS of condoms. We had students volunteer to put a condom on in front of the rest of the class, making sure to check the expiration date, check for an air bubble, not open with their teeth, and so on. Guess who volunteered? The deaf kids! After that we had condom water balloon toss, blow-up condom hot potato, and condom relay races. By the end of the day everyone had put a condom on a wooden penis at least once. It was fantastic. It also teaches these kids to not be afraid to talk about things like sex and HIV. It helps them understand more about themselves, about what they're allowed to say no to, and just about being smart. Peace Corps LOVES condoms, so this was a great day.

I think that's about it for now. I spent the day at the market with Mama, so now I'm gonna go make some guacamole for dinner and dream about having it with some fish tacos and a couple gin n' tonics. Again, soak up the holiday season for me! I miss it like whoa.

Happy December!

~ Shub :)