Camp GLOW and August

So I actually got to sleep past 6:00 this morning, because the neighbor kids weren't screaming as loud as usual. *Sigh*. It's now mid-August, and as much as I need break months to catch up on sleep and get things done around my house, I miss my kids like never before. The school compound gets full of hearing children come home from boarding school, and is completely void of Deaf kids. It just feels like something (a lot of things) is missing. But I know that in a few short weeks they will all start trickling back into school, and things will be back to the way they should. I can't even fathom how much it's going to hurt to leave these kids for good. They are my life here, and without them, I don't feel right.

Maybe it was a mistake from the beginning to get so attached, knowing that I can't be with them forever. That's one of the caveats of teaching right? Students continuously come and go. Except in this case seeing them after school, sometime in the future, seems almost impossible. Hmph.

Anywho, I just got back from Kisumu last week, with 4 of my girls, one teacher, 4 girls from Lamu and another teacher, a couple girls from Malindi and south coast, and a BUNCH from Western and Nyanza province. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) in Kisumu had about 86 girls total, half of which were hearing, and half of which were deaf. It's a two day trip to Kisumu for us coasties, since it's literally the opposite end of the country, but we survived, and yours truly ended up being in charge of A LOT of money to get A LOT of people fed and transported. It was uber stressful but also tons of fun, mainly because I had 4 of my own awesome girls with me. I took Mercy and Monica, both Form 3, and Teresia and Amina, both Form 2. All four are great students, but most importantly, girls that a lot of other kids look up to. Plus they are hilarious, and just fun to be around, so that was a bonus for me :) What was also cool was that since the majority of the other deaf girls at camp were from primary schools, my girls were forced into being role models right from the get-go. But they had no problem with that. Even on the first night of travel, one of the other volunteers commented to me about how responsible and grown-up my girls are. Even though that has nothing to do with me, I blushed anyways and went to tell them. The girls were just as flattered as I was, and I told them it was a great start and to keep it up for the rest of the week.

Mercy and Teresia were SUPER excited for PB&J and

potato chips. What a treat!

So Monday was all about communication and confidence and goals for the future. We started with the deaf girls teaching the hearing girls a little sign language, and giving them sign names. I then did the introduction for just the deaf girls, and later taught a lesson on saying 'no' and being assertive (something I keep going back and forth with in Kenya; should I abide by the silly rules of this perpetually indirect culture, or should I just be rude and confront people and say no?). Tuesday was women's health: I taught the lesson on pregnancy and already exhausted from all the hassle of traveling I took the afternoon off for a much-needed nap. Wednesday was HIV/AIDS day and I and another volunteer did the lesson on prevention. ::Enter dozens of penis and vagina models, and more condoms than anyone could ever ask for:: I showed the girls the proper way to put on a male condom then everyone got a chance to do it themselves. Shyness and embarrassment had to be thrown out the window for this part, but since they're all girls anyways, it wasn't too tough. I also told a really fun story to the girls about condoms, and deaf people, and communication. It doesn't translate well into English, and is much better in sign. I posted it here, with a brief intro. See if you can get any of it :) Thursday morning was about decision-making, and Thursday afternoon we did field trips to some NGOs in Kisumu town, and to the LVCT, the Deaf VCT in Kenya. Friday I taught a lesson on rape, just before the girls learned all about self-defense. Then Friday afternoon we went to an Impala park; saw a couple zebras, had a nice little boat ride on Lake Victoria, and came home for the closing ceremony and the disco. At the ceremony, each girl got called up individually and got a certificate and photo of the whole camp. The disco followed shortly after and lasted an hour or so before all of us counselors decided it was much more worthwhile to sleep. All in all, it was a good week. Exhausting, but good.

Mercy and Monica teach their new hearing friends how to fingerspell

My girls and I at the bonfire :)

Me teaching pregnancy

or something Yay condoms!

At the end of the week at the Deaf VCT. Love them!

Remember I said I did the introduction for my group? Well what I thought would be cool, since we had deaf girls from all over the country, would be to compare signs. So I held up a bunch of cards with words on them, and had everyone show their specific sign for it. Some words had virtually all the same sign, with a little variation in hand-shape or movement, but some had 4 or 5 different signs that were not even close to similar. Examples were "coast," "mzungu," "mango," "rice," "sex," "bus," and "pregnant." What's interesting though, is that even though the girls have different signs for the same word or concept, 98% of the time they still fully understand each other. It's actually pretty cool. Once you have a general idea of what a word might look like in sign, seeing it in lots of different ways is pretty intuitive. And on that note, I remember being super nervous that my girls from Kilifi would be the only ones at camp that understood me. Thankfully though, because of that whole intuitive sign stuff, that wasn't the case. I adjusted some signs here and there, or repeated myself with different signs, but all in all, it seemed to work ok.

Another funny thing was that a lot of people at camp thought I was deaf when they first met me. Some of the other deaf ed. volunteers brought counterparts with them, teachers at their schools who are also deaf. And apparently, for some reason, upon first meeting me, they assumed I was deaf as well, because of the way I sign. I took it as a compliment every time, and reiterated that my students are the best teachers in the world. I think I'm actually learning more from them than they are from me. Another flattery moment came when volunteers who teach in primary deaf schools told me they wished they taught my kids in secondary. My girls LOVED this and I told them once again how happy I am to be where I am, and how lucky I am to have them as my kids. Peace Corps is tough, but there's a lot I have to be truly thankful for.

SO. This week I have been sleeping and washing clothes and baking a lot. Those three activities usually take up most of a day, but I've also been catching up with my friends in Kilifi. Before I forget, I want to give a big shout-out to Ellen Jennings, who is moving back to the UK next week to go to grad school, and who has been an awesome friend and integral part of my sanity here. Thanks for all the Thai pork curries and the showers and letting me use your oven to my heart's content:) I miss you already!

Right now there are a bunch of volunteers in Mombasa (Bamburi, actually) at a week-long Peace Corps workshop, and when they finish there, a few of them are make the oh-so-long 45 minute trek north to Kilifi. Most of them have never seen the coast before, and since I practically live in a vacation spot, I plan on taking them on all the vacation-type adventures I can. I want to go to snorkeling, spend a day at a resort, and just relax on the beach. Yay Beach Corps! Then next weekend on the 21st I make the day-long trip to Nairobi once again for PST planning. We'll have 3 full days of meetings, I am DEFINITELY going to fit in time to see Harry Potter, and I'm coast-bound again on the 25th. Then the week after that I have to go to Bamburi for the same workshop half my group is at now. That will end the first week of September, and then my kids start coming back to school :) As long as I stay busy break months aren't that bad.

The pakas are doing good. We've been working on letting them outside, which is much harder for me, actually. It's like letting your kids go off to college: you just have to trust they'll come back at some point. I have recently seen one of the neighbor kids trying to beat them with sticks though, so I've kinda regressed and become even more hesitant than I was before. Oh well. Karibu Kenya. Currently, Marie is sleeping above me, on top of my mosquito net (she likes the hammock feel) and Toulouse is sprawled out on my Spongebob blanket, which he also enjoys peeing on now and then. Marie has no boundaries whatsoever and will go anywhere and everywhere she pleases, and Toulouse's new favorite thing is to eat everything in sight, whether it's edible or not, throw it up a few hours later, then eat what he just threw up. Cute.

So everyone is good, I'm still alive and kickin', and I hope you guys are all great back home. Summer is almost over right? Hooray for school again! Ok, love you all bunches and bunches. Check out facebook for the full reel of Camp GLOW pics, and have an awesome rest of August :)

Miss you!

~ Shub :)