The California (Africa!) Initiative: Almost a real school!

Pole (sorry) that I haven't written in a while. Things have been only mildly exciting in Kenya. School is still school (take that to mean whatever you want), Kilifi is still wonderful (but getting hotter by the day), and my kids still mean the world to me. Sometimes they ask me so many non-stop questions that seem so silly and minute that I get frustrated and forget how much I love them, and why. Last week my Form 3 girls told me not to wear light-colored nail polish because gosh-darnit Sarah you're already white. Today I spent most of math lesson reminding Emmanuel that this is a deaf school and he can teach me Kiswahili later. And every morning, no matter how many times I tell them I don't like it, they offer me uji anyways. Those are just a few of the many reasons why I love them.

Wait, what's uji, you say? Why, it's porridge! I've told you about ugali right? - maize flour boiled with water until it forms a sticky cake-y consistency and tastes like nothing. But ugali is palatable, especially with beans or sukuma (bloiled kale), and I actually crave it now. Uji on the other hand, for some reason, is just horrible. Uji is ugali with -- wait for it -- more water. It's liguid ugali. Maybe it's because it doesn't come with beans or sukuma or green grahams, but it smells like nothing and tastes like even less. Kenyans love it though, and my kids scarf it down like it's a bowl full of chocolate ice cream. It is the only thing they get in the morning, and besides half a cup of tea at 10am, it's the only thing from 6am to 12:30pm. So I guess a little uji is better than nothing. Maybe.

What's cool though is that we actually have our own kitchen now, up at the secondary school, and my kids no longer have to eat with the primary kids, and get served primary-sized portions. Due to some miscommunication at the beginning of the term between the head of my school and the head of the primary school, we had to construct a kitchen really fast and get ourselves cooking our own food super quick. The basics went up in a day or two, and the rest followed shortly after. Here's what it looked like when it first went up:

We all were pretty excited when we were first able to cook for ourselves. So I took a bunch of pictures of that too. Including one that my kids think is infinitely hilarious: the mzungu stirring (or rather attempting to stir) ugali:

(can you see the giggle on Francis' face?)

Anyhoodles, this is what it looks like now (minus some doors that they just put on yesterday):

Another thing I always think about Kenya and how we do things here, is the difference in things like building houses and food preparation. In America, when you want beef you go to the grocery store and pick from multitudes of different cuts, weights, fat content, prices, everything. If you want beef in Kenya you either kill the cow yourself or go to the butcher who just killed the cow 5 minutes ago. I think cows are harder to kill than goats, so we eat a lot of goat here. Also, our ugali is straight from the land outside. The maize was grown right on our school grounds, the kernels were picked off the cob by every single one of my kids and I, and it was ground into flour at another teacher's house. The beans come from a neighboring farmer and the sukuma comes right from our own school shamba (garden). The kitchen is made of mud and sticks and food is always cooked over a wood fire. We sit in the sun and eat with our hands and for me, everything tastes good because it's organic and unprocessed and real and seems exactly the way it should be. No plastic packaging, no expiration dates, and definitely no factory processing. It's pretty great.

So we're up and running with food, and save for a girls dormitory, we're almost a real school! Huzzah! The boys have also been doing a good job clearing a nearby field for football. After an afternoon of slashing and moving rocks they all celebrated with a giant football game before dinner. The field is a little rough and not level but I'm sure continuous afternoons of playing on it will totally do the trick. Also, a while back, the boys decided the wanted a new football, since the ones they had were old and weak and fell apart pretty easily. So they pooled their money and had me go to Tusky's to get one. They gave me 800 shillings and I found a ball for 750/-. I was pretty proud of myself for finding it and the boys were super excited when I brought it home. Unfortunately though, it broke within the next week and we were back at square one. So for some reason (maybe because I can't resist their endless begging, big brown puppy dog eyes, and beautiful smiles) I told them I would buy them a new ball, and a good one this time. I figured my judgement on the right one last time didn't work so I would go by price instead; the more money it is, the better the quality, right? Well this time I spent 2,000/- and thankfully the ball hasn't died yet. Fingers crossed it stays solid or I'm out another few thousand shillingis.

Last week, and for about 8 consecutive days into last week, it rained non-stop. This is obviously good for crops and water tanks and stuff like that, but not good for walking or playing football, or cooking in a roofless mud hut. The rain ended a few days ago and hasn't been back since, and has been rapidly replaced with scorching heat, which is what I'm a little more familiar with here. BUT the rains left a giant lake in a valley next to school which, to my surprise and no one else's, has proven really resourceful for Kilifi residents. All manner of livestock come to drink from it. Every form of transportation vehicle has been driven in it to be washed. People come to wash clothes, to drink, and bathe, and you wouldn't believe the number of little naked Kenyan children that spend all day in it just playing. My kids and I can sit on the front porch of the boys dorm and have a really great view of our new Lake Victoria/local watering hole.

Since the rains have stopped, I can see the water level getting low, and before too long it'll just be a big pile of dust again, but for now it's pretty cool.

Here's another pic I took of the boys dorm (uber clean for the weekend):

I remember when I first ever walked into the dorm, I looked around and thought, man this is like workcamp, but for life. Everything seemed so similar to those weeks in the summer I would spend at church workcamp rebuilding houses and sleeping on gym floors. I couldn't believe the condition of things here at the beginning of the year - those "mattresses" as they call them are just pieces of 2-inch high foam, and underneath is just metal rods. I mean, talk about uncomfortable. But a year later I realize now I only thought that because I've seen something different. It might not always be better in everyone's eyes, but it's definitely different. So it's all about perspective. My boys haven't really known much else in life, so for them, it's totally and completely normal; and in fact kinda nice because it's brand new. The mattresses are clean and they're used to them. And now for me, nothing here really shocks me anymore. All that crazy cultural crap we had to adjust to is just life. Look at me! I'm adjusted! Well, mostly. I'm still learning how to play the get-things-done-but-be-really-indirect-about-it game. That could take a lifetime to master.

The new group of Education volunteers (trainees) got here on the 5th of this month and are currently in training right now. Hooray! Like my group, some of them are in Machakos (the deaf ed-ers) and some are in Loitokitok (the hearing ed-ers). There are two new Secondary Deaf Ed trainees too, one of which will be coming to Kilifi next week to shadow me at school. Eek! It will be so fun, and the kids can't wait. ALSO, for this new group's Model School, Amanda and I will be going to Machakos to run things. That will be the last week in November, shortly after which I'll head to Nairobi for my mid-service medical exam, and then (hopefully healthy) I'll jump on a plane back to the States :)

So other than that, nothing else is new! I hope America is good :) My itinerary for the trip home is still taped to my living room wall and constantly reminding me how awesome Christmas is gonna be.

And what better to end with than pics of the monsters. Don't be fooled by the innocent faces and cute sleeping positions.