Back home.

The concept of home has changed a lot for me over the years, and I think I've written about this before in my blog, a few years back when I was driving across the country. When I was growing up it was our wonderful little bungalow house in Gaithersburg that, although Dad did renovation after beautiful renovation, it still remained the same wonderful home. College at University of Maryland brought a slightly new perspective than when I actually lived at home, but when I said "I'm going home for the weekend," I still meant going to Gaithersburg. Then after college I found a new place that I really fell in love with: San Diego, and the central coast of California. I might not own any property there, or really have any place there to go at all, but I know there are people there that I love and care about, and that's kinda what makes it home. And all of this ended up leading to me being here, on the coast of Kenya, in one of the best little towns I could have ever asked for. Kilifi is home now too, and I wouldn't have it any other way. There are SO many people here in Kilifi that I love and care about that when I went home for Christmas, I'm pretty sure I left part of my heart here while I was gone. I know I've mentioned multiple times how much I love it here, but my point is that home is not just about where you grew up, or where you rent or lease or own; it's about the feelings of comfort you get when you're there, and the feelings of longing you get when you leave. A part of me will definitely always be home in Kilifi.

SO, speaking of which, I am finally back, and oh-so-happy to be. I got back to Nairobi late on the 28th, caught a cab to the hotel for the night and jumped on the earliest bus I could the next morning back to the coast. After two days on airplanes I was really hoping for the supposedly 8 or 9 hour bus ride to really be 8 or 9 hours. Unfortunately, 12 hours later, I finally stepped off the bus in Kilifi. However before my feet even hit the ground there was a tuk tuk driver there waiting for me yelling "Kibarani Deaf!" Yes, I teach the deaf kids and most everyone in town knows it. Love it here.

New Year's was spent with a few other volunteers and other ex-pat friends for dinner before we headed off to another spot with a LOT of other white people at this swanky little place called the Boatyard. I've spent since then just chilling out and catching up with everyone here, cleaning and trying to get my body readjusted to the time change, and the food change. A few days after New Year's I also had the cat spayed. Before I left for the States, boy-kitty got neutered, a very minor and therefore cheap procedure. We did it right on my living room table. Spaying, however, is much more invasive and expensive but since vet offices and animals carriers and really just ownership of animals besides livestock doesn't exist here, we also had to do my girl-kitty right on my living room table. It was rather traumatic for me to see my little kitty's insides all on the outside in my own house, but I cant imagine what it felt like for her. She took a while to come back from the sedative, and another few days to get her appetite back, but she's certainly on the incline and will hopefully just keep getting better. Doc came on Wednesday to take her stitches out. And since I've spoiled her rotten while she's been recovering, she now thinks she can sleep with me on my bed whenever she wants. Oh well. She's right.

School was officially opened last week but as of now I still don't have all my kids here. A lot of them know that if they come to school early they will have to do manual labor on the grounds, so they sometimes wait a few weeks to show up. Hopefully next week will mean that more of them will come. I miss 'em like crazy and every time one shows up I feel a little more whole. I also brought all kinds of crap back for them from the States. The majority of my Christmas presents were things for school, which is exactly what I asked for; biology pop-up books, posters, brain-teaser games, and the Navy guys building the latrine block at the school just dropped of hundreds of pens, pencils, and paper. People are AWESOME. And the biggest thing I brought back was an amazingly fabulous projector paid for with countless donations from the incredibly generous people at Christ Episcopal Church. I have a lot of money leftover as well, and will use that for more textbooks, calculators, and exam supplies when more kids come back to school.

So there's organization based out of the UK called the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf, or 'Sound Seekers' is I guess what they've recently changed their name to. There is also another organization called SpecSavers that makes glasses and hearing aids. Both of these orgs have donated funds to the school I think and one of them (not sure which one) is coming here in March with some British Olympic skier named Chemmy Alcott who is apparently deaf in one ear. There's supposed to be a camera crew here for a whole week, filming the daily life of my dinky little school. Before they come though, they sent me a little FlipCam video recorder thing and I have to do a preemptive filming of my school and life in Kenya and then send it back to them. So the camera has recently been glued to my hand and I've been trying to capture as many things at school as possible. Next job after Peace Corps: film director.

Other than that, life in Kilifi is pretty much the same. Still hot as all get-out and only going to get hotter. Still live with a million bugs and amphibians, and still eat ants pretty regularly (not on purpose though). Still in love with all my wonderful kids and still dreading the day when I have to say goodbye to them for real. One whole year away and they're already asking me what they're gonna do when I leave. My question is what the crap am I gonna do without them?

I was trying to explain to the Navy guys (the ones building the latrine block at my school) that I can't imagine myself anywhere else right now. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be at this point in life. I'm pretty sure I applied to Peace Corps on a whim, but THANK GOODNESS I did.

Anywho, school should pretty much be back in full swing next week, so there will probably be a lot more stories for the next post. For everyone I did NOT see at Christmas - OH MAN I wish did. And I miss everyone just the same as always: like crazy.

Cheers and happy 2012!

Bunches of love,

~ Shub :)