Four down, two to go.

Almost done with the fourth term in Kenya. Yikes! That means only two left, and they're quite a bit shorter than this last one. Egads!

It's exam week right now, and I'm duty, so I'm spending lots of time at school grading tests, and hanging with my kids. I always think, jeez, a break will really be nice and relaxing and I start looking forward to it. And then the second my kids leave I miss them. Lord help me come COS time.

So what's been going on? Let's see... as always it's the same old crap for me, but I guess not necessarily for everyone else. So I'll crank out a few relatively boring (for me) stories.

My head boy, Francis Buya, got sick again a few weeks ago, a recurrence of this weird ongoing chronic thing he's had since he started walking. He couldn't keep down food for a few days, had a blinding pain in his abdomen, and looked -and I'm sure felt- absolutely miserable.  Our medical treatment here at school happens like this: after assembly the kids who are sick or think they are sick line up to wait for one of three things - Panadol (a pain killer like Ibuprofen), year-and-a-half-old green cough syrup, or they get sent to Kilifi District Hospital where nobody knows sign language and since it's a public hospital, it's not as well equipped as it needs to be. Pain killers and cough syrup were obviously not going to help Buya; he had something much more serious and definitely needed more than a little attention. He had gone to the hospital already, where they did a rapid test for malaria, which had come back negative, so they sent him back to school. I was tired of seeing Buya suffer so much so frequently, and though it was a hard decision because it's not really a precedent I wanted to be setting, I decided to take him somewhere private, and cover whatever costs, just as long as he got better. I was worried he'd need a colonoscopy or surgery or something so I initially wanted to take him to the private hospital in Mombasa (of which there are three). Kate convinced me it was a better idea just to try the private doctor in Kilifi first, then go to Mombasa later if need be, so that's what we did. So I took him to the Dr. Njeri, where they did a blood and stool test and lo and behold, poor Buya had maralia and amoebiasis. I guess he had had these bugs in his GI tract since he was a baby (the reason it was chronic) so - as Mom keeps telling me, and I keep telling him - it's gonna take a while for his gut to heal itself. He spares no details though when I ask how it is when he goes to the choo (toilet). I spent a lot of pesa on the right meds this time from the private doctor, and now a few weeks later he's feeling almost totally himself again. Here he is just about 100% better, and happily watering the plants in his shamba (garden).

Buya has this uncanny ability to mimic people's walks and behaviors (in fact almost all deaf kids do, it seems - they can't hear anything so they see EVERYTHING). Without fail Buya makes me laugh so hard I cry, every time. He spent the afternoon on Tuesday doing impressions of as many people (teachers and students) as he could, and it was hilarious. His impression of Sarah is with her bag on her shoulder, her skirt flipping in the breeze, and her legs kicked up behind her as she walks. Hopefully I don't actually look as silly as Buya makes it seem, but either way it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

A couple weekends ago I spent all of Saturday and Sunday visiting some friends who were down from Nairobi and had decided a while ago that when they came back to Kilifi they would rent out the houseboat down at the boatyard. I think the Boatyard officially calls it "The Floating House," but we all just called it the boathouse. Look!

 

It's pretty expensive (for Peace Corps standards) but costs nothing if you already know someone staying on it and just want to play around and jump off the deck into the creek! It's gorgeous inside and out and just all-around fun. So we drank a lot of beers, had a lot of free oysters at the Boatyard, and spent the weekend just relaxing and swimming and enjoying being with each other. It was fabulous.

So it's exam week now, which means that the term is almost over, which means I'm that much closer to having to say goodbye to my kids forever. Still not sure how I'll ever manage it. I'm dreading my last day here like it's the day of my own funeral or something. Ugh.

But before that happens, there's still a lot to do! My mom is coming next weekend, and the closer it gets to her arrival, the more filled up our schedule is getting while she's here. She flies in on the 7th, to Mombasa, where a friend (actually a huge donor for school) has offered to pick her up at the airport with me, in exchange for us coming to lunch at his house. Pretty good deal I'd say! We'll spend that evening at school, hanging out with my kids who have not gone home yet. I think actually having them see Mom in person is going to blow their minds. I keep telling them they'll finally realize why I'm so short. Then Sunday we've planned a big Easter dinner at another friend's house on the plantation, where Mom will meet the other side of my life here - the ex-pats that I spend all my time outside of school with. Then the kids will go to Deaf Games in Mtwapa (might be changed to Mombasa) and Mom and I will go see them for a day or two there, probably mixed in with some shopping in Mombasa as well. At some point we want to go back to Loitokitok and see my host family there, which I've been dying to do for ages, but haven't had the time, and maybe hit a game park on the way back to the coast (Amboseli or Tsavo) for a day or two of safari. Then I'm probably gonna have to go back to Nairobi for the new education group's IST (for Deaf committee stuff and other deaf ed related things) for which Mom will happily (hopefully) tag along. Whatever time we have left in the middle of all this other stuff we'll spend relaxing on the coast - having pizza at Makuti Villas, oysters and burgers at the Boatyard, chapati and kachumbare at Members, snorkeling, swimming, Mnarani club, and whatever else we can think of. It's supposed to be a relaxing trip, but we'll see if that actually pans out or not. 

Last weekend Kate, Kelvin, another PCV Jennifer, and I all went to a really cool eco-camp up towards Malindi called Mida Creek. It was pretty awesome, and though I missed my fan for the night, we still had a really good time. They have phenomenal food and REALLY cold beer and lots of super expensive Giriama culture things that we didn't take part in because we're not actually tourists (I'm happy to say). 

Here's Kel and his Auntie Sarah :)

So I've wasted a lot of time and megabytes recently uploading all the videos I can to youtube. Hit this link to check out my kids :) http://www.youtube.com/user/sarahchubbard?feature=mhee. Most of the videos I could just watch over and over again, they make me laugh so hard. My kids here are the best thing ever. 

Alright, I feel like I started writing this post ages ago. It's now Friday evening and after a great night out and some really good rooftop BBQ, I have never been more excited to sleep in on Saturday morning. The boys have a football match with the hearing school next door, and that will happily be followed by movie night and then another night to sleep in on Sunday morning. Hooray!

So happy end of March to everyone, wherever you are, and cheers to anyone who has ever read this dumb ol' blog!

~ Shub :)