Anywho, school is opening today, and all my wonderful little deaf rays of sunshine are slowly returning to where I believe they're supposed to be: with me. We technically open school today but that means that many of them won't show up until this weekend probably. Fingers crossed the power is back on by then. Without power we can't have movie night, and that will be a disappointment to everyone. Plus I spent a lot of time over break stealing awesome movies from other people's hard drives for my kids. They are going to DIE for Transformers. If we ever get to watch it, that is.
Last week was another very successful Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) in which I, by pure happenstance, actually ended up being a counselor. I was not going to be a counselor before because I could not make the planning meeting in Nairobi (cuz I chose to be on a boathouse in Kilifi that weekend instead) but one of the counselors for the Deaf camp got kidney stones just before camp. I, being 10 minutes from where camp was held anyways, and having already done one last year in Kisumu, was the default volunteer to ask for help. Though it was SO much work last year, I still got my butt over to camp every morning and tried my best to teach lessons that I wasn't really prepared for (can't say I do a lot of serious lesson planning at regular school either, so no big deal).
I had signed up four of my girls, and one of my teachers, all of which came except for one girl, Lilian, who lives super far away and had some issue with her bus ticket and couldn't make it. Hopefully we can make it up to her by sending her to Kisumu in August. We'll see. My other girls that came were Nazi (pronounced with a long Z) and Lucy (both Form 3), Shukurani (Form 4), and Emily Adongo, our new wonderful English teacher who signs fabulously and is the niece of a very influential Deaf lady out west.
The week was a success, as we all figured it would be. Monday we started with communication and myself and Kidanga, a deaf teacher from south coast, lead the very first session where everyone was together and we taught the hearing girls a little bit about Deaf culture. Since it was the beginning of the week, and we had not separated the hearing and the deaf yet, I wasn't sure who could hear and who could not, other than my own girls. Deafness is not something you can tell by looking at a person right? So towards the end of my talk, I was asking the girls for questions, many of which were very good, and some of which were a little strange. A girl in the front walked up and handed me a piece of paper with a question on it. I read it to myself, and automatically assuming she was deaf, signed back to her "Do you want me to announce this to the whole group?" She looked at me like I was crazy, so I asked her again. Then she motioned for me to come over, pulled me down, and whispered in my ear, "I'm not deaf." Great job, Shub. Way to start off camp by trying to sign to a hearing girl. So I attempted to recover my dignity a little bit and turn it into a lesson about how deafness is not easily seen on a person, and how the only thing deaf people cannot do is hear. The rest of the volunteer counselors and I had a good laugh about it later, at least.
We also had a quick lesson on Monday about self-esteem. We took turns going around the room and saying things that we are each good at. Some girls were good at dancing, or math, or cooking ugali, or signing. When it came around to me, I barely had a chance to raise my hands to start answering before all my girls chimed in at the same time "Supermarkets! Sarah is good at supermarkets!" This got a huge laugh out of the rest of the PCV counselors and it made me realize how much I actually do go to Tusky's. If it's there, why not use it, right? So we even wrote on the board "Sarah is good at supermarkets." Awesome. That was another running joke for the rest of the week. I just can't catch a break.
Tuesday was a day all about women's reproductive health, Wednesday was all about HIV/AIDS, and Thursday was talks about the future followed by an afternoon at the beach. I live 3km from the beach and frequent it as much as possible with my schedule, and had obviously seen beaches before, stateside and elsewhere. But the look on some of these girls faces when they saw the beach for the first time was incomparable. Having spent their whole lives in the village, I don't blame them one bit. I think when I was little the first time I saw the beach I called it a 'big sandbox.' Pretty accurate I think. So the girls spent the afternoon playing in the waves, throwing seaweed at each other, drinking soda, and enjoying themselves like never before. It was spectacular to see such unbridled joy. I got a lot of questions too about where the water ends, does it just stop at the horizon, how far does it go. "India" I kept saying, and hopefully that was right.
We also spent an entire afternoon doing our usual Peace Corps condom games: condom demos, condom relay races, condom water balloon toss, and so on. So to say the least I think the girls had fun, and therefore the week seemed very successful. I said goodbye to everyone on Saturday morning, most of whom were going all the way back to Nairobi, or thereabouts, and tried to get back into my routine at home and at school. Like I said, there's no power though. So I'm writing this post as fast as I can before my dinky little Acer battery runs out since I won't be back to the plantation until tonight.
This term is going to be extremely busy, I can feel it. And next term is somewhat of a joke, since we have conferences and medical appointments galore to get us ready to come back stateside, all of which will be happening during school, and all of which will likely be in Nairobi or farther. So again, I need to be soaking up my kids as much as possible, enjoying every second with them, and taking far too many pictures. Speaking of which, here's a bunch from Camp GLOW and some from my previous picture-less post last month.
My boys after they won their match at provincials in Mtwapa
Getting ready for their volleyball match next.
Getting prepped for the match at nationals in Nairobi!
Fajita night in Nairobi with the girls :)
Same tiny little kitchen in Loitokitok, and same wonderful food and family :)
Begin Camp GLOW photos:
Team-building with the human knot.
Teaching something...
Shukurani - Camp GLOW superstar
PCV counselors all get together for the Cha Cha Slide. Charlie Brown!
Almost time for condom water balloon toss.
Beach day!
My girls and Emily and I! :)
And then back home to my wimpy little front yard and my adorable pakas :)
So I'm at school now and praying for my power to be back on within the week (please help!). The kids are arriving though, so that makes the day better for sure. I do still miss America sometimes and I definitely miss all the people there. That means you!
No but seriously, thanks for reading and stay classy everybody.
Love and hugs from Kenya!
~ Shub :)
No comments:
Post a Comment