The California (Africa!) Initiative: Ninety goofballs.

October is ticking away, probably faster than I would like, and before I know it I'll be back in the U.S. Ack!

We're back in school (thank goodness! - I was going stir crazy without my kids and with nothing to do) and it keeps coming up in conversation what my kids are going to do without me, and more selfishly, what I am going to do without them. I always knew the day would come, when I'd have to say goodbye, but actually living through it is going to be real tough. These kiddos of mine have now, and will forever have, changed my life for the better. They are some of the most fabulous people I've ever met and I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to have had two full years with them. I just wish I could pack them all up with my kitties and bring them back to the States.

Alas, such is not the case.

Just about every single one of them is back at school now, and I'm just trying to make the most of the short time I've got left with them. I've been getting into a very heavy conversation with a bunch of my Form 4's this week that started with "The Bible doesn't tell me why there are black people and white people, can you tell me?" and went all the way through "Where did life come from?" and "Am I supposed to believe religion, or evolution?" and "Do you think people have souls?" Clearly the topics were loaded, and after about an hour of me explaining everything I could in the best way possible, including drawing things like vestigial organs, pangaea, and the development of a tadpole, they still hadn't had enough. Another teacher wanted to come in and teach, so we had to postpone the rest of the conversation for later. What I did attempt to make them take away from all of this was that it's good to ask questions. I told them I was proud of them for wondering why things are the way they are, and for being so curious. I told them to never stop asking questions, and never stop trying to get answers for things they don't understand. I told them science isn't perfect and neither is religion but they're adults and humans and therefore have a right to as much information about life as possible. This conversation about the meaning of life has been restarting and continuing for the last few weeks or so, and hopefully will until we all have to leave school at the end of the year.

This week also my Form 4's started their KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education - the national exam after secondary school). The first subject in the big long list of test papers they need to complete is KSL. The one we started this week was Paper 3, the practical portion. Thankfully, being deaf, most of them are pretty fabulous at sign language so hopefully this part of the exam wasn't that difficult. They all seemed relatively happy when they came out of the interview room, so I'll take that as a good sign :)

The KCSE is a nation-wide thing as well, so it's not just my kiddos who are doing the exam. All Form 4's across the country have to take it. The deaf ones, however, are the only ones that do KSL. But there are these things Kenyans love called success cards, that they send their schoolmates, or to Form 4's they know, to wish them luck on their exams. Almost always, these success cards have a little musical box thing inside that plays while the card is open and stops when you close it. And almost always the high-pitched whiny sound coming from the cards is a horrible screachy version of Fur Elise. There's also a tiny little light that comes on when the song plays. The tough part about this is that I can unfortunately hear those damn things, whereas none of my kids can. The noise gets into my brain and makes me cringe, and my kids have realized that now. So the Form 4's, in the last classroom on the block, will open their cards and keep them open, hidden in a desk somewhere, while Sarah has to leave her lesson in another room and run down to Form 4 to search and destroy those stupid cards. They obviously think it's hilarious when I'm all in a tizzy following that incessant noise. I've asked a few of them to ram a pen into my ear and make me deaf, something I would much prefer in situations like this. Alas, such is not the case and I have to deal with being a boring old hearing person.

This week we also had a visitor come to school from the UK, a lady from an organization called Sound Seekers (http://www.sound-seekers.org.uk/), who were the ones who helped fund the initial building of the school - two of the four classrooms and the boys' dorm. She's the new project manager for a lot of the things they've got going on in Africa and came to Kenya and Kilifi specifically to check up on school. Unfortunately for her things have not been going necessarily the way they planned when the school was first built in 2009, but that's a whole 'nother issue that I needn't write about on the internet. Ask me if you'd like to be more informed :) Anyways, we had an afternoon meeting with her and the kids (me interpreting, because even though she knows a little sign language it's only British Sign Language, which is worlds away from ASL or KSL) and we talked a lot about improvements the school needs, things that we like already, and their plans for the future. She was most concerned about the latter. When they finally decided to open up and explain their worries about what's in store after school, the Form 4's voiced a lot of concerns. Many of them are worried about passing the KCSE (only a small percentage of hearing students pass the national exam, and they've had teachers that speak their language all throughout school), they're worried about getting into college or university with terrible test results, about paying tuition if they ever do get in, and about even finding a decent job if none of the former options work.

When my kids talk about this stuff my heart breaks. It's been breaking for two years, knowing that I can't give every single one of them the brightest of futures, but I have to keep reminding myself there is only so much I can do. I've attempted to give them what I could in the past two years, and though I haven't always given it my all, for one reason or another (could be the heat of the coast or the incredible amounts emotional stress I've been under, or both), I'd like to think that we're all better people for knowing each other. Although again, I know and will keep saying for the rest of forever that they've made more of an impression on me than I have on them. I just hope they've learned a little something from me.

Speaking of things they've learned from me, one of those is just how exactly to get Sarah all riled up, and it's without a doubt my Form 4's who have gotten exceptional at it. We know each other so well and unfortunately for me they've been having a lot of fun using that against me. Remember a while back there was a huge joke about Sarah looking like a chicken that's been plucked but not cooked yet? Well that's come back recently, as well as "can you just grow a little more so you can start writing at the top of the chalkboard instead of the middle?" and "we really wanna see you with makeup on because we don't much like the way you look right now" and also the "ha ha you can hear these stupid success cards and we can't!"

However after all of this, all of the torture I've received, the making fun of and everything, I still don't know what I'm going to do without them. These kids make me laugh SO hard.

In other news, I've got lots coming up in the next few weeks. Next weekend we're celebrating our good friend Mark's 50th birthday. Mark teaches water sports at Mnarani Club and the boatyard here in Kilifi, and even though he'll be twice my age next Saturday, we still love him (most of the time) and are going to cook him an amazing meal. Then next week I think I've got three of the new Peace Corps trainees coming to Kilifi for the 'shadow week' portion of their training. They're going to be teachers at primary schools, so they'll mainly just be sleeping at my place and then going up to primary for the actually school-shadowing portion. Though I'm sure my kids wouldn't mind if I brought them up to secondary to visit for a bit. We'll see :) Then the next week I might have to go back to Machakos for a deaf-ed committee meeting. Then the end of November I head back to Nairobi one last time to close out with PC, and then mid-December I'll leave! Granted I still need to buy my ticket...

Whew!

I'll leave you with some pics of the 90 goofballs I get to hang out with everyday. Thanks for keeping me happy guys :)

Redonkulous.