Still just a short little white girl.

Happy belated birthday America! I didn't even realize it was the 4th of July this week until my Form 3's started yelling at me about not writing the date on the board. MAN does time fly.

So it IS July, and this week I'm on duty. Before, I was happy to be on duty, using it as the one week I get to spend all the time I want with my kids, without feeling like I shouldn't be there. Unfortunately it's not turned into the most pleasant thing anymore. And even more unfortunate - it's the kids themselves who make it hard for me sometimes! I started preparing two weeks ago, asking my kids to PLEASE behave well for the week I'm on duty. Everyone of course politely agreed and promised that everything would be peaceful. Boy were they wrong. Monday morning began with hearing that six of the boys left school around 10pm the night before to go watch a football game in the village. Now I know we don't have a TV at school, but I'm doing the best I can with movie night. I tried to make them feel really guilty by asking them if everything I do for them is not enough. Not sure if that worked though. They were punished with slashing grass, which is always the punishment given here, no matter what the offense, and I had a long talk with them about sucking it up till they get home from school on break, or until they're done with Form 4 entirely. Then they are on their own and can make their own rules. For now they need to remember they're in boarding school and have other people responsible for them instead of just themselves. Oh the wonders of the teen years!

That incident, however, was only the tip of the iceberg this week. Last night a full on throwing-punches, head lock, "I'm gonna kill you" brawl broke out between two of my boys because one of them cut in line for food. I don't blame them for getting a little angry about something like that, because I know how hungry they are and how much a little more ugali can mean. But lord was I fuming when they started trying to kill each other over it. Again, I call them 'my kids' but it was two of my largest boys who were fighting, so when I realized it wasn't just playing around like it usually is, I had to get some of the other boys to help me separate the two. Thank goodness I have a lot of boys who are big and burly otherwise I would have gotten beaten up as well. I was very angry that this went down, and so I punished them accordingly today, and also told them they are not allowed to watch the movie on Saturday. I know teenage boys like to fight and stuff, but come on guys, not in your school uniform at dinner time. Ugh.

On a cheerier note, I had a good laugh with my Form 3's last week. Kenyans have this thing where they think all white people look alike. Now granted when I first got to school and met my kids, they all had the same uniform, the same haircut, and they were all black! I remember thinking there is no way in hell I would remember all these kids - plus considering the fact that each one has a sign name along with their actual name. Fine, ok, I understood it then. But my kids have now been staring at me in the front of their classroom for a year and a half, which should mean at least something right? So here was the question I posed - There is a line of white people, Sarah included, all girls, all about my height, but very clearly different people, standing in the front of the classroom. Can you pick out Sarah from the line? A resounding "No way" was what I saw throughout the classroom. Then in response to the look of disappointment on my face a lot of them amended their answers. They told me, well if everyone in line started signing, they would obviously be able to figure out which one Sarah is. Some of them said they would be able to pick me out because of my ears, others told me as long as they were allowed to check out everyone's pinkie toes, they could find Sarah in a heartbeat. Whatever the case, it was hilarious to realize after all this time I still look like all the rest of the white people in the world to them. And that being said, I can't say the same for myself. After a year and a half with these kids, they all look SO different to me. I could tell them apart a mile away, just by the way they walk. It's a nice feeling from my end at least.

Going along with funny things my kids say, and in typical Form 4 fashion, almost an entire math lesson was missed last week because they all couldn't stop laughing at me. What were they laughing at, you ask? Well I, being not particularly the tallest of people (5'2" on a good day), usually have to stand on my tiptoes when I write on the chalkboard. Hilarious, right? It was literally two seconds after I turned around to start writing the lesson on the board that I here the giggles begin. And as soon as I turn around, I know exactly who it was that started it. Gona couldn't hold himself together he was chuckling so hard, so he sort of exploded instead. What they were really laughing at was the fact that even though I'm standing on my tiptoes, I still can only manage to reach half way up the board. Needless to say it was a pretty laughter-filled morning. And thanks a bunch kids, for always making me feel so good about myself. Hmpf.

Went to church with the kiddos again a few weeks ago. As always, church in Kenya takes all day. We get there around 9 am, sit and study Bible verses for and hour or so (oh the joy), and usually begin the actual service around 10 or 11. Songs and preaching and testimonials continue till 1 or 2 pm, when they finally serve us lunch, only to be followed up afterward by more church! Whew. We left around 4, thankfully in plenty of time to be back for movie night. That's enough church to last me for a while, right? Side note: The pictures are up in FB if you fancy a gander.

Nothing really exciting has been going on recently, so the following pictures are just of everyday crap. Check out Facebook for the reel I've taken so far this term.

Emmanuel is on the right, eating his late afternoon ugali, and on the left is movie night!

Typical afternoon football game.

Bad kittens sleeping on TOP of the mosquito net!

Tea time!

The girls' dorm is going up fast..

Madam Mary, our new cook, making dinner

Meals at school: Left is uji (porridge) which is all they get for breakfast, and the right is ugali and mchicha (sort of like spinach) which is all they get for dinner. Ugali is super delicious though. No seriously.

Church day

My grungy kitchen, made slightly more attractive with the pakas.

One of these is my morning coffee, and one is water from my tap.

Can you guess which is which?

Dinner time.

And my walk home after dinner.. always into a beautiful sunset.

Hope everything is good back stateside.

Cheers and happy July!

~ Shub :)

Thanks for makin' me ugly, Kenya.

Last night was movie night and I showed Pirates of the Caribbean 3. They loved it. But before the movie I showed all my kids some Sarah Hubbard baby pictures. I had asked my mom to send me some so I could show them what baby Sarah looked like, so she scanned them and emailed them to me. So on the big screen last night I enlarged all the pictures I had received and asked the kids if they knew who it was. After a little bit of thinking, because why would Sarah be showing pictures of some random white kid they've never met before, they finally figured out it was me. Hilarity ensued.

But here's the kicker - towards the end of the reel was a non-baby picture of me and Morgan, from a wedding in 2010, the summer before I left for Peace Corps. Obviously since it was in America, and a wedding, I looked kinda pretty (if I do say so myself). I had makeup on (duh) and had straightened my hair (duh). When this picture went up on the big screen the kids said "Well I definitely don't know who that white boy on the right is, but who is the girl on the left?" They were literally stumped. I sat there for what seemed like ten minutes shocked and appalled that Kenya has actually made me so ugly that my own kids can't even recognize me before Peace Corps. Even with me looking them straight in the eye they still couldn't figure it out. So I had to tell them, "No no. That's Sarah. I promise. It's me." The shock and awe then transferred to them, which was followed by a barrage of questions about why I was so beautiful in that picture and not in real life.

Here's a conversation from today between myself and one of my Form 4's that obviously stemmed from last night's Shubbard baby reel:

Sarah: "Did you really think that was someone else besides me in that picture? You didn't see any resemblance at all?"
Gona: "You just looked so pretty. We've never seen you like that. Why don't you ever get pretty in Kenya?"
Sarah: "Because it's too much work and I don't have tons of other gorgeous mzungus around that make me feel like I HAVE to put on makeup." (Although there are a few)
Gona: "Maybe tomorrow you can become beautiful for school. Just one day ok?"
Sarah: "Not gonna happen."
Gona: "How did you hair get like that?"
Sarah: "It's called a straightener and it gets really hot." Commence long explanation of American hair style devices)
Gona: "Then maybe just do that tomorrow ok?"
Sarah: "No can do. Didn't even bring it with me to Kenya."
(Cue immense disappointment on Gona's face.)
Sarah: "You guys are just going to have to live with me like this. I know it's hard, but you're strong. You'll tough it out."
(Commence Gona now giggling like a crazy person.)
Gona: "Sarah, why do some mzungus have REALLY blonde hair? Like the sun? Why?"
Sarah: "I dunno Gona. Why are you black like the night?"
Gona: "Cuz God made me this way,"
Sarah: "Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't just smear a lot of dirt all over yourself?"
Gona: "Yeah, I'm sure. But why are mzungus SO white?"
Sarah: "Who knows Gona. Maybe you're so black because I've been feeding you guys too much chocolate this past year and half. Have you been eating a lot of chocolate today?"
Gona: "NO. Have YOU been eating a lot of RICE??"

Needless to say it was a hilarious conversation, as most of my conversations with my kids are.

Ok, test-grading time!

<3

~ Shub :)

One million points.

Have you ever met anyone you truly hated? Like actually truly? Well I have, and it makes me want to scream. Certain people in this world don't really deserve to be here.

That being said, I have finally officially decided that I cannot extend Peace Corps for a third year. I was thinking before that I would maybe add an extra year, because I love teaching my kids so much. But some things (read: people) are making it very difficult to be here. So I'll be home at the end of this year! Ack! Our COS (close-of-service) date is supposed to be in November sometime, and after I COS I want to come back to the coast for a few weeks to say bye to everyone, before probably flying out of Mombasa and making it home sometime mid-December.

So that leaves me about six months. Six more months with some of the best and worst people I've ever met in my entire life. It's not all bad though. First off, my power finally came back on a few weeks ago, after they finally brought a new transformer in from Mombasa. That was promptly followed by someone from KPLC (Kenya Power and Lighting Co.) coming to Sarah's house in particular and shutting off her power alone because she was two weeks late in paying her bill. (Side note: Mind you last year when I first moved in I was not told by anyone for six months that I actually had to pay my electricity bill at all, and in that time my power was never turned off, but I guess that's besides the point. Awesome job KPLC. Way to be consistent.) So I raced my butt into town to the KPLC office and yelled at them for a while before finally agreeing to pay my bill, which also had a 580/= reconnection fee. Ugh. Needles to say my stima is on now and will hopefully stay on (save for the minor on and offs throughout the day) for the next six months.

We also had about 4 days without water last week. Usually the water follows the stima and will only go off for a few hours or so, but when I got to school and read the paper I realized they were doing some sort of pipe replacement up north in Malindi and would not be able to turn the water back on for a few days. Thankfully at school (both primary and secondary) we have tanks - I think around 1000 liters a piece - that fill from the tap while the tap is on, and then are full when the tap goes off. A thousand liters is a lot, but for 4 days with about 95 thirsty, smelly teenagers 1000 liters can go pretty fast. Thankfully the water people weren't lying when they said 4 days and it was back on as expected.

Here's another thing to be happy about: Wednesday afternoon is always NYAMA DAY. Hooray! Nyama means 'meat' in Swahili and Wednesday afternoons have the best meal of the whole week: ugali, mchicha (sort of like kale or spinach), and nyama. It's the one time in the whole week the kids get meat. Granted I eat a lot of meat on the weekends with my uber busy social life (ha!) and all the bbq's and fun dinners I get to go to. My kids, however, are not so lucky. At least they get meat at some point, but they're growing/grown kids and need their protein and one small bite of beef once a week can hardly be enough. They're still alive and kicking though, and the scarcity of good food at school makes the Wednesday afternoon meal that much better :)

Some more random thoughts/stories:

- Most of my kids obviously cannot hear a thing, this being a deaf school (contrary to what certain hated people at my school think). This forces their other senses to become impeccable, namely sight and smell. But when I'm outside the classroom the kids can't see me. So what I have heard on NUMEROUS occasions upon walking into the classroom is "We thought we smelled you coming, Sarah!" I always check with them to make sure it's a good smell and not a bad smell and they respond with, "Yeah it's a good smell. It's the Sarah smell." These kids crack me up.

- We had to give tests this week, although since we've only been teaching for about two weeks there wasn't a whole lot of information we could test. So I just ended up giving a short quiz on the board. My kids know I like to joke around and play with them but I guess sometimes they have trouble figuring out when I'm trying to be serious and when I'm not. My Form 3 math quiz had about five questions, and just for the sake of some giggles I wrote a sixth question on the board. "(6). Be happy." This was followed by a line that said the question was worth 1 million points. Totally just having fun right? Here's some of the responses my Form 3's gave to me for question # 6 (copied exactly):

• 9,000,000 cm
• 100
• I am love yu friend students All happy very good.
• Be love tearing
• God bless you Sarah
• You is can

and a lot of really funny looking happy faces. It definitely gave me a good laugh at the end of day. 

So everything is still moving here in Kilifi, though always very slowly. Africa in general has a different way of telling time than the rest of the world, but the coast of Kenya sometimes seems to be the slowest. But it does move. I've gotten myself into a pretty wonderful group of friends here and I count my lucky stars every day that I ended up HERE in Kilifi rather than some other real village in the middle of nowhere Kenya. Kilifi has almost everything I could ever need, along with a fabulous group of ex-pats from all over the world, and a bunch of white Kenyans who have taken to calling themselves the colonialists. Whatever they are and wherever they came from they're great. Kilifi seems to just attract the coolest types of people. Last weekend was spent on boats and at bbq's, eating oysters and drinking beer, and this weekend is looking like it's going to turn out very similar to the last one. Things could definitely be worse :)

I'm sitting in bed typing this post with a big fat orange tabby asleep and mid-dream next to me, belly up, paws in the air, stomach flab rolling out, and a purr machine inside him that is very reminiscent of the motorbikes you see (and hear) all over this country. It's going to be hard enough saying goodbye to my kids forever (still not sure I'll even manage it), but having to also leave my pakas behind? Too much. So I've also decided I need to bring them back with me. It's not going to be easy. Or cheap. But I can't leave them. Tummy flab and all. 

Sorry for the lack of pictures this post. My camera got stolen a few weekends back when I was being just the slightest bit complacent about leaving my things somewhere. I'll get another one soon, from a friend or I'll buy one in Mombasa. So until then, just keep looking at my albums on facebook and you should be ok :)

Until then, hugs from Kenya and happy start of summer back home!

~ Shub :)