"I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!"

Lots of apologies to all my adoring fans (all two of you - you know who you are!) for the second LONG intermission between activity here on the Shublog. As previously mentioned, my life sort of stopped being interesting for a while, and therefore stopped being blog-worthy. During that interlude I spent nine months on a non-profit organic farm in Massachusetts, three months back in Kenya working at a spectacular eco-friendly hostel and backpackers in Kilifi, and then finally came back to Maryland for another few months and worked at the front desk at a doctor's office. And with those things in mind, I'd like to give a few shout-outs before I move on to my current situasche:

Shout-out #1: That farm in Massachusetts belonged to Heifer International and the time I spent there was unforgettable. The incredible people I met and the things I learned will remain with me for a long long time. Heifer is a great cause and next birthday/Christmas/holiday think about getting someone a goat instead of an iPad :)

Shout-out #2: That hostel in Kilifi was called Distant Relatives Eco-Lodge & Backpackers and, like those in Shout-out #1, the people I met and things I learned were unparalleled in every way. If you ever find yourself on the East African Coast and need a place to stay, this is the place. Go here: http://kilifibackpackers.com/ for more info.

Shout-out #3: That doctor's office in Maryland where I spent many-a-day laughing my butt off with the girls up front is the office my mom use to practice in, owned by Dr. Mays. This shout-out is dedicated to him and his extraordinary family. Thank you Mays Fam, for housing and feeding me, and for giving me a job, company, love, and support - all right when I needed it the most. Love and miss you all so much!

So here's what is the haps now: I leave tomorrow for this country:

"What country do these beautiful colors represent?" you ask? Why, that is the splendid West African paradise of Sierra Leone. I will be going there with an organization called Sound Seekers, who's goal is to improve the lives of deaf and heard-of-hearing people, namely children, in the developing world. Visit their website here if you want more info about what they do and all their projects.

I will be based in the capitol of Freetown, where I will be teaching/working/doing deaf kid things at the National School for the Deaf there. Apparently the school needs a little bit of help and I'm hoping that I can deliver. I will also be doing a little work in another town called Makeni, which is inland a certain number of hours. Makeni is home to St. Joseph's School for the Hearing Impaired, where I will also be helping out where I can. 

As with Peace Corps I believe a lot of this job will entail figuring things out when I get there. I will be meeting the Sound Seekers Program Manager, Emily in country, and she will have the exciting task of showing me around and introducing me to everyone! As Bilbo so aptly remarks before he leaves Middle Earth, I think I AM ready for another adventure!

The next big thing on the horizon, after West Africa, that is, is GRAD SCHOOL. I've been accepted to a few places with some pretty remarkable programs and am doing my best to pro/con/future-plan my way forward. As per usual, I need lots of help and TONS of people to talk through everything with, but it's definitely looking more and more like I'll have a concrete future relatively soon. Thanks to all the people who helped me with the application process: coached me through essays, wrote me a reference, put me up and fed me in Nairobi the night before the GREs, picked me up from the bus in Kilifi the morning after the GREs, everything. Thanks thanks thanks. Asante sana :) You guys rock. 

Not much else to report! Hope all is well with everyone - wherever you are in whatever corner of the world. I will try to keep the blog as updated as possible during my time in Sierra Leone, so be sure to be on standby. 

Loads of love,

~ Shub :)

PS - Puns are super easy with Kenya: KenyaBelieveIt, KenyaDigIt, KenyaHearMeNow; but what do I do with Sierra Leone? All I can think of is Sarah Leone. Thoughts?

Back...

Hello World!

I'm back on the interwebs, after a long and not-so-easy hiatus, and I'm sorry that I've been gone so long.  Leaving Kenya was definitely one of, if not the, hardest thing I've ever done, because it wasn't just leaving Kenya; it was leaving my town, my friends there, my house, my school, my cats, and most importantly, my kids. They are still the most wonderful people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and knowing that I wasn't going to be able to see their beautiful smiling faces every morning from here on out was the toughest part.

But I'm stateside now, and trying my best to keep going. SO, what's happening now, you say? Well it took me a few moths to get back into the swing of blog-posting because it took me a while to be happy with life again. That's not to say I was majorly depressed for two months, but it wasn't easy coming back home with no job and no income, no home in Maryland anymore, and no deaf kids to hang out with everyday. I was in what I called my "Mid-Twenties-Post-Peace-Corps Angst-y" period and on a day-to-day basis the lack of job was the hardest. I'm a person who likes to be busy. I thrive off of having a schedule and things to do. I like to relax, but relaxing with nothing to do for months at a time is not ideal for me. So after flying into Michigan and a few days later driving to Maryland for the holidays, I spent the next month 'sleeping around' as they say. Even though my folks are no longer in MD, there are still lots of people who were willing to put me up for a few nights. I spent the majority of the time in Maryland at my cousins' house in Frederick. So I'd like to give a very gracious shout-out to the Nylec family for putting up with me for a whole month. Thanks for letting me take over the basement and for consuming all your food and coffee. I love you guys :)

So a month into moving in with the Nylecs I decided to not overstay my welcome and, trying to find something fun but also something to keep me busy and remind me of Peace Corps, I applied to volunteer on a farm. One online application and unexpected phone interview later I was accepted as an Education Volunteer at Heifer International's Overlook Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts. Heifer International, if you've never heard of it, is an awesome organization that focuses on working with communities to end hunger and poverty and does so with donations of livestock and the appropriate education connected with the animals to make families and communities sustainable. Heifer's headquarters are in Little Rock, Arkansas and Heifer has a few self-sustainable farms in the U.S. called Learning Centers. The biggest Learning Center is just outside Little Rock in a town called Perryville, a place where I took my church youth group kiddos a few years back, and the next Learning Center in line is where I reside now in Rutland, Massachusetts.

The farm here is called Overlook Farm because of our view of Boston from the hill, and we sit on about 270 total acres. We have everything from guinea pigs and bunnies, to goats, sheep, cows, llamas and yaks. Pretty much every farm animal, save for horses, resides on this farm. As a new volunteer on the farm (I got here four days ago) I'm learning the ropes to the twice daily animal feedings, the temperaments of all the livestock, what food I am allowed and not allowed to eat and/or give to the animals, and the ins and outs of Heifer International as an organization. We'll be laying low for a few weeks at least, while it's still cold and while there are no guests to accomodate. However starting in March the groups will begin showing up and apparently things are busy until the next winter. As an Education Volunteer I will be doing what seems like half Peace Corps and half Maryland Images Tour Guides, both of which I LOVE. As groups and guests start to show up we'll be giving them farm tours, Global Village tours, and sending them through all kinds of programs that we have. I'll be spending the next few weeks memorizing all the things I need to for the tours and programs and trying to stay warm.

I live in a house on the farm with five other volunteers and we have a big kitchen and living room, fireplace, huge basement, and state-of-the-art VCR player. The house itself may be a little dated but the stories behind it and people inside it are pretty awesome. The farm has about 20 volunteers in total and nine full-time employees. Volunteers come and go every six months or so and the legacies passed on from group to group seem much like Peace Corps. And speaking of which there is a good number of other RPCV's here as well, some volunteers and some employees. Hooray!

So I'm still alive and finally doing something with my life again, even if it isn't benefitting me financially in any way (again!). I guess at some point I'll have to get a real job so I can sustain myself for the rest of my life. Meh. I'll worry about that later.

I still miss Kenya like nobody's business and wish more than anything that I find a way to get back there. And I thank goodness everyday that I decided to join Peace Corps and that I ended up in Kilifi. Rutland is a decent substitute for now, however, even though the difference in weather is unfathomable. Another plus of living here is that I am only an hour away from my wonderful brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law in Providence. After two years of not seeing each other often, this is a real treat.

ALSO, as a tiny gift to myself after getting back in December I went out and bought something I didn't think I deserved at this time in life. Now, though, I've totally and completely fallen in love with her.  :)

Just my size right?

Ok everyone. To those of you who still read this silly thing: Thanks and you rock.

And as they say on the farm,
"Love and Llamas,"

~ Shub :)

PS. The name of the blog is going to remain the same, because even though I'm not in either of those places currently, they both have a big place in my heart.

Ok bye!

There are now 90 missing pieces ...

... that I didn't even realize were that much a part of me until they all said goodbye to me for real.  If this were an actual piece of paper there would be tear stains on it. Instead I'm just crying onto my keyboard, which even though I'll be getting a new computer fairly soon, is probably not the best thing.

In my last post I mentioned I would try my absolute best to tell all my kids how much I love I them. Well, try I did, and BOY was it hard. We had one last big hurrah of a movie night last weekend, of which I prefaced with my short schpiel about loving my kids. I stood on a chair in the front of the classroom, and after making sure ALL 90 were in the room and everyone was looking at me, I sign-stuttered my way into explaining how much they've meant to me in just two short years. I told them if it weren't for them I would have been long gone a while ago, and if it weren't for them I wouldn't have been even remotely as happy as I am when they're around. I told them I love them more than words or signs can say, that I'll miss them more than anything in the world, and finally I told them "thank you:" for reminding me that patience is essential for sanity, that happiness is not about having a lot of things, that personal vanity should always be thrown out the window, that curiosity should never, ever be stopped or stunted or held back, and most of all, thanked them for being themselves.

My kids - just them the way they are - is all I have ever needed here.

I am going to miss them so much. I already do.

After I finished saying what I needed to say, the kids themselves told me thank you as well, gave me all that love right back, and told me once again how much they're going to miss me. It took some effort to hold back the tears that I knew were on their way, but I managed to keep it together until I left the room at least. I turned the movie on and quickly made my way out of the room to the back steps of school where I could sit in peace and cry my eyes out until there was nothing left. Well the peace and quiet didn't last long. One of my Form 3's noticed I was a little hurried to leave the room and waited a few minutes before coming out to check on me. He thought something else was wrong, something other than my looming bout of depression once they all leave. In sign I told him "miss deaf alone, bas," meaning missing them was the only thing I was crying about at that point. Then, what I didn't realize until later, was that Emmanuel had gone back into the classroom, paused the movie, turned the lights on, made everyone look at him, and told them all that Sarah was sitting outside crying and she needed some comforting. That prompted two of my girls and another one of my boys to come out and cry with me. This lasted about an hour and a half, with different kids cycling in and out of the cry-fest.

All in all it was a pretty emotional night, and that's a definite understatement. My eyes were still pretty red and swollen when I woke up the next morning.

The emotions don't stop there, though!

Tuesday was a party day, of which I was mostly unaware, because they all tried to keep it a secret from me. I knew something was going on, but I didn't know any details or anything. Turns out all my teachers and all the staff (dorm father, cooks, shamba boy) had contributed some cash and they went out and bought pilau for the whole school! The kids were stuffing their faces and I couldn't have been happier watching them do it. Then after we all couldn't eat anymore, one of my teachers, Veronica, shuffled everyone -kids, teachers, staff, and even a board member- into the Form 4 classroom to have a little ceremony for me and for the Form 4's, who were also leaving school at the end of this year. Two of my teachers, the dorm father, the board member, and three of my kids all got up in front of everyone and said how thankful they were to have had Sarah for two whole years. They each listed lots of the different things I've done, or paid for, and all said a big 'thank you and God bless you.' Then they said it was my turn to talk. I had already had my night with just my kids, thank goodness, so, having nothing prepared, I just said thank you again, and told them one more time how much I love them. I thanked my teachers for sticking through it with me and for that whole wonderful little party. I knew if I started saying too much more I'd explode into tears again, so I tried to keep it short and sweet. Then they gave me presents! Not only had the teachers chipped in to buy a good lunch for everybody, they also chipped in to buy me a bracelet and a very pretty wrap from Mombasa. My kids also did a similar thing. They each contributed 10 shillings, which can buy a whole chapati, so could not have been easy for them to give up. 90 kids x 10 shillings a piece got to around 900/-. My head boy and head girl took that money and went into Kilifi that morning and bought me a necklace, a pair of earrings, and another wrap, in really bright Kenyan colors "so I wouldn't forget Kenya." How could I ever forget this place?

Anyway, I was humbled and touched beyond belief and once again felt like I didn't deserve this kind celebration and this kind of love. The day ended in a lot more hugs and a few more tears, and one final movie night before they all had to pack up and go home the next day. I know I'll be back next year and will see most of them again, but that didn't make it any easier to say goodbye. I don't know if I'll ever be able to accurately express how much I love them. I think it's safe to say I've tried though.

I'll finish up with one last picture. After the little thank you/goodbye ceremony we were all shuffled outside one more time to watch the acrobatics that the kids had prepared. When they had finished jumping around and cartwheeling and back handspring-ing we took one final whole-school photo, with Sarah's tiny little white head smushed in the middle of her 90 favorite people.

Goodbye kiddos. Love you more than I can say. Thank you for everything you've taught me and done for me, and don't ever forget how wonderful you are!