Mwisho ni karibu (The end is near)

Updated Contact Info:

Matt Priest, PCV
P.O. Box 163
Nzeeka, Kenya

Phone:

To call from the States dial:

011 254 736 543 139

For faster deliveries send it the address above. For safer deliveries send it to the Peace Corps address that can be found somewhere in a previous post. And since we are sort of on the subject (sort of a stretch) people have been asking me for gift ideas. Since the holiday season is approaching I thought I could shed a little light on this topic.

Ideas:

- a star map or two (you can see the stars pretty easily here)
- a popular English book that has been translated into Swahili (for practice)

Yeah, I can't really think of anything else I really want. Maybe easy Mac, beef jerky (I don't know, you just get cravings), twizzlers, a cheeseburger, rack of ribs, ... I'm making myself hungry. CD's with new music on them is another idea. With some work I can get them on my MP3 player.

An amazing present is a contact of a person or group that would like to help support a Kenyan school meet some needs. Such as my school which has no science lab and is expected to perform science experiments on its final exam. If anybody is interested I can send more information.

Swearing in

...has not happended yet. Less than a week away. We found out we will be swearing in at the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya's house. He's going to be there and hanging out. It should be a good time.

Political situation

Ever since we arrived in Kenya the news was consumed with Referendum. This was a vote yes/no on a new contitution. If it passed they rejected the old constitution and started immediately with the new one. The yes side was assigned the symbol of a banana, and the no side an orange. You really had to be careful what you were seen eating, because some people took it as a political statement. There was some rioting leading up to it and even some deaths. Kenyans are very passionate about their politics. In the end the government supported proposed constitution failed to pass. And so, the following day the President dissolved his cabinet and all ministers and assistant ministers. The next day he suspended parliament for at least three months. This happended two days ago. So Kenya basically doesn't really have a government right now. The president wants to start over from scratch, he wasn't happy with the advice and guidance he was being given. He's a brave man.

That's all for now, hope Thanksgiving was solid. Enjoy the snow!

piga barabara (hit the road)

I made it back safely from my site visit, but I am finding that these last few weeks of training will be action-packed. That's right I'm down to two weeks. Two weeks from today I will be an official Peace Corps Volunteer and no longer a mere Trainee. Oh joy, oh rapture.

Future Site

It took a surprisingly long time to reach my site from Nairobi. If you don't know Kenyan roads are notorious throughout the world as being some of the worst. Large potholes are found frequently, but you really get used to it because you really can't go anywhere without it. So my site really isn't close to anything. Its hot and very dry. They haven't had enough rain for about five years. It is very flat and lacking in vegetation. So based on physical geography it is not much of a place to visit. But, the school seems like a great opportunity. And I really like my supervisor. And like I said last time, I have some pretty cool game reserves within a few hours. But it appears I will officially be sweating for two years.

Sooooo...

In the last week I have:
- chopped down a pretty big, dead tree
- helped butcher a chicken
- killed a chicken (yep, cut its head off)
- made pasta and tomato sauce (well, "made" isn't the right word. I watched Annie and Eric make it, mostly Annie)

I'm getting kicked out of the post office, so that's all for now. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Saa ni Pesa (Time is Money)

Excitement lies behind every corner here in Kenya. It's been a busy week, chock full of bitter sweet endings and anxiety-filled beginnings.

Goodbye to the girls

I spent my last week at the girls school I was teaching at. The last day I was observed my our technical trainer and it went pretty well. I had them work in groups as a sort of assessment over all the material we covered. We took pictures and in Physics I was forced to sing the National Anthem in return for a little hip hop from them. Overall, it was a good experience that gave me an early perspective of what to expect from the Kenyan education system.

Nairobi

The following day we went to Nairobi to prepare for our future site visit (FSV). Nairobi has everything you could ever ask for. The first night there a group of us went to The Pizza Garden where we had excellent pizza and enjoyed live music (a Kenyan singing Enrique Iglesias, including others). Following that we went to the mall (yes, a mall ... it was amazing) and watched a movie. We saw The 40 Year-Old Virgin, ate some popcorn, saw the previews for Harry Potter, King Kong and others. Before the movie started a waving Kenyan flag appeared on the movie screen and the national anthem started playing. We looked around, noticed that everyone was standing and we jumped to our feet to show respect. You learn something new every day.

The following night we went to the mall again, I ate a cheeseburger, some fries, and a strawberry milkshake and we went and saw another movie. We figured we wouldn't get this chance too often so we should splurge a little. However the only other option that night for a movie was an Indian one. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to be the only Americans in an all-Indian crowd of movie-goers...in Kenya. We ended up walking out at intermission (Indian movies are so long that they require an intermission). Good times though.

Future Site

My home for the next two years was revealed the other day. I will be living in Machinery, Kenya. I have yet to discover the abundance or lack there of of machinery in Machinery. If you try to find it on a map look for Kibwezi, it is near there. I visit tomorrow for four days. It is located fairly close to the current training location. It is farther south, closer to the Tanzanian border. To my east is the spacious Tsavo Game Reserve. To the west is Amboseli Game Reserve. And to my South is another game reserve. I am also the closest volunteer in my group to Mt. Kilimanjaro. So, although my site is fairly arid like the training site, I have some great sights a short journey away. So when is everybody coming to visit?

I will be teaching in a school that is only 4 years old. Since it is so new the enrollment is relatively small so my class sizes will only be about 25. I know, pretty smooth. It looks like I will teach some math, maybe some physics, and it appears they might let me teach geography. This is a co-ed school that is a day school (non-boarding). My house will be about 400 meters from the school. I have no electricity or plumbing, though the piping is getting closer to the house. Maybe by the time I leave in 2 years it will have reached the house. I am going to visit the site tomorrow so we'll see what its really like. Pretty exciting.

The end of an era

Yesterday I made a purchase. One I did not expect to make for a long time, let alone in Kenya. I was one of the few, one of the proud. But no longer ... I have bought a cell phone. I feel like I have betrayed myself, but I was required to get one. So I have joined the ranks, I am just like everybody else now. But at least you can communicate with me if you want to. To call dial:

011 254 736 543 139

Yes it's long. Its pretty cheap to text message so that is what I recommend. Don't wait for me to call you because I'm living on a volunteer's salary. It will probably be expensive, but I hear Costco has some cheaper calling cards. Whatever.

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So that's all for now. Oh, I am hoping to get some pictures up on this site so click on the evidence tab to see them. They take about 15 minutes it seems per photo so there won't be many.

Also, my friend in Kenya, Eric Chase (an extremely humorous individual who knows Nobel Prize winners and is really smart), wrote a song parody about organic chemistry so if you are interested listen to it here:

http://webpages.ull.es/users/afagan/organichem.mp3

It's for all the nerds out there.

Enjoy!