Shikamoo! (a greeting that literally means 'I hold your feet')

Some questions have been brought to my attention. I would love to address some of them.

Homestay Family

Baba (Father) is a teacher and a pastor
Mama (Mother) is a teacher
Kaka's (Brothers) consist of Mumo who is 3 and extremely active and Steve who is about 13 or 14. He is finishing up primary school which is equivalent to the American 8th grade.
Dada's (Sisters) consist of Vivi who is 6, Reba who is 8, Kavila who is about 11, and two others who I haven't really met because they are at boarding school. They are both graduating this year and have an extremely important exam beginning now.

I have a room to my self. It contains one bed, a chair, and a small coffee table. It is pretty cramped, especially since I keep my bike in there. The room is basically the size of two beds put together. Due to the size I only took one bag of luggage plus my backpack to the home. The other piece of luggage stays at the training hub and is basically available one day a week in case I need anything.

Food

The typical foods consist of:

- chapati (like a thick tortilla)
- ugali (a think corn paste that is served almost daily ... it has basically no taste and you could probably build a house out of the stuff it is so dense)
- nyama (meat...usually goat, or chicken, or cow)
- sukuma wiki (some green vegetable)
- wali (rice)
- kabechi (cabbage)
- viazi (potatoes)

Those are the major players. It really doesn't vary from the foods mentioned above, but sometimes we mix it up by having ugali with sukumi wiki, or ugali with kabechi, or ugali with kuku (chicken).

As for drinks I probably drink about 10 cups of chai a day (hot tea with milk). Everybody drinks the stuff and loves it. Even kids. We also drink soda. We have Coca Cola, Fanta, and Sprite.

TV

People were curious as to what shows they have in Kenya. We only get one channel on our TV so we don't have too many options. Most of the shows we watch are about 10 years behind America. We watch:

Walker Texas Ranger
Oprah
The Bold and the Beautiful
WWF Wrestling
Makutano Junction (a Kenyan soap opera...its pretty bad)
Release the Lion (a game show)
Mind Your Language (a really old British show)
plus some other shows in Chinese, or from South Africa. Fun stuff.

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To close, I was peed on by a bat the other night. He stays right over my bed and I put 2 and 2 together. I also realized it wasn't the first time. So now I keep a towel on top of my mosquito net to keep any more drops from reaching me. You gotta love this place!

Asante, lakini hakuna asante (Thanks, but no thanks)

I think I'll make the title an informal kiswahili language lesson.

Let me preface this entry by stating that the internet access in my area is tempermental. But today the internet is lovely, because I am in a different location entirely...

Sometimes you wanna go ...

... somewhere different, like Machakos. About 20 of us went about halfway between Nairobi and Kitui to this "bustling metropolis" (everything is relative). It has paved roads, cyber cafes, and electricity in the hotel rooms. I hadn't been able to listen to music in over a week, because I couldn't charge my battery to the MP3 player. Its been nice to be on our own, away from the family for a little bit, and just to see more of Kenya. I love the drives, because its just so picturesque everywhere you go.

Nzambani Rock

Last Saturday we went to the aforementioned rock. Its just this massive rock that is in the middle of no where and you can climb to the top and see an excellent view. Our little group decided to use our new bikes to get there. Due to the heat, hills, and the amount of food I've been consuming it was pretty difficult. I'm going to have thighs of steel by the time training is over, though.

The Monkey Forest

Last Sunday after church Eric, Annie, and I went to the Monkey Forest. It was great! There were so many of them, but they were quick to move as fast as they could from the humans. We were told to move slowly and quietly, but this was difficult since we were being escorted by about 20 kids. If you're white in Kenya children will follow you everywhere. Also in the forest we saw some bamboo trees. Not what I was expecting. They were massive! I mean massive. Super tall and with an enormous base. I took pictures of both Nzambani Rock and the monkey forest but I still haven't found a way to get them on the computer so I'm sorry about that. Hopefully I'll work it out in the near future.

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That's all for now. Peace out.

kidogo habari (a little news)

First of all, thanks for all the enjoyable comments. Its nice to know that there are people who are interested in my happenings afar.

Secondly, I have to read through the comments extremely quickly because the internet is pretty sketchy. In my area there is only one location that has public computers and the internet access is moody. Its moody most of the time. For instance, I probably won't be able to check the e-mail this time around since it hasn't been able to sign on after the 10th time.

But that's not the kind of information you came here for...

Like Christmas

Today I received a bike. What a glorious day it is. Out of all 50 volunteers training in Kitui the cluster I was in had the longest walk. It took about and hour and a half to get to the training hub. Occasionally we would walk but usually we took taxis (4 in the back and 3 in the front) or matatus (sort of like vans where they would squeeze at least 4 more people than was legal into). The drivers are crazy. Its almost like they are playing a game: come as close to any object or person as possible no matter what side of the road they are on. The roads are pretty horrible so drivers are constantly moving from the left to right or right down the middle, just where ever the best piece of road is. But now I've got a bike...

Chuluni Secondary School for Girls

We were introduced to our practice teaching sites this week. I got to see the Kenyan school system and meet my mentor teachers. I'm teaching 3 days a week, 2 classes a day, 1 Math and 1 physics. Yeah, physics. First lesson: Rectilinear propagation something something something. That one is going to be a struggle. More on the school structure in another post.

Frisbee

You know me. I gotta represent the Frisbee. So far the frisbee has been given an overwhelming response. I held two lessons on Frisbeeology last weekend with the neighborhood kids. Advanced lessons soon to come. We busted out the Frisbee at Chuluni school and had about 200 girls surrounding us wanting to see what this thing was we were throwing. It was great. Its the sensation that will sweep the nation. I have a request for those reading this: can you find addresses to Frisbee companies such as Wham-O and Discraft and send them to my e-mail account or as a comment on this site. Due to my limited computer access I don't have the ability to look these up. I think I'll write to the companies and see if they can hook me up.

Odds and Ends

I'm feeling more and more comfortable in my home away from home. There is always something new and surprising. It is exhausting learning the language, culture, everything, but it is worth it. So just know that I am well, the shot tally is up to 9, I am still eating ridiculous ammounts of food, and life is good.

Peace out...