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!