Fun and Frustrations

Hi everyone,

            Apologies for taking so long to update.  It's been getting busy here!  

            I have very mixed emotions as I write this post—some aspects of the past two weeks have been terrible, while others have been pretty great.

One of the school's 7 cows

            The living situation: still yet to be rectified.  Up until last Friday, I was sleeping in the living room of the girls’ side of the house and it was driving me completely insane.  First of all, there were four girls crammed into a house with only two bedrooms: me, Sarah, Murebi, and Johanna*. 

Sarah: Sarah also teaches English (been at Shikokho for a couple years), is a few years older than I am, and is very nice.  She is not overly friendly or talkative, but when I have a question she is helpful.

Murebi: Murebi might be a nice person, but I wouldn’t know.  She regularly acts like I do not exist.  She tends to play her radio very loudly and during normal sleeping hours, which, frankly, is infuriating.  I think Murebi is recently out of college and this is her second year teaching Kiswahili at Shikokho.

            Johanna: Johanna is my favorite.  Sometimes she has trouble with my English, but she is the only one who will strike up conversations with me and frequently helps me out (for instance, when she saw me hanging my laundry on the line the other day she brought me her bucket of clothespins to borrow).  She is also always sharing her food with me.  She’ll cook something and say, “Do you take porridge?” or, “Do you take boiled maize?” (people here say “take” instead of “eat”), and then give me a little taste.  Johanna has been teaching for a few years and is from the area, but this is her first year teaching (Biology and Agriculture) at Shikokho. 

            The reason the living arrangements have not been solved is because the school did not realize Johanna would require lodging here and they have not found a place for her to live yet.  Right now she is sharing a room with Murebi and Sarah has her own room.  

            Second of all, as I was in the living room, there was no security for my things.  There are only two keys to the house, so we hid one outside the front door.  I was not super comfortable with this, as the house is in easy view of the men who take care of the school grounds/farm (whom Thomas warned me to keep an eye on).  Thirdly, the girls in the house are nice—for the most part—but they have absolutely no concept of quiet hours.  Many nights I would say “Goodnight” and get into bed, and they would remain in the living room for another hour or so—talking, laughing, listening to the radio.  In the mornings I would be woken up at 6 am to a radio blaring out of one of the bedrooms (door open nonchalantly) or dishes that had been sitting in the sink all evening finally being cleaned.  One particular morning I about lost it because one of the girls found in necessary to vigorously stir her morning tea while sitting at a table about two feet away from my head (CLINK CLINK CLINK CLINK CLINK CLINK).  Murebi—the least friendly of the three—will often leave her radio playing all night long (and when I say all night, I mean literally all. night. long.).  In addition to the loud housemates, rats scurry about the kitchen all night and are constantly clanging dishes together.

             On Friday, after receiving more pressure from Peter and the Board of Directors, Thomas told me I would move into his side of the house for the time being.  There are three bedrooms on his side, so I am now sleeping in one of them.  Last week a boy moved into the house as well—remember Purity, the handicapped girl Thomas’s family adopted?  Well, Maxwell is her older brother.  As far as I can tell he is sharp mentally but, like his sister, is practically blind.  He can read his textbooks, although to do so he must hold them an inch away from his face.  He can cook and clean for himself—he is not, however, allowed to use the gas stove until he gets some glasses.  Instead, he cooks over charcoal.  Having my own bedroom is better than sleeping in the living room, but when I first moved over here I was extremely unhappy.  Friday was definitely the low point of my stay so far.  It had been a frustrating week at school, I had not been permitted nearly enough sleep, and then instead of having my living problem solved I just got moved into another temporary arrangement.  Furthermore, while it is nice to have my own room, living with a 60-year-old man (however nice he may be) and his adopted 16-year-old son is just uncomfortable.  There is a working light bulb in my room and a power outlet, but this side of the house is much less clean than the girls’ side and it has a distinct, unpleasant smell.  Thomas tells me I will only have to stay here with them for the rest of this week, at which point they will have found a place for Johanna to stay and Sarah and Murebi will swap places with Thomas and Maxwell.  Last time Thomas told me “next week,” however, I ended up in the living room for three… so I will be shocked if anything actually changes by this weekend.

Living room in the side I now live in.

Kitchen. All my stuff is on the table to the left

My bedroom. Note the lack of ceiling...

My desk. My window faces out the front of the house.

           School:  After much back-and-forth talking between Peter, Thomas, the Board, the Vice Principal, the Director of Studies, the Language Department Head, and myself, I finally have a good teaching schedule.  At one point the Director of Studies (Mr. Mwimani) wanted me to teach a Life Skills class instead of a second English class, which was quickly nixed because, as Peter and I emphatically pointed out, I—with my two weeks of experience in the country—am not exactly qualified to teach an entire course about life in Kenya.  I had one-on-one meetings with the head of the Language Department and the Vice Principal (alternately referred to as the Deputy Director or the Deputy Headteacher) and they both saw my point: The school agreed to have me here, so I want to actually do work.  And what is the point of me teaching Life Skills when an actual Kenyan could teach that class while I teach what I am best equipped to teach—English?  So, Friday, I had my first lesson with Form 2 White, in addition to Form 2 Blue.

            

           Despite all the irritation with the house and school, there were some pretty fun times last week.  Lihungu, who is another English teacher and has been most helpful, coaches the football (soccer) team and invited me to come play with them.  While I did not exactly play, I ran some laps around the field with the team at the beginning of practice.  As embarrassing as it is to admit, it has been almost a year since I’ve done a real workout (basically, once swim season ended in February, so did my motivation to exercise).  Needless to say, running in the Equatorial sun with a bunch of Kenyan teenagers was rough.  I made it six laps before I had to stop.  There were a few girls sitting on the sidelines watching practice, and I had a very pleasant time talking with them as I recovered.  As it turns out, they are in 2 White, so I at least knew a few friendly faces when I began teaching their class.

            I did two practices with the football team that week (made it 7 laps on day two!) and one practice with the volleyball team (kind of… I pretty much played around with a few kids on the side while the A-team did an actual practice).  Volleyball was fun, although by the end of it my forearms were very tender and I could not bend my left thumb.  It is interesting because there is not a girl’s volleyball team—only boys.  They also play a sport here called netball, which I am not clear on but I am told it is something like basketball without the dribbling.  On Thursday the librarian (fairly sure her name is Centrine) took me on a walk outside the school grounds.  About a five minute walk away is a small compound where she and a few other teachers live.  The landlord (who is not a teacher) has PUPPIES and she caught one for me to hold.  They all thought it was so funny how excited I was over them—Celestine and her landlord told me so and I could hear lots of laughing coming from a nearby house.  I guess dogs are kept less for companionship here and more for protection (Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I was careful that they did not bite or lick me).

            On Saturday after class Peter picked me up in Shikokho and drove me to Kakamega, where I spent the rest of the weekend.  The students have school from 8AM to 1PM on Saturdays, but the subjects alternate.  So, last weekend was humanities, and this weekend it will be sciences.  I only had to teach for one hour—all 100 of my students at once.  It was a bit of a challenge—when I get angry or stern the students all think it’s funny so they just giggle.  It’s infuriating.

             Peter has been an incredible help—I don’t know what I would do here without him.  Although it is not very far, it was still kind of him to recognize that I needed time away from the school and make a special trip to bring me into town.  I was able to do a little bit of shopping and relaxing.  It was nice to be back at Sheywe Guest House—I got to see my friends Sheila (“If you do not come back I will die!”) and Nancy, as well as a bunch of mzungus from Indiana!  Have you ever gone three weeks without seeing another white person?  Well, it is really exciting to be able to speak (at a normal speed) with people from your own culture when you do not get the opportunity every day.  They had even heard of Davidson (“Oh, Davidson?  Good for you!”)!  LOVE it when that happens (all you Davidsonians know exactly what I’m talking about).  One of them, Dave, has a daughter who was also an Anthropology major and is currently doing doctoral research in Bolivia (and her name is Emily, too—Emilys everywhere!).  The majority of the group (I think there were nine of them) are here on a two-week mission trip working with orphans.  One girl has been working with an orphanage in Kisumu (about an hour away, on the shore of Lake Victoria) for the past four months.  

           Peter brought me back to school on Sunday evening, and this week has been much better than last week.  I still get woken up a lot throughout the night and early in the morning (there is a hole in my ceiling that bounces noise from all over the house straight into my room), but I have gotten much more sleep than I did last week.  This is partially because I bought a second pillow in Kakamega to put over my head.  The first three days of my week are pretty stacked with double periods, but today and tomorrow are less busy (so expect another post soon).

Couple notes—

1. I know I have had a lot of complaints about the school so far, but I want everyone to know that, overall, I am very happy here.  I am not yet totally comfortable with the people or how everything works, but I have no reason to believe that this will always be the case.  Sure, it’s been kind of frustrating at times but, on the whole, it is great :)

2. I would like to let you guys know that I have a twitter account that I update more often than I blog.  To view my tweets you need your own account (I have them set to private so that people from the school cannot see them).  My username is emcastle. 

3. If you find yourself wanting to send me some snail mail (which I would LOVE) or a package (zebra cakes…), you can send it to me at:

Peter Khamusali

(Emily Castle)

P.O. Box 1124

Kakamega 50100, Kenya

My parents have sent me one package so far, and it only took a week to get here!  Also, I had mentioned to some of you that if you send me a package it would be good if it contained a bribe for the post office workers.  I do not think Peter had any trouble with the first package, but if by chance you’re sending a box that might appear interesting to a corrupt government official, you may want to include a pack or two of cigarettes.  I’m told this will increase my chances of receiving the package without paying a fee (thanks for the tip, Dr. Campbell!).  Finally, do not feel like you need to send me something to make me happy—I always appreciate a quick email :)

Miss you all!

Emily

*Names have been changed

Chickens! Haven't started laying yet, but when they do I'll be able to purchase eggs.

More cows. From where I was taking this photo, the school was to my right, the house to the left, and the primary school straight ahead.