It has been a while. Sorry. I finally started at school… instead of teaching at Argwin’s where I had thought I would be going I have ended up at Mwadi Primary school. It’s about 40mins walk from the compound. But it’s a beautiful walk especially in the morning when the sun is fresh. The school is small and well resourced compared to many other local schools, it has concrete floors, a water pump and some text books. Not ideal but the kids are amazing and very willing to have a novice mzungu teacher! I have 3 classes a day, (according to the timetable but the other teachers seem to get lazy when I’m around so I end up with triple and double classes teaching stuff I know nothing about, but its kind of fun.) each class has about 65 students. Challenging but fun. Behaviour management… referred to as “oh that… take a stick into class and you wont have a problem with them” is problematic. Its uncomfortable but as yet I have only had to threaten 1 student with being sent to the mean teacher… who I have managed to palm off my behaviour management issues to! I am teaching English, social studies and creative arts. I have managed to get hold of the syllabus for 2 classes, as of yet the school cannot find the English syllabus… which is a little troubling. But I am enjoying it. Teachers are on strike at the moment. It is now the second week. The last strike lasted for a month. So hopefully I will be back from Zanzibar before school is even back. My principal warned me not to go near the school during the strike, it is taken very seriously here and he said I would very likely get beaten. And there have been protests, which are illegal in Kenya, even though the government is not paying wages to those teachers who are on strike, which is pretty much the entire population of public school teachers in Kenya. So the teachers walk down the street with placards and sing and the police come with tear gas and machine guns. No one has been killed yet to my knowledge but more than 300 have been arrested, countless numbers have been beaten in the streets and even more have been shot at. It is something that cannot be believed until it is witnessed. Tear gas is painful, even from 300m away. So I can imagine how it must feel when your in the centre of things. Its truly horrible to see teacher peacefully protesting for a grand total of AU$80 extra per year, then seeing the police open fire in the middle of town. Everyone scatters. The screams have stayed with me.
Obama’s inauguration is a big deal here. Obviously. Some of the group managed to get their photos in the paper, and some footage was given to channel 9 for their coverage. Overall it was a pretty amazing day. I haven’t seen so many people in the same t-shirts in one place before. Kogelo, Obamas fathers rural home was the place to be. Words cannot explain the reaction when Obama mentioned “the smallest village where my father is from” hahhahaha it was intense. Crazy crazy day. Anther interesting, obama related newspaper article has surfaced alleging that mzungu (white) women are now coming to Kenya in order to have an obama baby… fair enough assuption I guess, the interesting bit was the photo that accompanied the article was of one of the Australian volunteers standing with a Kenyan friend of ours and they appeared to be swapping numbers… the headline read something like “Mzungu women trying conceive an obama baby”. It has been a talking point here at white house headquarters for a while now!
World Youth International hosted a medical camp, thanks to the fundraising efforts of Maranda. We treated some where between 300-500 people. Each for the equivalent of 10cents for children and 40cents for adults. All the medicine was free. We had 7 doctors and 5 nurses. I took blood pressure and temperatures all day, with the guidance of Jen. Every person had to have their weight, age, name, BP and pulse, and or temperature recorded before they could see a doctor. It was definitely an eye opening experience. A woman aged 45 only weighing 39kgs, kids with temps over 41degrees Celsius and people so sick they could hardly talk/walk/breath. Frantically busy day, and one not to be forgotten. I took the people living at the Whitehouse out in Kisumu, it was a Sunday night but we all had a really good time. We spent the morning at the markets, bargaining up a storm then went swimming all afternoon. The girls had an interesting time at a dodgy salon before going out for dinner. Jen came off the worst after the salon and unfortunately with her accompanying black eye, she was definitely an attraction that night. Dinner was lovely at the Grillhouse, you can never go wrong with fish in Kisumu. Then we checked out tamiez then the Bottoms Up Club at Octopus. It turned into a good night, there were only a handful of other people around and we all danced up a storm… I think Renae was at home in front of the mirrored wall! Ahahahhaha it was a funny night. We were all in bed by 1:30am but it was a successful Sunday night. My tok tok, a motorbike with a cabin attached (sorry that’s a really bad description. I will try to put a photo up next week so it makes more sense.) collided with a boda boda, a bicycle with a seat on the back for a passenger on the way to dinner, I am bruised but otherwise fine. It was lucky the boda boda man had seen it coming or it would have been worse! Jen and I spent Australia Day at the salon having our hair braided, manicures and pedicures. I had forgotten how tiring being in a group can be and I think that we both just needed a break, so while the others went to meet the OAP team in Odede we came back to Mutumbu. The peace is refreshing.
The next few weeks is going to be insane. On the 30th we are all (20+ mzungus) going to Lake Navaisha for a few days, then on the 4th of February I am going white water rafting in Jinga then to Kampala for a bit of a look around then on the 11th I am off to Zanzibar and wont be returning to the White House until the 22nd. It is very exciting.
SO since I wrote (but did not post the last entry) I have been busy.
Navaisha was amazing. Despite the bus driver forgetting to let 25 people off the bus at the right spot and the walk along the highway until we could find enough vehicles to take us into town, I had an excellent time. Some of the girls and I, spent the morning walking the 20km to the lake to see the hippos, who were relaxing in the water about 2meters from where the local women were hanging out their washing, and the flamingos. It was a lovely walk we shared the road with cars, buses, motorbikes, boda bodas, monkeys, giraffes and zebras, as well as the occasional warthog family. It really is something to see baboons, babies as well, playing chicken with the cars and buses!! It was really uncomfortable being with so many mzungus, I guess I have gotten used to being the minority again, but it was really good to catch up with everyone. The second night we had a big one involving, tequila with a man named Cheg-ge, a bonfire, boisterous hippos, being caught skinny dipping and lots and lots of story telling. Over all we had a pretty good time.
White water rafting in Jinga has probably been the best/craziest/scariest/most exhilarating thing I have ever done! I seriously nearly crapped myself when I saw where we would be going but I kept it together and had an amazing time! The first afternoon we where in Jinga we met some local kids aged between 6-10 who regularly swim in the rapids and give mzungu’s log rides, literally on a log. So after braving the cold water and finding my confidence I went for a whirl with some of the other volunteers, it looked scarier than it was and once I had done it I couldn’t get enough. The morning of rafting we were picked up early on a truck where I finally got to ride on the back, we were taken for breakfast and met the crew that would be looking after us for the day, fitted with safety gear (well we were supposed to be fitted but I wasn’t) then taken to the river. It was the river Nile I might add! So we jumped on the boasts and headed down stream where we did close to 40km of paddling/rapid surviving! Juma, our guide was a very funny man and thought it would be entertaining to do our practice run on an actual rapid, so instead of using the flat, open water to practice flipping, falling out and getting back in, like the other boats did we found our selves being thrown out on an actual rapid. Everyone of us thought we were going to die. I drank about a litre of the Nile in the first flip. Once we had all been dragged in alive it was hilarious but I seriously prayed to god because I thought I was gonna die! The day pretty much progressed the same way. It was so much fun that I cannot wait to go again and have already planned the next trip! Most rapids were insanely scary to look at but the only time I seriously questioned what the hell I was doing there was when Juma said hold on and don’t let go because if you do you could be sucked under for over a minute and there are crocodiles in the water! I don’t think I have ever held anything as tight in my life. There were numerous minor injuries, I got hit in the back with a paddle, there were cuts and grazes and bruises and lots of sunburn, but it was well worth it! I loved it!
As for now, I am off to Nairobi tomorrow night. Then to Zanzibar on Thursday. I am very excited!
That’s all I have right now.
Blink blink blink. I love u. And hope ur arm is ok now.
Love love love. I love u too. And hope the move is going well. I miss u. And for everyone else. I am missing you all terribly. V xoxox
