November 4th officially marked the one year anniversary of me being in Kenya. On November 1st of last year I said goodbye to my parents in the airport and left for staging in Philadelphia where I met the other 24 volunteers in my training class. After the long flights it takes to get here we finally arrived on November 4th in Nairobi ready to start our Peace Corps adventure. I should note that since arriving in Kenya not a single volunteer from my training class has gone home, no medical separations, no administrative separations, we are all still here. We all survived to the one year mark, which is incredibly rare (maybe even unheard of) in Peace Corps. Here is a document from the Peace Corps Wiki site about numbers of applicants and volunteers that make it to various landmarks in service.
So, on average, out of 100% of trainees that make it to their country 90% are sworn in as volunteers at the end of Pre-Service Training (PST). Then out of all the volunteers sworn in 83% make it to the one year mark. So, statistically speaking, we should have lost 2 trainees during PST and then another 4 since then. But, obviously, our training group is amazing and we have all survived to this point. I should also mention that if it were not for these amazing individuals (and other PCVs here in Kenya) I would probably not have survived to this point. My training class has truly become like a second family to me here and their support is the most valuable resource I have on the rough days, they know what it's like to be living and working in Kenya, they let me vent and help me find solutions to the problems that I face. I love them and I am so proud of our group! I can't wait to see them all again and reunite when we go to Nairobi for our mid-service medical exams.
In the last 12 months I have learned an incredible amount about the world, myself, Kenya, teaching and life in general. I have a new found respect for teachers all over the world and also have a new level of appreciation for all the things that I had in my life growing up and am lucky to have now. Since arriving and undergoing an understandable amount of culture-shock it's amazing to me how normal my life here now seems. Often, when I talk to my friends and family back home, they tell me what an amazing thing I am doing and comment on how hard it must be to be living here "roughing it". But, to me, most of my days seem completely normal and I have adapted to living in rural Kenya, this is enhanced by having such a normal daily routine because of school. I am no longer phased by using the outdoor pit latrine, I no longer even think twice about it (except after dusk because around that time the bat that resides in my latrine likes to come and go, nothing like having a bat interrupt a bathroom break). And nothing seems more normal than washing my clothes and dishes by hand. I have also noticed that some of my instincts have changed, however subtly. Now when it starts to rain I immediately get up and put my buckets outside to catch water, when did this become my natural reaction to the noise of rain on the roof? I have also lost the instinct to reach for a light switch when I enter a room, my house was wired for electricity a couple weeks ago and I still find myself coming home in the evening and going to light my lantern or candles... Which, truth be told, has been totally justified lately, as the power hasn't been on for the last week anyway. My entertainment has shifted from TV in the states to books here in Kenya and in the last 12 months I have read 36 books. I guess that's what not having electricity will do for you.
Despite all of the ways my life now seems completely and totally normal to me, there are of course some things that I will never get used to seeing (or hearing). I still have an incredibly hard time with societies view of women (men are superior, women should serve their husbands in every aspect), of violence (caning in schools, beating in the household), and the corruption (I won't even go into it here) and it still gets to me to see the poverty in this country. By now its a lot easier to block out the kids and adults yelling "mzungu, mzungu. How are you?" But there is still a part of me that hates the attention and there is still a part of me that can't help but be indignant when a total stranger asks me for money or asks me to marry him and take him to America. Kenya is a beautiful, rich, amazing country and it hurts me to know that so many of its citizens don't see the potential here, but would rather ask for handouts or escape to the States. My Peace Corps experience has been full of ups and downs but luckily the ups have far out weighed the downs. I love my students, I enjoy my fellow teachers and when all is said and done, I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to work here and I am happy.
When we were in training someone told us that our two years here will be the shortest long time in our lives. I understand the sentiment now. In so many ways it does not feel like I have actually been here for a year, the time has flown by (but it does feel like I have been away from home for a very very very long time). When I think about how quickly the first year went I start to panic because there are so many things I want to accomplish before I leave. There are so many projects that could be done here, so many things that could improve my school and the lives of my students, that it is easy to feel overwhelmed and feel that I have accomplished nothing since I arrived. But, if I look at the little things, like students who have gained self confidence, the small strides in their academic progress, the change in opinion from some of my staff about things like caning and female circumsision and wife inheritance, then I feel like I have made a difference in the last year but mostly I feel incredibly excited for the things that I will accomplish in the next 12 months. If the first year served no other purpose than to orient me to life here, become acquainted with my community and the needs of my school and students, then it has been incredibly successful and it will make my future projects have a larger impact and be all the more sustainable. So, here's to the next 12 months.
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