INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!!!

March 8th marked the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day and I organized a number of events at my school to celebrate the event.

Working with the English department, I organized for an essay writing contest for the students. Students were asked to write an essay on the topic: What Being a Woman Means to Me. The essays were limited to 100 words and the winning essay writer was given 100 shillings in order to emphasize the anniversary. The English department, along with myself and a few other teachers, chose the top 5 essays, which were all presented at an event held at the school on March 7th.

The event at the school was organized with my principal, other teachers and the local office of child and gender development. The event included a female guest of honor who is from the area, and has worked as a university professor in Nairobi and a number of prominent women from the community who addressed the students. Students also presented various entertainment pieces, all of which related to issues of women and gender empowerment. The event was attended by students from 2 neighboring schools, as well as by the entire staff and student population of my school.

In addition, In each of my life skills classes we also marked IWD by constructing paper chains. Denae was visiting to help with the IWD events and helped out a lot with this activity. The paper chains were constructed by students writing an adjective that describe women on a strip of paper, each class made 100 of these strips of paper that were then connected to make a paper chain. These chains were used to decorate the event that was held at the school and then hung in the classrooms. And, finally, a group of students and teachers attended an IWD celebration on March 8th at the nearby school of St. Gemma Girls, where a group of my students presented poems and songs to the guests of honor, the area MP, and members of the national council for child and gender development.

A group of my students presenting their songs and poems for the MP at the big IWD event on March 8th.

Denae and I hit the dance floor with my students at the event and I have to mention that people from other schools still comment on how well the white girls were able to dance.

At the big IWD celebration held at a nearby school.

Students preforming at the IWD event at our school

The top 5 essays from the essay contest presented at the IWD event

One of the form 3 classes after making and decorating their class with their paper chain

The other form 3 class and their paper chain

The form 1s showing off their crafting skills

The announcements that were put up in all the classes for the essay contest. We got over 50 entries!

The other form 2 class and their handy work

Decorations for the the IWD event at the school
Decorating Denae for the event at the school....

The form 4s who helped make the poster for the event at the school

One of the form 2 classes after making the paper chain.

Putting together all the links for the chain

Life Skills Week with Denae and Lizzie

A few weeks ago some PCV friends, Denae and Lizzie, came and visited my school for the week. Both Denae and Lizzie are public health volunteers so while they were here they taught my life skills classes, taught the weekly guidance and counseling session and met with my health club to do some activities. It was great to have guests for the week and we had a lot of fun cooking and watching movies in the evening and then working all day with the students.

In life skills class we taught decision-making skills and how to say no to sex. To do this we gave the girls different scenarios and they had to decide what to do and the steps they might take before making a decision. Then we gave them pressure lines that boys may use to convince them to have sex and asked them to write responses. The students worked in groups and then presented their choices and their responses to the pressure lines as a skit for the whole class. Some of the girls got really into playing the parts in their skit and it was really entertaining. We also discussed all the consequences of having sex to encourage them to delay sex. Of course we didn't want to ignore the fact that not all students will choose to say no to sex, so during the health club meeting we taught them all about condoms. We played games to get them comfortable talking about condoms and sex and get them use to touching condoms, then we did a condom demonstration and then taught the girls how they can do condom demonstrations for their classes. And finally, during the weekly guidance and counseling session for the school, Denae and Lizze talked about rape. They told the girls the steps to take if they are raped, strategies to minimize the risk of being raped and the emotional and physical impact that being raped can have on someone. All of these topics are subjects that are not usually openly discussed in Kenyan society, so it was an incredibly educational and useful week for the students and they really enjoyed having more "mzungu" (white people) around to interact with. Lizzie, Denae and I also played volleyball with my team in the afternoons and we had them do a relay race so we taught them the three legged race, the crab walk and wheel-barrow racing. So, basically, it was a blast! Lizzie and Denae also sat in on my biology classes and Lizzie was nice enough to take some pictures of me teaching, so now you can see what I do here everyday! Here are the pictures, enjoy:


Lizzie and Denae with some of my students after they taught guidance and counseling to the whole school.

Teaching about rape at guidance and counseling
The condom water balloon toss game with the students in my health club
A student from the health club demonstrating how to do a condom demonstration for class mates.

The condom hot potato game with the health club. The condoms were blown up as balloons and contained questions related to sex and condoms. Whoever had the condom when the music stopped had to break the condom and answer the question inside to get a candy.

Making condom water balloons for the health club games.

Me teaching my form 2 biology class. This is what I do everyday!

Doing a relay race with my volleyball team, they had never done the crab walk or wheelbarrow before.

The students presenting their skits of how to respond to pressure lines with Lizzie and Denae in life skills class.

It's been way too long

I have not written an update in way too long, so first let me try and give you a brief overview of what I have been up to in the last few months, some complete with pictures.

December:

-Traveled to Uganda to go white water rafting on the Nile and bungee jumping

This was one of the most amazing adventures that I have had in my life. Myself and 3 other PCVs, Jenny, Rachel and Nik, traveled to Jinja, Uganda by bus and stayed at Adrift. Adrift takes people white water rafting on the Nile and also has a 40m bungee jumping platform that is directly over the Nile. The rafting was an all day event with up to class 5 rapids. We flipped the raft a number of times, went down a waterfall and got to swim during the calm stretches of the river. At the end of the day our team celebrated with ice cold Nile Special beers.

please notice the facial expression of the jump master, he told Jenny my jump was one of the best he's ever seen

Our raft for the day

-Visited a fellow PCV Denae at her site on Rusinga Island to help with their annual cultural
festival and spent Christmas in Mbita, enjoying the view of Lake Victoria

working with the kids of Rusinga Island on making promises to maintain and improve their health

-Visited Kakamega Forest



I also went to Nairobi for our mid-service medical check ups, celebrated New Years in Kisumu but unfortunately, I also had my laptop stolen from a guesthouse in Kisumu.

January:
-Back to school
-Celebrated Jenny's Birthday at her site

Wearing my Christmas present to the girls,
thanks mom for bringing them all the way from home!

-Margie came and visited me at my school for a week

we made chili, yum

-Started a health club in the school
-Attended the first GAD (Gender and Development) committee meeting, for which I am the vice chair

and finally, in February:
-Attended the WISER induction ceremony

-Celebrated my 24th birthday in Kericho


-Went on a weekend trip to Naivasha

Out for a walk among giraffe, zebra, buffalo and antelope on Crescent Island

Boat ride to spot the elusive hippo

-Volunteered at a mobile well child clinic with LALMBA
-Lizzie and Denae visited my school for a week to teach life skills and guidance and counseling
(more on that in the next update)

Thanksgiving #2 in Kenya

Last year for Thanksgiving my training class was still in PST and we put together an American food feast as best we could and rounded out the day with turkey day themed crafts and a skit. So, the only way to top last years thanksgiving was to have TWO thanksgivings, and the lucky girl that I am, that is exactly what I had! I spent Thanksgiving day in Kisumu with other PCVs where we cooked a turkey. Well, actually, cooked is an understatement. What we really did was bought a live turkey in the market, slaughtered it, cleaned it and then we cooked it. We also made all the usual Thanksgiving accompaniments including: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy and apple pie for dessert. Can someone say delicious? What's really funny is that I had a more traditional Thanksgiving than my parents who ate prime rib. Here are some photos from my Kisumu Thanksgiving... (Warning: Some pictures are slightly graphic)




Now to Thanksgiving #2. My second Thanksgiving was back at my site. There is an NGO near me called LALMBA and there are two Americans volunteering there and they were nice enough to have all the ex-pats in the area over for Thanksgiving on Saturday. So it was the 3 PCVs in the area, the two LALMBA volunteers and two Americans who work for the NGO WISER that is near Muhuru Bay. Same story with the turkey for this Thanksgiving, we bought it live and took it all the way to the table. But, unlike in Kisumu, there wasn't a functioning oven so we improvised and came up with a jiko setup to cook the turkey. It was a lot of fun to get all the ex-pats in the region together and since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, it was nice to celebrate all over again. Here are some pictures from this Thanksgiving!
Proof of our amazing Thanksgiving feast
Matt from LALMBA carving the turkey that he killed with his bare hands
The jiko cooking improvisation that cooked our turkey to perfection!
Charlie, Chris and I. The three PC volunteers in their non-PC head wear.

Back to Loitokitok

Back to Loitokitok - with a quick stop in Kibwezi


After finishing with exams and grades at my school I packed up and headed to Nairobi en route to PST for the newest group of education volunteers.

An HIV/AIDS workshop had been planned for Mon and Tues of the week when we were to be in Loitokitiok so we were lucky enough to get to go instead to Kibwezi for a few days. Jenny and I got to sit in on sessions talking about HIV/AIDS in Kenya and we also visited a local CBO (community based organization) that is doing work with OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) and we visited a primary school where the students performed skits, dances and songs about preventing the spread of HIV and taking care of family members with HIV/AIDS. There is a picture above of the students performing a dance and the one below is a picture of all the trainees.



After the HIV/AIDS workshop in Kibwezi it was time to head to Loitokitok and Jenny and I had quite the adventure getting back. There was some miscommunication with the PC training staff as to how Jenny and I were supposed to get back. First we were told we could go with the PC vehicle but when we got to the vehicle they said there wasn't enough room but we could go with the buses that were going to carry the trainees. When we got to the buses for the trainees we were once again told there was no room for us and that we should go with the PC vehicle, since there was no room in the PC vehicle we asked if they could at least take our bags and luckily there was at least enough room for those to make our travel easier. So, after some confusion, Jenny and I were on our own to get to Loitokitok. But, no problem right? We're experienced PCVs here in Kenya, we can do this no problem.... We left Kibwezi and headed to Makindu where we wanted to stop and have lunch at the Sheikh Temple (I highly recommend stopping here to anyone in the area, the food is delicious Indian food and it's all by donation) which was really the only highlight of the trip thanks to the events that ensued. I swear I'm not complaining because it really was hilarious! But, here's what happened next: The matatu that we got from Makindu to Emali was so jam packed that the tout was leaning over the back of my seat and his face was less than a milimeter from my face and Jenny said it looked like I had two heads, apparently having another persons face that close to my own face makes me really uncomfortable but there was no where for me to go so I just laughed awkwardly and hoped the trip was short. In Emali we found a matatu to Loitokitok but this leg of the trip was doomed from the start. The matatu started having engine problems as soon as we left Emali but instead of turning around right then or going to a mechanic in the substantial town of Emali we weaved back and forth across the road to make it up the tiniest of inclines on the road. About halfway to Loitokitok we had to stop in the middle of nowhere in a tiny tiny village and have someone look at the engine, it was getting fairly close to dark so Jenny and I were a little worried, but it didnt take too long before we were on our way. About 20KM from LTK we were told to switch to a station wagon that smelled completely AWFUL (we decided it smelled like feet, pickled goat and BO) and I was sitting next to quite possibly the creepiest guy in Kenya, he had super long fingernails that were dyed a weird color and he kept saying "welcome customer" in a really creepy voice and we think he was trying to sell us his nail dye. I also think he had sniffed too much nail dye fumes because he seemed kind of out of it and passed out across the passenger on the other side of him about 5 minutes before we finally arrived in Loitokitok. Ok, so we are finally at our destination, so the adventure is over right? Nope. Jenny and I quickly grabbed some dinner to-go in town and headed to our guest house. Along the way there was a huge section of the road that was flooded and really muddy and when we were trying to get across this mud puddle/cow pie mess I fell. Perfect. I did the splits and ended up totally covered in mud. When I recovered to a standing (wobbling) position my skirt was so heavy with mud that it kept falling down to my knees and Jenny had to help me pull it up since my hands were full of stuff. My shoes were so muddy that they wouldnt stay on and my feet were slipping around, making the short walk a lot harder than it should have been. We finally made it to our guest house where I was able to take a much needed shower, but not before Jenny took some pictures for evidence of our ordeal. It was a really really long day, but Jenny and I laughed the whole time because everything that happened was just so absolutely ridiculous. I'm glad Jenny was there with me so we could laugh at everything and also so I have a witness that I am not making this stuff up! So, if nothing else, the day was highly entertaining.

Here is the aftermath of my fall in the mud. Don't I look happy?


In Loitokitok, Jenny and I led sessions about dealing with corporal punishment in schools, classroom management and discipline. It was so great to meet the new trainees and its fun to be around them since they are so full of enthusiasm and optimism! I think they are an excellent group and I can't wait for them to get to site and see the things that they are doing in their schools. I also got the chance to visit my homestay family and that was a blast! It was crazy to be back in the house where I had stayed a year ago and think of all the things that have happened since then and how my views of Kenya have changed and grown. It was so nice to see my Mama, I miss her like crazy! She is the sweetest woman and I have her to thank for my cooking, clothes washing and Kenyan house keeping skills! She had a baby a few months ago, little baby Alvin, so I can now add another brother to my list of Kenyan family. Isn't he adorable?