It has been nearly two weeks since I came back to Meru and time has really flown by, in hindsight at least. I remember vividly some moments during the time where time seemed to be scraping its body on a desert, desperately searching for water. I must admit, it has been rather difficult adjusting to life in Meru. Naturally, with the beginning of any new thing brings changes. I think I mentioned this in the previous post but this term brought eight teachers in training to this school, leaving the permanent teachers with an average of ten lessons a week or less. Another change is that the headmistress is actively involved in affairs within the school. One thing she demanded the teachers do is to stay at school from 8am to 5pm. That includes eating lunch as a community at the school. While I have no objections to any of these, it is definitely a big change from the lax environment I had grown used to last term. After the dustbowl of assigning classes to teachers settled, I was left with teaching Kenyan Sign to Class 6. I’ll be teaching two extra lessons of mathematics during 3 to 5pm on Tuesdays to Class 5 and 7 as well as a Life Skills & HIV/AIDS lesson once a week. I am eager for the term to truly start so that I can have some semblence of a routine again. As much as I despise routine, it is something that keeps me sane here. I need all the sanity I can get sometimes. Routine will be good not only for self-perservation but to keep tabs on what the other teachers are doing so that I can fill in the gaps. Hopefully, there won’t be too many.

One thing I’m looking forward to is unofficially teaching KSL to the seven hearing teachers in training for one hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I hope to impart my knowledge and see them become better signers, which in turn makes them better teachers for the Deaf.

This entire week, I have been beating myself up for the tornado of a mess in my house. I’ve had a record number of people who wanted to enter my home and I had to keep them all at bay. One of whom, Samuel Murithi, is one of the eight teachers in training here and is Deaf. I couldn’t turn him away every time so he came in and witnessed the wreck. I’m a firm believer that the state of the house reflects on the state of your life. I was definitely not together. I’m still not, but I’m sewing myself up quickly.

One thing in Kenyan culture that differs vastly from American culture is that when someone stays in their house for a long period of time, they begin to talk to the person increasingly as to alleviate their lonliness. Sometimes, they think the person is sick so they believe they have the right to barge into the house to inspect the situation. You can imagine the sort of reaction I received from the children today when I decided to stay within the confines of my house until 4:30pm. I got loads done – two loads of laundry, swept the whole house, cooked dinner for the next three days, organized the mountains of paper I have lying around (mostly from Peace Corps) and I got started on making some tofu from scratch! When I finally decided to emerge from my cave, I had completely forgotten about making myself look ‘smart’ (sharp). That’s another thing about Kenyan culture. You are expected to look ‘smart’ at all times. For those of you that know me, my hair can get rather poofy when it’s longer than two inches. That’s exactly the state my hair was in, and I was met with scores of insults. I’m sure the children didn’t say what they said with the intention to insult me but insult me they did. The most insulting, and unfortunately the most common comment, was when they said that my hair was like a girl’s. It’s understandable because Kenyan men do not grow their hair longer than half an inch, with the exception of the rastas, and the women tie on artificial hair. I had to swallow my pride and explain patiently that in America, this sort of hair is perfectly acceptable. There was once or twice where I couldn’t hold back and ended up spitting venom: “Do I look like a girl to you?” or “So what if I am?” I’m pretty sure that my hair was touched by every single student in this school today. Luckily, I’ve had a lifetime of training for my mother has hair similar to the Kenyans’ (mine had always been a source of envy for her) and she took a habit of caressing my hair at every opportunity possible.

Today was also the day that I brought out Connect 4 to teach to the children, despite their behaviour towards my hairdo. I had to play with several children while the others observed before some started to understand the rules of the game. As soon as two understood, I let them go at it against eachother. I left for two hours to cook dinner and by the time I returned, the numbers of students that understood had tripled. The power of peer teaching, dayum.

Other than school, which is about 95% of my life right now, things are going well. I have a friend that I meet up with every now and then in the Makutano area of Meru. He signs rather fluently, a rare thing around here, and he’s clever. Who knows, I may actually have friends outside of the Kaaga School for the Deaf!

Mikary Je’Trasely is growing beautifully. I’ve taken to calling her MJ but most of the time I sign her name sign. Whenever people see me signing to the cat, they think I’m not all there. MJ’s pissed me off a couple of times when she shat in my house, once on the couch and the other on my bed. If any of you have any suggestions on how to train a cat to not shit inside the house, it’d help immensely! Otherwise, I’m keeping her outside the house for the time being. (Of course, there are times where I let her in but it’s under the strictest observation. It’s actually funny because I feel like she KNOWS I’m watching her because she shat and she acts like she’s looking for an opportunity to do it again.)

Yes, one last thing: during my house-wide cleaning spree today I found a USB that I brought from the States. It contained photos from 2008 and 2009. A night to remember on the CSUN campus that ended with Mike, Kevin, and Chase gallantly smoking ciggarettes in front of the police that were in the driveway at #101 leaving Haley and I in the kitchen, the roadtrip from Maryland to CA with Mr. Hause, King’s River, Spring Break at Cancun and in NorCal (I don’t remember the name of the town we went to) followed by a visit to Tristan’s parents, and finally photos from one of the best and scariest nights of my life: Gabriel was driving DiDi, Kevin, Jennifer and I back to Northridge from LA because the party we were at got shut down. Sweet memories that brought forth many other memories I had forgotten. Thank you for all the wonderful memories, friends. I miss you all.