Prior to my treetop adventures, I was playing volleyball with my students. They really are improving and I am shocked at how good of a coach I am. Considering the fact I have almost zero volleyball experience, I’m still able to coach. Throughout most of the game, Chase Burton, whom I almost always as a consequence think of when I think of or play volleyball. Hunter Beck and the days I spent watching the brothers of Lambda Sigma Pi play IM Volleyball slide in and out of my mind. At one point during the game, quite literally, I turned to a student and asked them to smack me in the head. I asked because I was thinking of all the wasted opportunities I had to play volleyball. Currently, I’m trying to teach the students the importance of teamwork and the team spirit as well as how to properly hit the ball from overhead (rigid hands in the shape of a bent 5) and hit under (hands ‘fisted’ together or held together in the shape you would sign for money). As you can tell, I don’t even know the proper names for these things. Any volleyball tips y’all have for me, I’ll GLADLY take.

There was a point in the day where it became unpleasant, but I’ve thankfully learned how to let things like this slide off my back. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t have my temper rise a few degrees. One of the teachers was telling me about how it’s ‘AFRICAN’ (I DESPISE when Kenyans call themselves ‘Africans’ or say ‘this is how we do it in Africa’) for African men to beat their wives like cows when they are being unfaithful or unwilling to present themselves to their husbands for sex. That topic somehow led to rape and I pointed out to him that since husbands beat their wives for sex, it is a form of rape. All the male staff, of course, disagreed while the female staff simply sat in silence. I wanted to hear no more of it so I just nodded my head for the rest of his rant. Eventually, he got the gyst and just stopped spewing.

I can hardly believe January is nearly through. It seems just like yesterday I waved my parents off to the Jomo Kenyatta Airport. Here’s to a wonderful 10 months remaining. (AHH!)

The following is an entry I wrote on Thursday – quite hilarious. I seem to be a magnet for these kinds of things.

I returned earlier today from the market. Thursdays are market days in the ‘nearby’ town named Centre. It’s a solid 45 minutes walk as opposed to a mere 10 minutes via vehicle or piki piki (what they call motorbikes here… oh wait.. Americans call them motorcycles. Geez, my American English is going.) Too bad the Peace Corps forbids all volunteers from using the pikis and there’s rarely ever a vehicle passing by. I remember an occasion where I thought I would be lazy and just wait by the side of the road for a vehicle to take me to Centre. I waited a little more than an hour and only one vehicle had passed me, arms and heads overflowing out of its windows. I gave up and started walking. Anyway, it’s not like it matters anymore because I’ve grown accustomed to walking the distance. In fact, I actually enjoy it at the times where the roads are quiet. I try to avoid the times where the schools let out because then I’ll be faced with an onslaught of Kenyan children vying for my attention. Anyway, onto the point of why I wanted to write this entry.

I decided to arrive at the market a bit later today because in the weeks past, the selection of foods lying atop plastic burlap bags was just atrocious. Onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and omena (Small fish the size of the pinkie, head, eyes, and all fully intact for your eating pleasure……). I’m a foodie. I need more than this. People told me that at later times, carrots, cabbage, and a variety of greens make their appearance. My entire body perked up at the mention of carrots. Looking back on my life, I’ve taken carrots for granted many times. (Potatoes too but the lovely little white baubles they call rice still wins my preference.) So, yes, I enter the market and I’m greeted by a momentary silence as the marketfolk register my presence, followed by waves of “..jf sdfbdf ijdf MZUNGU hebuf…” left in my wake. It’s become normal. I admit, I do look forward to the days where I can enter a locale without even drawing an eye to myself. But then again, that ‘power’ would be nice to have in certain places, if you know what I mean. Among the many eyes that followed me as I made my rounds at the market comparing between two mamas’ products for their quality, one followed me more intently than the others. The one even began to follow me physically, albeit slowly at that. It was a few minutes before I noticed and it was only because I was taking in the sight of a large pile of carrots. (This is after not eating any form of carrots in a little over two weeks.) An elderly woman with drooping earlobes, decked out in lessos (the traditional fabric for women), and hobbling on a wooden leg and cane, which has a thick material from tyres furled around it. (The drooping earlobes are traditional for the older folk, although the tradition is now dead among younger generations, for back in the day if a child was misbehaving, the parent would make a small cut on the ear. The cut would be in the area between the earlobe and the cartlidge leading into the ear canal. If the child continued their misbehaving, something heavy would be hung from the hole, stretching the skin. Ow. So in a way, simply by looking at a person you can determine whether they’ve been a very very bad child.) Rather loudly she declared, “Nipe kumi!” In Kiswahili, it means “Give me ten!” Of course, I knew she was referring to ten schillings. I ignored her and began to inspect for carrots I’d want to buy. The woman was relentless. “Nipe kumi kwa Mama Mwita! Nipe! Wewe mzungu, ninajua pesa hapo katika (tapping my back pocket)” (Give me 10 for Mama Mwita! Give me! You rich-white-person, I-know money there in..” I became uncomfortable but stood my ground. After a little while, she started to lightly spank my bottom with the stick while almost chanting “Nipe kumi, mimi (me) Mama Mwita!” I felt spots of red burn on my cheeks but I tried to just step aside and let it slide off my back. Right then, she poked at my crotch while saying something I didn’t understand and proceeded to unfurled the tyre piece from the stick and threatened to whip me. Right then, I walked to the other side of the market, which isn’t that big mind you – about the size of Boyd’s old classroom at CSUN. Follow me, she did. Grr. I was forced to leave the market but not before catching her whip on my bum. Ayiyi.

Joshua Josa, Peace Corps Volunteer (BE SURE you put this, otherwise hefty charges may be added)
PO Box 164
Kehancha – 40413

Now, onto the regular blogging experience.
I often notice myself starting a blog with something from earlier during the same day. The memory triggers another memory from earlier in the week, which is the direction I can see my thoughts drifting towards even as I type. It’s true what they say: “Peace Corps is the toughest job you’ll ever love” for many bizarre reasons even I would never have fathomed prior to coming here. At this very moment, for instance, I am feeling an insanely hightened sensation of glee simply because I am able to be typing on my netbook with Adele’s “Someone Like You” blasting in the middle of an electrically-lit room.

Alternatively, I feel a sense of bravery, heroism (although why heroism is one of the feelings, I’m not altogether sure), and a sense of mystery all wrapped up in a tight little ball of delight as I watch the candlelight dancing among the shadows with mosquitoes buzzing around the fringes of the shadows, forever attempting to evade my keen deaf eyes so they can proceed to plunge, suck, and buzz away, engorged.

Today, I love my job. The fact that it came immediately after sitting with what was nearly a full morning of dark annoyance. What happened is that someone whom I thought had literally walked out of my life for good had returned, spitting venomous words of blame at me through my innocent little Nokia. I quickly closed the deal but found myself unable to control my annoyance at things that normally bother me but I’m able to control my feelings with Kenyan Sign Language differences and theology being the chief annoyances. Y’see, with KSL there are hundreds of sign variations depending on what part of Kenya one hails from but the KSL section during the KCPE (The national Class 8 exams held at the end of every year. This is the very same exam that determines the fate of a student’s enrollance into secondary school.) is done in the dialect of KSL hailing from Nairobi and is rapidly spreading throughout the country. You can imagine my annoyance when a fellow schoolteacher challenges my logic of teaching in the KSL from Nairobi in the interest of doing well on the KCPEs with the logic that because the students are signing this particular form of dialect, the teachers should conform to the students so that the students are able to comprehend the lessons. Alas, the feeling subsided by lunch. The teachers filled their stomachs with a sort of watery bean dish with a chapati. (Sort of like a crepe, but thicker and not sweet. Or like Indian naan but cooked with more oil.) It was a welcome relief from the daily lunches consisting of ugali (corn meal + water cooked) and sukuma wiki (kale). It’s a bit disconcerting that if I go more than two days without ugali and sukuma, I experience sort of a withdrawal. 

Here’s what made my day. I was teaching KSL to class 8 and during the lesson, I caught one of the students trying to conceal his signing to his neighbor. Here’s what he said: “He’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen! His signing is phenomenal and it just blows my mind away.” I couldn’t help but feel like a shining star right at that moment. There’s a constant that I notice during my service – when the light seems to fade, it’s nearly always the students that’ll bring me to see the light once more. 
Last night, I watched Brokeback Mountain. I stand by my opinion that it should have won the Oscar in 2005 against Crash for its groundbreaking content and vision of its time. Crash was a great movie, yes, but I feel Brokeback Mountain deserved it’s place. Anyway, as I was sitting in the darkness with my laptop’s screen brightness set to the lowest possible setting to conserve battery, I felt as if I was living a sort of Brokeback life here. I’m looking forward to living in a place where I don’t have to be conscious about what I say around people.

Oooh – yesterday, I struck a deal with one of the teachers living in the bigger town of the area named Kehancha (as you saw on my address up there, its where I have to go for Posta. It’s about a 30 minute drive from here) to buy me things I can’t get at my local market such as MANGO! Today, she walked into the staff room with a mango in each hand. JOY!

Speaking of food, the bread in the market that I go to sucks. A distinct moldy flavour can be detected and it disgusts me. As a result, I’ve been baking breads of my own. I dub Sundays and Wednesdays as my bread baking days. Thus far, I’ve made a thyme-onion, jam (I know, right? It’s really good too), and chili breads.

Life is good these days. I’m looking forward to seeing progress with my students and for all the wonderful things to come such as a region-wide meet-up with volunteers in a nearby city in February and regional/national sports with the students in April!

Well, this is an attempt to have bi-weekly updates with what’s going on in my life. I would prefer not to put this on the blog but it really does make everything easier in the way that I can post it in one place and not forget about anyone’s emails or whatnot. The only downside to this is that if I send this via email, the people I want to hear back from will hit ‘reply’. On the blog, this rarely happens.

So, this is a formal request from me to you: upon reading this blog and if you feel like you have something to share or tell me, SEND ME AN EMAIL! It’s Josh.Josa@gmail.com if you don’t know it or don’t have it on hand.

It’s mid-January. I can hardly believe it. It should be impossible that a month ago, I came back to Komotobo from the most amazing vacation with my parents in Mombasa and the Seychelles. It was indescribable. Yes, that was a month ago and the month before I left this place for December vacation, I felt like time was crawling by and I was nearing death in one form or another. Now, everything seems rejuvinated. I’ve come back to site from vacation with a fresh attitude and peace of mind. I have many projects that I want to start on top of the classes I’ve gotten for this term. My classes are Kenyan Sign Language to Class 7 and 8 and Maths for Class 6 and 7.

Let me drift aside for a bit before I forget this story I’d like to share. About two weeks ago, I woke up and started looking frantically for the missing hearing aid that should have been resting peacefully besides my left hearing aid. An hour passed and I deduced that the black thing resting in the place of my missing hearing aid was in fact a RAT’s PELLET. A rat stole my hearing aid. I never thought this would happen to me but it did. There have been occasional rat attacks through the dead of the night onto my tomatoes, mangoes, and especially the potatoes! (What is it with rats and ‘oes?!) The hearing aid was just the latest attack but I didn’t expect it to be ABDUCTED! “This is war!”, I thought to myself. I opened up the trusty Peace Corps issued cookbook and looked up “Karl’s Super Rat Death”. The recipe is simple: all you need is equal parts of cement powder, flour, and Royco (a Kenyan meat flavoring powder), put it somewhere the rat will be sure to find (in this case, directly under the chimney opening I KNOW it comes into the house through) and ‘hope it doesn’t crawl back up to die’. Luckily, in the morning I found a lifeless beady-eyes creature. It reminded me a bit of the character from Ratatouille but images of my missing hearing aid immediately pushed aside any sympathy I felt for the panya (rat in Kiswahili.)

Because of the rat incident (and because the ‘professionals’ at the hearing aid center I went to for Mid Service Medical in December did a poor job of my hearing aid molds), I went to Nairobi to get new earmolds. I went to the center and they claimed they did a perfect job *coughs*. Well, thanks to their inaptitude, I was able to remain in Nairobi from Sunday, January 7th all the way up until Thursday, January 12th. It’s always great being in Nairobi where there’s a guarantee of good food and just a general vegging out. Monday, January 8th, there was absolutely no vegging out of any sort that’s for sure. A PCV from the Coast province and myself were picked up from the office around 9:00am and went to the PC office. Not 5 minutes after we got into the office, we cowered to the sound of gunshots. THREE intervals of multiple gunshots. It was scary. The office became abuzz with what had happened and in the heat of the moment, more than half the office exited the building to see what had happened. Directly in front of the office on the street, we saw Kenyan policemen still standing with their guns armed towards the crime scene. Eyes adjusted and soon I saw four dead bodies lying on the street, facedown. I hadn’t felt happy to be alive in a way that I felt that day in such a long time. The story came out later. Apparently, the 4 deceased were thugs and the police had been on their trail for some time. The police yelled for them to surrender and lie facedown —- this is where things get suspicious. One story says the thugs surrendered and lied down. The police then shot them anyway. Another story says that the thugs refused to surrender and tried to make a run for it. This being Kenya, either story could have easily happened. Moving on.

On Friday the 13th, I hopped onto an Easy Coach (bus) to make the 9-hour journey from Nairobi to Migori. Looking back on times where I lived in Meru, the 4-5 hours it took to get to Meru is peas compared to what I endure now. Strangely though, it doesn’t seem to affect me at all. I’m really curious to see what life’ll be like in America now that 12 solid hours of traveling doesn’t seem to affect me anymore. (Greyhounds, here I come!) I was a bit worried about this trip because I had a bag full of supplies from PC and Nakumatt and a box of 30 Muringa Trees. I made it to Migori without any issues. I found a vehicle going to Komotobo without any hassle. The plants and bags were placed carefully into the vehicle and an agreement was made for them to take me all the way to my front door. Whew. The 7 passengers filled up and the driver started the car and away we went. (This is a normal vehicle, mind you, like Karen or Jennifer’s cars that normally fits 5 people. 4 in front, 4 in back.) We stopped at Kehancha, the main town in the Kuria district of sorts, as always and waited for more passengers as some disembarked. After 20 minutes, we were on our way again. Once we arrived the turnoff for my house, I pointed for the driver to head that way frantically but to my shock, the driver stopped the car and put all my stuff on the side of the road and told me to board the other car that was waiting for me. I told the driver to make sure the other driver knew of our agreement but the driver just looked at me and said, “What agreement?”, with a hint of malice. I was beyond pissed. The driver hightailed it out of there leaving me with the other driver. “200 Schillings.” demanded the driver. He was demanding 200 for what should have been 30-50 schillings. Furious, I picked up all my bags and box and started trudging downhill (thankfully, not uphill) in the waning light. The walk is a 30 minutes walk and about 10 minutes in, my arms were burning from holding the box of plants. 5 minutes later, my shoulders and back started burning from the backpack. I willed myself to keep going because I knew if I stopped to take a rest, I would not be able to make it back home before it became completely dark. I drew upon all the energy and might I had and eventually got home. Woot. Admittedly, I did collapse onto my front porch and found some chicken poo-stains on my trousers today.

Onto the projects I am wanting to start here in Komotobo.

1) Plant Muringa Trees. It’s not really so much of a project but the trees are a sort of miracle plant. It’s native to India but will pretty much grow in any climate and in any soil. What’s truly remarkable about these plants is that gram for gram, they contain more Vitamin A than carrots, more Vitamin C than oranges, more potassium than bananas, more iron than spinach, and more protein than milk! Pretty amazing. The project, for me, is to ensure the plants’ survival (adjusting to the soil and making sure the kids/locals don’t go batshit crazy over the benefits of the tree and just rip it right out of the soil) and to educate the school and locals regarding the benefits of the tree.
2) Building with Plastic Bottles. For those of you that know me, you’ll remember that I’m sort of closer to a die-hard environmentalist than I am a neutral environmentalist. I still am. This time, I’m aiming to ELIMINATE plastics from the environment by building buildings with them. No, this is not an imaginary idea and yes, I’m angry that I wasn’t the first one to come up with this ingenious idea. The idea comes from a Peace Corps Volunteer in South America but I’ll admit that I DID do a Google search on it because the idea came to me on its own. Basically, it’s a community effort and there’ll be massive trash-pickups. We will be using plastic materials only. Plastic bottles will be cleaned and then packed with cleaned plastic (plastic bags, plastic wrappings, random bits of plastic floating around on the streets, etc.). . We’ll use the packed plastic bottles in place of bricks as an inexpensive building material. The use of cement, iron, and wood will still be needed.
There are a few other projects I want to get my hands onto but these two are my primary focus for now, aside from teaching of course.

Oh yes, the water had gone off in the entire mission area the day after I left for Nairobi and had just come back on today! Lucky me! I think I would have freaked out without water for 5 whole days. There is a river nearby, though. It would have been quite the experience to have to go up and down the steep hill, lugging water. Imagine that!

Shoot me an email – send me updates on your life.It’d mean more than anything to me out here. 

There’s a very good reason for that.

I’ve been on sort of a whirlwind since then – hopping to and fro and then followed by a successful attempt at reintegrating myself into the Meru community. I think it’s best if I start from the beginning.

The third week of July, I flew to Durban, South Africa to attend the World Federation of the Deaf conference with a fellow PCV, Lee Von Hofe. The conference was somewhat informative but the treasure of it all was the chance to see fellow Americans who are fluent in ASL. (This is a matter of import, especially after being in Kenya for over 9 months without ASL.) Ryan DiGiovanni, Marcos Aguilar, and Nick Comegna – thank you all for revitalizing my spirit. The conference was one week and I was astounded at how developed and different South Africa was from Kenya. Beautiful country.

Ryan flew back to Kenya with me but there was a 4 hour flight delay from Johannesburg to Nairobi. Luckily, Ryan DiGiovanni got us both into the first class lounge and managed to get us a hotel paid for by the South African Airways once we arrived into Nairobi. The hotel in Nairobi was so nice – that’s where I took my first bath in 10 months. Amazing is all I can say. We took a matatu up to Meru the next day, and Ryan was bombarded by all things Kenyan. Our planned trip up to Maralal was cancelled because of the rain. We should have gone ahead anyway but alas we stayed in Meru. I took him to the waterfall I frequent to. We left Meru with three of my students, Beatrice, Moreen, and Gladys to go to Nairobi where we would sleep a night before continuing on to Kisumu for Camp GLOW. Once in Nairobi, I said my goodbyes to Ryan, who would be flying back to South Africa before returning to the States.

Camp GLOW was a week of fun. Not much to say about that as it was the PCVs teaching the campers about HIV/AIDS and everything that is related to females. It was really informative and was inspiring to see the girls’ eyes light up from the knowledge they accumulated. After Camp GLOW, a large group of us volunteers returned to Nairobi (with all the campers that were from that part of the country, of course) and then continued our journey to Mombasa the very next day. The trip from Kisumu to Nairobi was 9 hours and from Nairobi to Mombasa, it’s 10 hours -all in a span of two days.

In Mombasa, at Bamburi Beach Travelers’ Hotel, we had one week of what is called Cross-Sector. It’s where people from all sectors in the Peace Corps mix together and bring counterparts from each of their communities. The entire week is focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, stigma, and whatnot. HIV packed month it was! The hotel rooms were so luxurious, I almost fainted. The food was amazing and the pools were so clear! I opted for the ocean more than the pools, naturally. It was truly a beautiful place. I was reluctant to leave but I did. I went to Kilifi to visit a PCV – Sarah Hubbard – for a day before taking the night train back to Nairobi.

The train was hell. Twenty-five hours it took, in place of the supposed twelve. Moving on.

I picked up my grandparents in Nairobi on August 22nd – it was such a sight for sore eyes! I hadn’t seen them in over two years. Ah! We went to the Masai Mara for 3 days, 2 nights and managed to see ALL of the Big 5 (Rhino, Lion, Elephant, Water Buffalo, Leopard) in the span of three days. The first day, we had an evening game drive. We entered the Masai Mara National Reserve and were greeted by hordes of wildebeest in their annual migrations. Amazing. The second day was an all-day game drive, where we drove to the Mara River where the wildebeest cross and hopefully catch a glimpse of crocodiles gobbling up a few ‘beests. That didn’t happen but we did see an abundance of other wildlife! The third, and final, day was the morning drive where we saw two lionesses chase down a wildebeest. The lionesses killed the animal not ten metres away from our vehicle! It was exhilarating! Little cubs came out of the sparse bushes to munch on the recent kill, so we got a glimpse of life among the lions.

And then, we were off to Nairobi for a night. The next day, we took a matatu to Meru to stay at my school for three days. It would serve as a pit-stop for my grandparents to see my school and where I live as well as to rest. We didn’t do much other than see what my daily life was like. Too bad my students weren’t there as school was out. We hurried back to Nairobi to catch a plane to Lamu soon thereafter. In an hour, we found ourselves in a balmy and humid Lamu, a stark contrast from the crisp coolness of Meru and Nairobi. One hour. To go via bus or train would take at least two days. Mind-boggling even to this day. Lamu was four days of sheer relaxation. The town has such a slow pace and it’s so beautiful with it’s Arabic influenced architecture. There were also zero vehicles, save the vehicles for ambulances, so it was nice. The main form of transportation was by dhow, which is their name for the wooden boats that are scattered all along the docks.

The last night in Lamu, the two PCVs whom live in Lamu: Jon and Alyssa, decided to take me to a floating bar. I was all up for it and my family was tired and wanted to sleep early anyway. We took a dhow to the bar and it was such a bizarre feeling being on a bar floating on water. Every time the large majority of the people on the bar jumped in unison to a song or something or other, the entire bar would gently rock to and fro more so than if it was a wave pushing the bar. All was well until Jon and I were ready to head back to the main island and hit the sack. Jon and I boarded a dhow: him on the right side of the boat and I on the left, both facing the rear end of the boat. To this day, I’m still a bit unsure how it happened but we hit another boat and Jon went more than halfway overboard. I, and another woman pulled him back into the boat the moment we noticed but that must have been a good 20-30 seconds after the accident. Jon’s head was in the water. We pulled him in and tried to revive him. About 7 or so minutes later, he revived but we could see he had been hit. The shirt at his shoulder had been ripped off and was bloody. We took him to the nearest hospital and it became an overnight affair. Alyssa showed up as quickly as she could. Jon ended up being airlifted to Nairobi the next day a few minutes before my family and I flew to Malindi to continue down the coast. I luckily escaped unscathed but Jon went to South Africa for further medical treatment and is still there now.

Anyway, we arrived Malindi and took a matatu down to Kilifi. There, we went to a restaurant that overlooked a ‘stream’ as they call it. It was huge – took me 30 minutes to swim across it. It made me feel so good as it had been a while since I swam anything of that length. I also got food poisoning from that restaurant and hit the peak of it on the train to Nairobi. Ew. I managed to stay an extra night on Medical as my grandparents took their leave. I hugged them goodbye at the Jomo Kenyatta airport, knowing I’d miss them and truly appreciated their effort in coming out to visit me.

I went back to site in the beginning of September and struggled a bit to reintegrate myself into the community, especially because of what happened in June. Slowly, but surely, I was getting there. I felt better with each day that passed. I loved the students and the teachers were better somehow: more friendly, more understanding maybe. The second to last week of September, Peace Corps emailed me saying that my site transfer request had come through. I declined it, saying that I was okay in Meru now. A week later, I get a call from my boss saying I have a day to pack up everything I have and come to Nairobi to move to my new site because of a new policy. I was livid. No, I was beyond livid and shaking with rage at how long it took them to process the site transfer and when I said I was now okay, they forced me out like uprooting a plant. I fought to stay for the weekend but it didn’t happen – I got an extra day to say my goodbyes and pack. It was painful. I became emotional every time I had to talk to the students and say my goodbyes. It was hard, especially for the ones that didn’t really understand what was happening. Some of them believed I would be back the following Tuesday.

Well, I came into Nairobi yesterday with five bags. It was a wretched ride. I spoke with the APCD of Kenya and I have two options: go to Hola, Kenya or have an ‘interrupted service’. I have not decided yet. I still need to talk to my program director on Monday.

For now, I’m just going to enjoy Nairobi the best I can and see what comes next. September 29, 2011 was the day I ended my service in Meru and the day my heart broke. October 3, 2011 will be the day that I choose which route I take in the crossroads that my journey has brought me to.

I’m sitting at the Java House, a Kenyan equivalent of Starbucks, mooching off of their free Internet. Today hasn’t been the greatest of days despite it being July 4th. In the past, America’s Independence Day from the British had little importance to me. To be honest, it was another opportunity to party and have a good time. Memories of various 4ths are wafting back to me with the earliest being in Huntington Beach with Michelle Kim, Jennifer Spensieri, Chase Burton, and the Sidansky brothers (among others). A 4th in Seattle, Washington kept secret from my parents for a long time, a 4th with my parents and their friends, and more recently, a 4th of July celebration in Philadelphia. This year’s 4th of July, I am sitting in a cafe in Nairobi, Kenya. The only similarity is that Kenya is a former British colony and they gained their independence around 50 years ago. Every time I am in Nairobi, I am reminded of what it feels like to be living in a metropolitian city – just another one of the masses. It calms and soothes me but at the same time it scares me to think that I led a life very similar to what Nairobi Kenyans are living and how easily I could fall back into that life. A life full of materialism and a constant search of something bigger or better. At times, I feel even more stress here than I do in Meru. Granted, Meru is a growing city of its own but it’s an Oklahoma City compared to Nairobi’s New York City. Today, I woke up feeling good about myself but that feeling quickly deteriorated as the day went on. I went to the dentist’s to check up on my teeth – they had been feeling tight and my jaw muscles were insanely painful. Once again, the dentist pointed at stress and my ongoing case of bruxism. I got a new mouthguard that only fits on my two front teeth, which makes me happy because that’s the area of my teeth that’s being damaged the most since I’ve arrived in Kenya. It turns out that I manifest my stress into my jaw muscles and teeth, mostly. I’m not sure what exactly triggered this feeling of hopelessness I have (the issues with my jaws, teeth, this weird rash that’s spreading down my right arm, and to top it all off a big boil on my left side sure didn’t help matters much.) but it’s there and I have to deal with it. Volunteers tell me that I’m at a phase (around 6-8 months into service) where the ‘honeymoon’ period is over. This is where the newness and adventrous feel of everything fades and I suddenly see everything for how they really are. I’ll be going back to Meru tomorrow and I’ll have only 12 days before I return to Nairobi to fly out to South Africa for the World Federation of the Deaf conference. I can not wait – it will be a nice break from everyone and everything.
Oh, I think I remember what triggered this flurry of emotions. The British dentist was sympathizing my situation as a volunteer and that stress is a very understandable. Humans are naturally creatures of comfort and routine – they derive hapiness from the people and places that they are comfortable with. I took myself out of that sphere of comfort completely and completely exposed myself by transporting myself 10,000 miles away into an unknown land. I guess I should be proud of myself for this feat that I’ve done and what I’m doing at my school but I’m somehow not sure I am.
It may be because I chose to withold information regarding my ablity to speak and hear to the teachers at my school because I believed it was in their best interest to become fluent in Kenyan Sign Language for themselves and my students’ education.
It may be because I feel guilty for leaving my family and friends and not keeping very well in touch with them.
It may be because I feel like I should be doing something more for my students, my community, this country.
All I know is that I am here and I am going to continue trying my best to do what I can. I’ve already made some great friends along the way and learned much more than I would have had I stayed home. The World Federation of the Deaf will have a wealth of information for me to bring back to Kenya, and I am truly excited for that.
As you know, my family and friends -wherever you are – I love and miss you.

Black hole; gaping maw

Into you, I let forth a stream

Yellow and healthy.

Black hole, gaping maw

Sunbeams and scintillating yellow light

Downward ho,

Awaken what lie in the depths.

Black hole, gaping maw

Swirls of black clouds rise

From white, feeding on brown,

They come.

A shake. Finito.

Weird. Still, am sharing this with you. Comment on what you think, haha.

On the second Sunday of June, I was lounging around outside on the grass in the front area of my school’s compound when I felt a wave of paternal instinct. It ranks as one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. I felt that wave and instantly knew to check up on my boys playing football (that’s soccer over here) at the church’s football field. I was painfully aware of the fact that I was wearing sandals, a bit shorter than usual swimming shorts, and a very long shirt that went halfway down my legs as I started sprinting towards the boys. No matter. Kenya’s cultural norms and customs can wait for one day. As I arrived at the field, I caught the tail end of a fight that broke out between my boys and a neighboring high school, initiated by the others, during their football scrimmage. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I caught sight of the hearing boys holding branches, some as thick as my leg; and one was holding a metal pole as thick as my wrist! They had beaten my boys with them!! I was livid and screamed at them but as I calmed down, I tried to solve the situation for good. To avoid any escalation, I herded my kids back to school when I realized that their ‘leaders’ were high on weed and miraa. When I returned to the school, a teacher that lives on the compound and two house mothers were told of what happened so we all went out to talk to them again, sans 90% of the kids. When we got out there, the people I had talked to earlier had disappeared. There was a search for them but that soon fell apart. Soon, we went to the Chief to explain the situation but while we were waiting, one of the men I talked to returned. The man explained the situation and asked me to confirm the fact that he was not holding any metal poles. There were two teachers standing where we all were now but my responsibility to the students came first so my voice came out. (Besides, I wasn’t on school grounds so it’s all good. They were bound to find out eventually.) As soon as that happened, I simultaneously felt a weight lift off my shoulders and a heavier, but different, weight descend upon my shoulders. The football situation got resolved but the fact that I can speak and hear is still a hot topic among the teachers at school, even today. Some people at school go the length to refusing to greet me until I communicate with them using my voice. This pisses me off. Big time. I understand and realize that the teachers believe wholeheartedly in the oral method of instruction but what I do not understand is how some of them can be so blind to the fact that they are letting more than half the students slip away in the education system just to benefit the handful of students whom happen to have a level of hearing where they can benefit from hearing aids and speech training. The other half of the students whom do not benefit from either are basically left guessing at what the teachers are saying as they sim-com with English and Signed Exact English (SEE). Now that they’ve discovered my ability to speak and hear, some go out of their way to ‘teach’ me more speech skills or try to convince me that I should be practicing how to speak as if it were all about me when it’s about the DEAF STUDENTS WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING. By teaching, I mean educational content. Teaching students how to lip-read and how to speak/formulate words or sounds is NOT educational AT ALL!!!!!! It takes AWAY from the time that the students have to learn about the various subjects that they are supposed to be learning about in the first place. I may come across as against speech-education, but I am not. I simply believe that speech-based education should take place at a time completely separate from regular instructions. Regular subject instructions should be completely focused on making the children understand the topic.

…and now I’m in Nairobi. I’ve been here since Thursday for Camp GLOW preparations. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a camp designed to educate girls (both deaf and hearing) from all over Kenya about womens’ rights, HIV/AIDS prevention, career choices, and whatnot. It’ll be July 31- Aug 6 and 3 girls from my school are going. I am uber excited! Planning went along well and it’s always nice to be in Nairobi, feeling like an American again. Honestly, there were multiple moments during the weekend where I felt as if I was not in Kenya at all. But of course, it only takes a glance to the right to see a man trying to sell you souvenirs or the taxis jacking up the prices on the basis of our skin color to realize that I’m still in Kenya. I’ll be staying here until Tuesday for a dental appointment on Monday. I’ve been having lockjaw and my teeth feel tight. No idea. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m gonna go get ready to go out tonight. Cya.