karibu! welcome!
houseboy sleeps on the right, chickens straight
It's amazing what a person can get used to when options are absent. I live on a family compound (grandparents, parents and the married children all abode on the same property in several houses). My 2 rooms are attached by roof to the upper main house. One small step for mankind and I'm in their house!
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my rooms on the left, kitchen on the right
It's taken awhile, but I have proudly grown accustomed to the "lala sana wewe" (you sleep a lot!) I hear every morning at 6 sharp by the houseboy as he sweeps the compound. I have enjoyed washing my clothes and dishes at night because the only water source (outside tank) is being used to water the farm during the day. I've even began springing to life at a mere 7 am on the weekends to listen to loud Kenyan stories mixed with Chai and mandazi preparations from the family kitchen, which is one step from my front door. I'm sure in a few more months I'll even look forward to the constant critizism on my hair, clothes, and cooking by the mama. She wouldn't even let me go to town today until I fixed my jeans and ironed my shirt! Oops, I almost forgot the little girl. Some people rise and shine to music, the smell of coffee, or their HUNGRY dog...I wake to the sound of kitchen music and a little sugar brown face looking at me from my open bedroom window (that she managed to pry open). As sweet as she is, playing in my room on a Saturday morning is not on top of my to-do list.
Coming from an only-child household in America, this is truly like being in a long episode of the twilight zone (dang, I miss that show). But as you can see I'm SLOWLY adapting. It sure would be nice to live at school though...thanks enos :)
washing clothes/dishes area
the outside water tank straight ahead
Aneesah- Read your Mks Family Compound Post and could picture that little face peering through your pried-open window. What does this family do for livings? If you lived at school, no doubt that little face would be multiplied many fold. Which is better? Are you taking part in IST (or whatever 3mos in-country acculturation has to offer)? Tell us about it, pls. Thanks for posting? How is the vocabulary coming? Best, Mike
ReplyDeleteHi. Nic Dominguez referred me to you. I hope you don't mind me posting here, but I have some materials that you might find helpful.
ReplyDeleteI work at Hesperian - you might know us because we publish a book called Where There Is No Doctor (a lot of Peace Corps volunteers use it in their work). I wanted to tell you about another book we publish called Helping Children Who Are Deaf (available for free download in its entirety, at www.hesperian.org).
Like Where There Is No Doctor, Helping Children Who Are Deaf is simply written, with plenty of helpful illustrations and activities from everyday life to help health workers, educators, and anyone else who’s interested to communicate with children who are deaf, assess what these children can and cannot hear, choose and learn/teach a language (sign or spoken), encourage social development, meet a deaf child’s needs in a school setting, form support groups, prevent child sexual abuse, prevent hearing loss, and more.
Please do pass this information on to your country director AND to your colleagues. If the volunteers find this free information useful enough, maybe the Peace Corps will consider sending this book to all their volunteers involved in deaf education. (It’s only $12.)
Thanks again, and my apologies if this note is intrusive.
Ingrid Hawkinson
ingrid@hesperian.org
ingrid! asante sana on the book information! i'm definitely interested in getting a copy of that. i can use it in so many ways :) thank you and i'll let my APCD and country director know about it
ReplyDelete