Oloitokitok

I am back in town, for a week of assisting with the 2010 Math/Science Secondary Education Pre-Service Training. The new training group is great: they are eager, level-headed, and will make good teachers.

In addition to assisting the Peace Corps staff to organize sessions and choose sites for the trainees, I also went to visit my host family. I wanted to bring them a chicken, and wanting to arrive as early as possible after the day's work was done, I ran with the chicken held in both hands out in front of me. I ran for maybe 3 kilometers this way, which I am sure was a fantastic site for all those I passed.

The last time I slaughtered a chicken for my host family was the end of December 2008. This was the first chicken I had ever slaughtered, so when I cut off the head and it kept moving I was startled and let it go. Yes, the chicken did run around with its head cut off, but it also flew, spraying blood on me and on my younger host brother's clothes. Needless to say, I had something to prove, and I did prove it. I chopped the head, defeathered it, and removed the internal organs. The only time I embarrassed myself was when I broke its leg to butcher it and a mix of chicken juices got into my eye.

Afterwards I sat outside, looking up at Mt. Kilimanjaro and husked black-eyed peas for my host mother. While sitting there I felt this overwhelming calm about me and I thought to myself that this is how I imagined my Peace Corps experience. I imagined leading a simple life, a slow life, filled with many calm moments sitting outside in cool shade. My experience has been this way in some instances, but in others I have chosen to retain my stressed out technology-crazed life (take the netbook that I am writing this on as one example). Instead of making time to separate rocks from unprocessed rice, I find it much nicer to buy processed rice with the rocks already removed. Often times, when people want to talk talk talk about nothing, instead of entertaining them I become fidgety and make an excuse to leave.

My life is certainly less crazy than it has been at many points, but I have retained more of my Western customs than I expected to.

After my nice sit, watching the cows and goats and husking peas, I went inside to talk to my host father about lots of things of little importance. We sat, and I enjoyed it. I did not become very fidgety. Then we ate, and realizing it was getting late, instead of rushing back to the hotel I asked if they had an extra bed to sleep there.

Leaving at 7am, I began my quick paced life again, running back to the hotel to shower, eat, and rush to Peace Corps training.