Pre-Vipassana

I am attending a ten day silent retreat focusing on Vipassana meditation.  The course starts the afternoon of December 23rd and is running until breakfast on January 3rd.

I am sure that I will have more to say about it after I am finished. The bit that I know so far is that the technique pre-dates the Buddha, but was discovered by him and is used as a tool in Buddhism for looking inward. I will be getting up at 4:30am each day to meditate, I will be meditating for approximately ten hours every day, and each day the meditation will be interspersed with lessons.  The lessons are not to teach  religious conclusions, but are to teach meditation techniques and give themes to focus on in the meditation sessions.  All of the conclusions are made by the practitioner.

For those family members that were thinking about calling me over Christmas, sorry. My phone will probably be off for the duration.  

I hope that all of you get the opportunity over the holidays to be with your family and forget everything else that is pulling on you.

This Has Happened to Other People I Know (In Kenya)

On the 15th of December I wrote that I had found a chicken egg in my bed. That night I slept very poorly, apparently my chickens have lice!

The next day I was very vigilant about making sure that the chickens could not get into my house. I was busy and did not enter my bedroom at night, but when I did I found another chicken egg!

I began to seriously contemplate if I was crazy or not, but the next day one of my students confirmed that his chickens try to leg eggs in his bed all the time. Apparently chickens are very crafty and once they find a comfortable place they do their best to return. Yesterday I opened the glass windows, and although I still have bars over my windows the chicken tried to squeeze its way through the bars at least three different times. On the third time he succeeded in squeezing through and what ensued was a slow motion chase scene similar to the ones you see in old black and white movies where the fugitive pops out of every little corner, sometimes in front of the chaser and sometimes behind the chaser.  


Finally, I coaxed her out and normality was restored, but I have given it a formal warning. Next time the chicken lays an egg in my bed, that is it, I am going to eat it.

Has This Ever Happened to Anybody Else I Know?

I was cleaning my house on Tuesday, with the door wide open.

I went outside to wash some clothes. Then I came in, ate lunch, sat down to read, and finally went to go take a little nap.

When I was about flop down on my bed, I noticed an egg, right next to the pillow. I was shocked because the chicken had given no other evidence of being in my house. No tell-tale poop or muddy chicken foot prints. The culprit was definitely a chicken though. There is no one else in the school compound, let alone my house or my bedroom. I was so startled that I skipped the nap.

When I was going to bed at night, I realized that there were a few bits of mud on my bed sheets. I was very relieved to be able to rule out insanity or multiple personalities as the cause of the incident.

Burial

I attended a burial on Monday. The man got married in 1988. In 1989 he started experiencing intermittent illness. This continued until 8 December 2009 when he died. Nowhere on the program, or during the service did anyone mention what ailed him all of those years. I never knew him, and cannot say what illness he had, but I have a good guess.  

Do his four children and his wife know what killed him? Have they been tested? Will the children grow old enough to have their own lovers and pass the same virus to their sexual partners? How far will the lineage of this transmission extend through their social network?

Eight percent of the Kenyans that know their HIV/AIDS status have the disease. One out of 12.5. Those are the ones who know their status, what is the percentage amongst those who do not know?

Testing is free, but not very many Kenyans get tested. Some get tested once, but few get tested every time they have a new partner.

I do not know what killed this man, but even if he did not die of AIDS the burial could have been for one of the many AIDS victims in Kenya and it would have gone the same.

Back to Training: A New Crop of Math/Science Teachers

After raod-trippin' with the boys, I headed down to Pre-Service training in Loitokitok for a week of intense awsomeness.

As part of the pre-service training for secondary school teachers, the trainees practice teaching in schools for a week. At the end of the school year, Kenyan teachers do not appreciate having their normal schedule disturbed in order to accommodate a group of untrained teachers. Not only are the trainees untrained in terms of their teaching, but further, they speak at these poor children with tons of enthusiasm in an accent of English that is sometimes very difficult for them to understand.

For this, and other reasons, the teaching practicum is setup by Peace Corps, and is dubbed a “model school.” This year there were three of four volunteers that did all of the organization and facilitation for the model school. Three volunteers brought students from their respective schools. In the mornings these students helped the trainees by letting the trainees teach them. Then, in the afternoon, myself and the three volunteers taught the students life skills.

We discussed the qualities that make various types of relationships positive or negative. We talked about goal setting. We also talked about HIV/AIDS facts vs. myths, and the 8-step approach to using a condom. It was very fun and rewarding working with these students for a week. There are a few of them that I miss even now. Then in the evenings we had various activities that were meant to be more recreational. All of the activities were big hits, including board/card game night, movie night, and, the session that I planned, a bridge building competition.  

For the bridge building competition, I gave them each 30 straws, 7 pieces of paper, 2 pieces of string, a hand full of tooth picks and about 4 ft of masking tape. The bridge had to be free-standing and had to span a gap that was longer than both the straws and the paper.  

We had a couple of trainees spend the night each night in order get more interaction time with the students. They were super excited about entering the competition, and they made a bridge using two trusses, each chalked full of triangles. The bridges were judged by placing an empty cup on top and measuring the amount of water poured into the cup before the bridge collapsed. The group of trainees even included an engineer, but they still came in last place!

I thought that it was rather unfortunate that the team that came in first basically made a bundle of tape, straws, and paper. Maybe I gave the groups too much tape...

These evening events went until around 10pm each day. Then the volunteers had to meet to debrief and plan for the next day, then we went to sleep at 11pm-midnight, and got up at 5:45 to do it all over again.  

Gosh it was a lot of fun! Also, it was really awesome to see the PC trainees experiment with teaching. During our model school literally no one used an interactive activity with the students, but during this model school, the students got out of their seats to participate almost every class. I feel confident that with this introduction to teaching in Kenya that these teachers will go forth and make good Peace Corps secondary school teachers.

At the end of the week I said good bye to Kelly, another PC secondary school teacher. She was an integral component of the model school planning and facilitation. She was also on the Volunteer Action Committee, representing the views of the other Peace Corps Volunteers with me. She actually has a teaching license from the States, which is rare for a PCV. She has been a mentor of mine, and she has inspired me in the classroom. I am excited for her for this change in her life. I am thinking about what I will do in a year when I go home. I hope to have applied to graduate school programs. I also know that I am invited to go ice fishing with Kelly in Minnesota, which I will definitely take her up on! 

I am excited to be here for another year though. Even though the training was not meant for me, I got practice teaching life skills to students and I got to observe other teachers lessons, all of which I will bring back to school this year.

If I do one thing for this next year, I want it to be teaching life skills.

Thanksgiving and the Boys

School ended at the start of last week. Once the term ends my school is empty so I like to find other things to do. I was happy to be able to attend Thanksgiving at a woman's condo in Nairobi with about 8 other volunteers. By the time that I arrived most of the cooking was already underway. Wanting to feel useful I offered to make the gravy. I was surprised when they handed me a package of gravy mix, but I quickly set it aside, pronouncing myself the gravy-king for the evening, as I tossed the package aside and made the gravy from scratch.

What am I thankful for? - I am thankful to the Mosiers and Rowes who taught me to cook. I am thankful for all of the teachers that I have had in my life.

After Thanksgiving we had a couple of days before we had to be in Nairobi again for our mid-service medical checkups. Wanting to get out of the city, Matt and I decided on Hell's Gate National Park as our destination. Two volunteers that we had not met before asked if they could come along with us, to which we over-enthusiastically said "YES!"

It was so nice to road-trip with the boys. Plans didn't work out as we planned, but none of us really cared. The hotel where we thought that we had bunks in the dorm room told us that they had been booked full for this night since a month ago, but it is okay, we could have slept in a tent if we had to. In the end we found a dorm room a couple of hotels down next to Lake Naivasha. It was raining, prohibiting us from hiking where we had wanted to, but that did not matter. We sat out on the porch to the dorm room and talked about some of the finer points of evolution and about the States. It turns out that one of the men was the president of the frisbee club in college and also did a lot of home brewing. Both being passions of mine in college.

When the rain stopped we went out to the lake and found a hippo, in the water, in its natural habitat, with no barrier keeping us apart. Luckily, he did not want to decrease the distance between us.

Then, the next day, we went to Hell's Gate National Park, the only park in Kenya (so I have been told), where you can walk or ride a bike through the park. We rented really unkempt mountain bikes from the park service, and spent the day riding up to groups of zebra, giraffe, and warthogs, scaring them off as we gave chase on our bikes.

In all, we rode close to 30 km on these mountain bikes, most of which had low-to-flat tires by mid-day. Towards the end of our circuit in the park we went to the park's main feature, called "the Gorge." It reminded me of one of the slot canyons entering the Grand Canyon, without the adjoining Grand Canyon.

There is no way that they would allow a tour like this one in the States. Our guide showed us how to over come each obstacle, sometimes showing us hand holds to use to skirt by pools of water on a small ledge. Other times wedging himself horizontally between the two cliff faces as he progressed toward and up over a ledge in the canyon.

I cannot imagine most tourists overcoming these obstacles, but it didn't matter for us - the boys. After two hours of canyoneering, and a day of riding bikes we mounted the matatu for the two hour journey back into Nairobi. Finishing off the night with a mango lassi and paneer from a deserted Indian restaurant.

Just us boys.

It really made me miss these interactions. Backpacking, road-tripping, and relaxing, just us boys, together, without another care in the world, a nice way to celebrate the end of a term and re-energize myself.

Population

A national population census was carried out in Kenya in August. The Daily Nation (a national newspaper) just announced in an article today that the current population of Kenya is 39 million and that the population is increasing by 1 million people per year.

This last week I have been the teacher on duty and have permitted around 8 different students to attend burials. This strikes me as being a higher rate than a similarly sized high school in America. If this many people are dying every week, and every year, how many babies are born every year to increase the total population by one million?

Kenya is probably smaller geographically than Oregon and Washington put together. Also, Kenya was rated the second or third most water poor country in the world per capita. The average Kenyan does not have access to a surplus of resources. Each generation the plot of land gets divided into two or three pieces in order to give each son an opportunity to plant food and build a house. Most of these pieces of land are now less than an acre, and agriculture is the main source of lively hood. Where do these additional 1 million Kenyans per year make their living? How will development occur and how will the income of the average Kenyan increase if their opportunity to make a living is increasing divided?

No issue stands alone. Compounding the issue of population increase is the drought, which seems to be continuing this year even though the papers reported that El Nino was coming and that the country would have a bumper harvest. Additionally, AIDS, TB, and Malaria continue to ravage peoples well being and decimate families.

What is the way forward? Aid from developed countries is not the answer, but neither is isolation. Religion is not the answer, but neither is agnosticism. Education is probably helpful, but only if is focuses heavily on discussing these country wide issues. Currently the education system does not emphasize this at all. There is a “life skills” syllabus, but there is no national test on it, which means that 95% of schools do not teach it.

If I do anything in Kenya, I need to lead debates and discussions with my students on these issues. It requires a lot of courage to discuss these issues with the students though, because they are taboo issues, especially AIDS. Around 7 percent of Kenyans have AIDS, but it is only talked about in whispers.

There are students in almost every school in Kenya that have AIDS, but most of these students do not know that they carry the disease.

By the way, did you know that more than one million babies are born each year in Kenya?

Electricity!!!

I just returned to school from over a week of traveling to help with Peace Corps training.  All the buzz around school is about the electricity that was finally connected.  Until now the boarding students have huddled around two parafin pressure lamps in the evening and early morning.  These break all the time, causing them to go off during the middle of the study periods once every two or three days.  They also require a student to prepare them for about thirty minutes prior to every session and they do not provide very even lighting for the room.  Now the florescent tubes have been installed in the classrooms and one of the tubes lights the room better than one of the pressure lamps used to.  

The principal also installed two halogen flood lamps outside of the classrooms, which helps the watchman to monitor if students are sneeking in and out of school.

I walked past the classrooms during the prepatory period last night, and was met by students who appeared like deer caught in the headlights.  Instead of the typically murmering, they were silent, and they looked as though they have been stunned.  Looking over their books, it appeared as though every word was captivating.

My guess is that, at most, one or two have electricity at home.  Most of them have mud floors at home.  This is huge for them.

It also seems to be huge for the teachers.  This morning, when I returned from administering a form 1 mathematics exam, they had clogged mine and Mr. Mutia's desks with a Sony sound system.  

In the office I had to set up a computer for them.  Among the problems were a monitor that needed to be plugged in and two power buttons that needed to be pressed.  It is so new seeing people with no computer experience and being the only person within a few kilometers who knows who to help them.  I am happy for them, but at the same time I wonder why they have a computer if nobody knows how to use it.  Thus far it seems like more of a status symbol than a helpful tool.  Hopefully they will learn.

My dream is to start a computer lab in the school for the students.  I would love to be able to teach the students how to type and use a computer.  It would definitely give them an advantage when seeking employment, and would increase their access to information after they finish secondary school.

Of course I am also very excited to have electricity.  In fact, I am writing this blog post using the electricity.  I can now charge my cell phone without dropping the battery off with the barber.  I am able to charge my ipod, and I can use the laptop computer that I bought in Nairobi back in April.  Best of all I can share educational movies that I have with my students.  An example that I am very excited about is the Planet Earth series.

Maybe I will even keep up my recent trend of writing blog posts frequently.

Farms of Loitokitok

I returned home to my host family in Loitokitok for a cup of late afternoon tea and fruit. Patrick, my 7th grade host brother is doing well. He told me that he is continuing to be ranked 1st-3rd in his class. My host father's daughters came to say hello and they told me that all of their children are doing well. Sammy, Stacy, and Kamau are just about the cutest kids.  

When I looked up from the kiswahili book that Patrick was teaching me from my eyes fell on their bok shelf, which was lined with animal carvings the last time I saw it. From left to right I looked at an a walking elephant, a rhino bucking its head, a trumpeting elephant, an empty bottle of '07 Ransom Cattrall Brothers Vineyard wine, and a tall giraffe.  

One of those items was not there last time... Continuing my gaze around the room I began to feel a bit empty myself. The simple items that I had given them were still there, including an Obama Biden bumper sticker that they had stuck to the inside of their covered porch.

Meanwhile my father told me about how Loitokitok has not had rain since the last time I was there. I remember hearing from him one year ago a similar story. That was December of 2008 and they had not had good rain since the December before that. People in this area literally survive by the rain and the last time that they were able to take in a sufficient harvest was sometime in late 2007. In 2007 they also had election related violence in which the country's food supply was burnt. I 2008 relief food was obtained but mysteriously disappeared with allegations that the minister of agriculture had sold it illegally.

This means that the whole country has been trying to survive for two years on one years yield.

In Maua it is not very visible due to the money from tea and miraa, but in Loitokitok you can see the effects. This area has many Massai who are traditionally herders, and even on to Loitokitok there were cows that had dropped dead next to the road due to the lack of water.

My family is still here though, surviving on about a hundred dollar a month pension, putting their daughter through college while at the same time their 5 acres of fields have dried up prematurely for too long. The people have no other option to plant. When they stop planting they will have no other hope to turn to.  

These people have planted four times, once every six months, weeding by hand, spraying pesticides with hand held sprayers, only to find each time that your work was for nothing.

They have heard that El Nino is coming this year, but so far there has been less rain than during a regular year of good rain. Nobody in the area knows if it has come and missed them, or if it is still coming. The people of the coast are seeing roads and bridges being washed out and would tell the people of Loitokitok that El Nino is bypassing them.

Looking towards the south you can see the reason why. Mount Kilamanjaro has attracted attention for centuries due to its' size. Most of the clouds seem to come from the south-east and dump their water on the Tanzania side of the border. It is only when all light is blocked out by pregnant clouds that substantial rain is released onto the northern side.

I continued to talk to them about the state of things while I wondered to myself if I would ever see my Kenyan family again. Gazing out the window across from where I was sitting on their couch I noticed that the covered area where they store food for their animals was completely empty. How long can they buy feed for two calves, a dairy cow, and four goats, while feeding their own mouths and the mind of their daughter in school. Mama was so happy to see me, and this time I was better able to talk to her in kiswahili than when I left, which made her even more jovial.  

These people are better off than most. There has been an upsurge in kidnappings of westerners, but what amazes me is that it has not spiked higher than it has.

As dusk was setting in I said my good byes, my host father walking me a half kilometer up the road commenting on the state of the farms along the road side. He repeatedly told me there fate is up to God and that it is not good to ask for hand outs.  

Just before he left me he conceded that it is also not good to work year after year without getting any return for the labor.

I agreed as I said good bye. Then I left him there as I walked away. Wondering to myself about where I want to apply to graduate school and what I believe the purpose of my life is.  

The Sun continued to set and I had to quicken my pace to avoid being left in total darkness.

Loitokitok - Round 2

On Saturday I came back to Loitokitok, but this time I was not a trainee - I was accompanying the new trainees!  There are 25 of them, about 2/3 math-science like me and 1/3 deaf-ed.  I got to give them this session at the start of the week comparing the Kenyan and education system.  I gave them several cards with topics (i.e. diet, books, and tests).  Each one related to the group their experience in the American educational system.  Then me and the Kenyans in the room gave them the Kenyan experience.  Below are my notes for the session.

Assignments - teachers mark notes in math/science maybe twice per three months; students given one exercise book for each subject by the school, where they put all of their notes and assignments together; assignments are not counted towards their grade in any subject (even mathematics)

Access to Information - teachers use the same book as the students; there are no computers or internet in most district schools; textbooks contain all testable material

Religion - there are always prayers (assemblies, special events, and meetings); attending religious clubs and services is mandatory, even in government schools

Hiring of Teachers - There is one central hiring body for the entire country (called Teachers' Service Commission); principal cannot hire or fire any government paid teachers; principal usually hires recent form 4 and college graduates to act as temporary teachers - these teachers usually work harder since they know that they can be fired

Diet - Students eat githeri (35% beans and 65% corn) for lunch and supper 6 days a week; Saturday they each corn flour, cabbage, and a little meat; for breakfast they eat a porridge made from corn flour, water, and sugar

Games/Clubs - Mon: Games, Tues: Clubs, Wed: Debate, Thur: Christian services, Fri: Games - ALL DAYS MANDATORY.

Tests - They come to secondary school to take the KCSE (Kenyan Certificate of Secondary Education).  In their minds, the main purpose of school is to prepare them for this test

Teacher-Student Relationships/Interaction - culture dictates that students get teachers anything they ask for (cups, chairs, and water); Very formal; information comes from teacher to student

Books - There are several on the market, but the exam is set from one book, which is produced by KLB, a governmental organisation; this is the book used to set the KCSE; KLB produces the books for all subjects; it is made to be affordable, which means it is not edited often, it is small, and there are no color illustrations; KLB is used in 90% of schools as the only text

Timetable - no time between lessons; each class has their own room, which the teachers come to when it is time; one student is in charge of keeping time and ringing the bell; there is a different order to the classes everyday

Study Habits - Boarding students are required to study from 5:30-6:30am, 7-8:30am, and 7-9:30pm everyday; all students required to attend school on Saturday and Sunday although teachers do not attend these days

Cultural Work Expectations For Teachers - they should be in staff room from 8:30-4; they do not take work home; a lot of time in the staff room is spent reading the newspaper and talking to one another

Students' Responsibilities at Home - girls find wood, bring water, cook, and clean; boys have leisure time, which they can use to study or sit in the market

syllabus - there is a national syllabus; all topics are examinable on the KCSE; teachers are expected to cover every topic

Women/Men & Boys/Girls - students are always called boys and girls; students are not called men or women; women serve food (even women teachers are usually expected to serve the males); girls always wash the classroom; girls caned on hands while boys are caned on the butt

November Rains Bring Spring

It has been almost a year since I first landed in Kenya, and now I am preparing to meet the new group of trainees as they travel to their training site in Loitokitok. In the mornings I have been hearing a vibrancy among the birds' songs that has not been present since last November. The start of the rains have come and everything is green again. There continues to be a lot of talk about El Nino, with people telling tales of last time El Nino hit the country and all of the destruction it caused. I was a bit scared by their stories, but now I am a bit disappointed by this "El Nino" - if it can even be called that. We only had "torrential" rains for maybe two days. I really think that the country needs more of this. I may be speaking too soon though, since the rain is supposed to come again in November and December.

A few days after the fiercest rains I went outside my house and found a week old puppy curled up next to my bread oven. His mother was not around, and although he as weak he was still alive. I wondered how it had landed here, but without giving it a thorough inquisition I bought it milk and started feeding it. He was so weak that the milk had to be poured into his mouth. It was all the talk around the school, "that dog is lucky to have landed at one of the few houses where it would be given milk instead of being stoned to death." I admit that buying milk for the dog made me feel guilty since there are so many humans around that would love milk. How would I have reacted if a beggar had found his way to my house?

I made a burlap bed for the dog and went to teach my classes. When I returned the dogs mother was there, and it was obvious that she was too malnourished to produce any milk for the puppy. A teacher at school told me, "if you love the child, shouldn't you also love the mother?" To which I said, "sure, but that doesn't mean that I want to feed her." After a few minutes I softened and I cooked the mother a meal of dog food (the dog food here comes as a powder. You have to mix it with boiling water and stir).

I tried to attend to the puppy again, giving it more milk, until it eventually threw it all back up due to my enthusiastic feeding regiment.

As I went to sleep I tucked the puppy into the burlap bed, and watched as the mother put her paws around it to keep it warm.

In the morning, the puppy was lying about a foot away from the mother, dead. I was disappointed, because I had been thinking about how fun it would be to have a dog, but I was also relieved because I have other things to focus my attention on besides a dog. Maybe I should have let the puppy sleep inside my house next to a sauce pot of hot water. Maybe there is nothing I could have done. I felt bad, but I dug a hole, while two of my students sung a Kimeru burial song, and that was the end of my puppy.

Since then almost all of the heavy rain clouds have faded from the sky. Even the dirt seems to be more vibrant than before, probably because of the contrast between the brown and green. The dust is definitely gone for a few days and the students are happy to be able to sit in the grass without getting muddy OR dusty.

I hope that we remain in this equilibrium for another week so that the new trainees can wake up their first morning in Nairobi to the smell of growing plants and the sounds of birds. If they miss it, at least they will get to see Kenya's second spring season in April.

A Few Photos

I am in Nairobi and I am using my access to electricity and nearby cellphone booster towers to upload a few pictures from my computer.

The first picture is one of the form four students at our school standing in front of his father's matatu. This is the most common vehicle used for public transportation. The student helps his father over the holidays by washing the vehicle and driving the route (and promptly washing it again because it is so dusty).

This is the acting deputy principal at my school, Mr. Nderitu. He lives in the hills above the school where the conditions are right for growing tea.

In August, just after the end of the term, me, Abed (left), and Martin (right) hiked to the "White Mountain." Our school is just behind the first line of ridges in the background.


Finally, here are two pictures of common building materials for homes in rural Kenya. The first home is mine. It measures approximately 10 ft. by 20 ft. The Kenyans in the village did not believe that a white person (muzungu) is able to live in a house like this. They believed that I would threaten to go home when I saw this house and demand that it be replaced by a much larger home with more amenities. I think it is nice though. It keeps the rain out most of the time, and it encourages me to spend more time outside. The bottom picture is of a more traditional style of home. This one is not quite traditional due to its tin roof, but the walls are made out of a mixture of sticks, mud, and cow dung and the floor is made of dirt.

Farewell Party for Form Four Students

The form four students are having a farewell party in about one week. They asked me to be their adviser for the preparations, and for the most part the program is similar to that of an American ceremony for a similar occasion. It will start with a service, then there will be presentations by the school clubs, followed by speeches from the PTA Representative and the chairman of the school's board. The difference is that as part of my role as adviser is to help them pick out a bull, which will be slaughtered the day of the event. We have not yet found the bull, but the process involves finding one in an animal market and then walking with the bull on a foot path cross-country to the school (up to around 15 km).

The bull is really what makes the occasion. We have to find a big healthy one. This isn't my specialty, and the students know it. Mostly my role is to be the money bearer and lead novice bull-hunter.

It is still strange to think about the places where technology has come in and the places where it has not. Everyone has a cell phone and wears a New York Yankees baseball hat (new, still with a sticker, just like my brother in America wears), but electricity is not very common. Only very rich individuals own refrigerators and then they own what Americans call a mini-fridge.  Butcheries definitely do not have a refrigerator and neither do schools. The people are very able to do without them though. On the day of the party our school cook and his two aides will butcher a cow, cook tea, cook the bull, and cook rice for around 400 people.

(Below is a picture from the wedding of Mr. Mutia that shows what a meal at a party looks like.)

Day After:

I met my students in Maua on Saturday expecting to spend the day sitting in the market until the time when the students bargained for a good bull.  Then we would end the day by driving it home. Instead, I met the students on Saturday to find that they had not made the necessary arrangements. I went home realizing that I needed to come up with a back-up plan for them in case they needed me to become the head bull diviner.  I am good friends with an animal doctor and after a phone call with him on Sunday morning I was preparing to take charge of the bull, but then one of the students called me to say that one of their fathers had agreed to sell us a mid-sized bull for the price we had budgeted for.  

I am happy that my student's pulled through without me, but then my happiness turned into slight disappointment when they told me that the father agreed to deliver the bull in the back of his Land Rover.  I have been told since that bulls can be rough on their handlers when they get separated from the herd.  Although I coveted the idea of trekking cross-country through the Kenyan bush, the Land Rover really was a blessing.  

Due to the delay, I did not have the time to go by foot anyways.  I had to head to Nairobi very early the next morning, because I was selected by my supervisor in Peace Corps to help plan the training for the new group of secondary school teachers that will come in November.  I will be busy in Nairobi, until Saturday morning, at which point I will rush back to Athiru to eat the bull that I picked out of the herd with my students.  Together we will listen to speeches by the PTA, board of governors, and the principal.  Then the deputy will give prizes to the students who performed the best and those who were active in leading the school.

Then on the 20th the form fours will begin their KCSE.  Each day for two and a half weeks they will take two 1.5-2.5 hour tests.  Then they will leave the school and wait at home for over two months before they receive their scores.

The Hard and the Soft

Okay. Lots of stuff all mixed together. I've started doing yoga. The book that I have is called "Power Yoga" and is the official yoga program of the New York Runner's Club. The author makes reference to that olde dichotomy, the yin and the yang, or the hard and the soft. What she was referencing on the literal level is that you have to be flexible in order to be strong, or in order to actually use your strength. Of course, similar lines of reasoning can be applied in other situations. All of that is only vaguely related to what I will talk about in this post, but you'll see why that title came to mind.

First, The Soft:

I defied all sorts of cultural norms with regards to sexuality on Sunday. Me, a young bachelor, had invited two of my Kenyan friends, who happen to be married, over to my house for Sunday lunch. In preparation I went down to the milk buying center, bought some milk, and made some poor quality mozzarella. All of this all by myself, without the help of a woman! Then I got a couple of students to help me build a fire and make the bread and pizza dough. Then we chopped veggies, made sauce, and prepared for our guests. The guests came in their Sunday best and we feasted! My recipe just keep improving, and they were very satisfied, although I did require a lot of steering by the others about how to treat guests. I continued to work cooking even though they were standing. I cooked tea, but didn't bring the sugar, and then didn't bring the spoon for the sugar. I did offer them water for drinking before they were able to ask for it. Both the guests and the students were very appreciative, despite the fact that this may have been the first or second time in their lives that these 14 year old boys had cooked. I asked a 20 year old male assistant teacher to cook with me a couple of weeks ago and he told me that it was the first time he had ever cooked a meal! It feels really good to share the soft side of myself with Kenyans and to help them open up their soft selves also.


Then, The Hard:

Later that night, 15 minutes after finishing a long phone conversation with a friend from America, I was laying in bed and heard three loud bangs, like someone hitting a piece of wood. Then 30 seconds later one louder bang that sounded like something hard hitting something soft.

I pulled on my trousers, debated whether or not to take my wooden cudgel (decided against it), and rushed out of my house towards the screaming noises in the dark. The boys were all standing around outside yelling at each other looking upset, and piece by piece I found out that one student had been making noise (for debated reasons). The self-appointed asst. dorm captain had responded by first telling the boy to be quite and then beating the boy with a belt - the three whacks. In retaliation the boy had grabbed a timber, about the size of a 2x4 and had whacked the student in the back of the skull, causing the asst. dorm captain to get pretty loopy to the point that he was unable to walk.

By the time that I reached them, a group of students had instinctively decided to rush him off to the hospital. Unfortunately, their instincts over powered their logic and they didn't tell me or take any money. At night, the hospital is a 4 km walk and then a 4 km. taxi drive. From sampling different hysterical students knowledge there seemed to be a group of about 15 of them somewhere in between our school and the hospital at, by now, midnight. The students are not supposed to have cell phones, but they do have them, and after another half hour I coerced them into giving me the number of one of the students in the hospital party. By this time I had called the teacher on duty, who also has a Land Rover, and he was on his way to help them. In Kenyan emergency rooms they wont treat you if you do not pay first, so these students were not going to get very far without our help. Thankfully the teacher was able to find them, and front the money and the student got stitches.

By 3:15am when they had dropped back to school, I had counseled the hitter, quieted the students, and made sure that the hitter had protection from the others. So things were quite until 8:00am when I gave them a riveting speech about being your brother's keep - even referencing the bible. The situation had escalated over the course of 15 minutes, while 50+ male boarders sat around and watched first one student whip another, and then the other retaliate. It was only after the retaliation that they started becoming upset and restraining the fighters.

All over the world people want to punish each other with physical violence. It is not just the culture of this one school, American schools have guns, drugs, and fist fights also. I think that counseling is an under nourished aspect of the educational system everywhere. That being said, here it is still normal in rural places for students, children, wives, and animals to be punished with physical violence. Caning is officially illegal in the schools, but if I tell one of my student's parents that his child misbehaved he will tell me to give him a good caning. Most teachers oblige and do give the students' canings, simultaneously telling me how much "better" the canings used to be when they were in school, back when men were men, and the moral fabric of the villages was upheld.


Okay, here's how all of this relates to yoga and The Hard and The Soft. Now, we think that by punishing the body we are being very hard and strong, but maybe by learning to be soft and pliable through challenging our views we will be able to achieve a different sort of strength. I don't think that cooking is exactly the answer... but it probably wont hurt.

K.C.S.E.

On October 21st the fourth year students begin their final exam of secondary school. It is also the only exam that they have taken in secondary school that will matter after they leave. Grades do not matter, clubs and responsibilities only matter a microscopic amount, and essays cannot help them. This is It for them. The exam takes about a month, with two papers each day. Needless to say, they feel it coming. Worse, it is not just my school, but every form 4 student in Kenya will be taking the same exam at the exact same time. All of the students appear to me to have turned into ticking time-bombs by this point. Some are so on edge that are are creating discipline problems, others are studying so long and furiously that I am worried them will lose it before exam time, and a few of them have become so mellow and lost emotionally that the emotional explosion wont happen until they leave school.

In my 8 student form 4 physics class I have all of the three types. Two of the students were sent home from breaking into the principal's office. Two of the students are super focused, and 4 are unable to pay attention even when I am lecturing them about paying attention. It saddens me to follow their gazes out the window and realize that they are staring disinterestedly at nothing.

I feel for them. I want them to see other possibilities for success, or to put there time spent in secondary school into a broader context: they are part of literate Kenya. They have more access to information than most Kenyans, and even though they wont be able to go to college, they are helping - they are stepping Kenya in a better direction than if they had not gone to school. I understand though that it is difficult for them to see this. Someone who goes to college will earn around 20000-35000 Kenya shillings a month as a starting teacher and someone who does not go to college will likely earn 2, 3, 4 thousand shillings a month (if they are able to find employment). Some will go to polytechnics and learn to be a carpenter or mechanic, and others who have connections will be employed earning decent livings. In perspective, food for one person for one month if you buy it all is about 1000 for a very cheap, entirely local food diet.

So most of them are trying to get into that upper echelon. They have proposed that we do 4 labs per week for the next month in addition to our normal lessons where we are revising past exams. I am happy that they are excited about practicals, but wish that their enthusiasm began in a different context.

The other students do not seem to understand what the form 4's are going through exactly. They are acting like little siblings, displaying superficial understanding, but going too far with their attempts at empathy or picking fights.

The teachers have been doing a good job at keeping the younger brothers and sisters busy though. With the support of the other teachers we found new life for the debating club. The first debate of the term was yesterday and I witnessed the form 1's versus the form 2's have an energetic debate about whether or not it is better to educate boys or girls. Students have also been starting to respond to my offers to help them with extra curricular activities. One group wants to try building a mini-biogas digester. Another group wants to try making pipes out of hollowed out trees (I don't yet understand exactly why, but I am happy to help). The students also just found out a few days ago that I have been doing yoga. I am very excited to introduce yoga (and eastern tradition in general), but first I want to feel more confident with my own ability and I want to get over my feelings of embarrassment about showing the students that I have a book full of pictures of a woman in spandex.

The best part of the energy of this term is that the principal has been around the school a lot, which has helped inspire the other teachers to be around school more. Although I sympathize with the form 4's, I have been feeling very happy to be around the school and interacting with the students.

Market Day - Chicken For Sale

While I was away in Mombasa a student called me to tell me that one of my chickens died, and that he thought the rest were going to die. There was also something in there about eating them that didn't really come through over the phone. I was a little upset, but not enough to ruin my day. I got back to my house yesterday pleasantly surprised to see that I still had 4 chickens left, although one had a limp. I was told that the full story about the other chickens was that one died outright, then two other looked very sick, so they were eaten. This worries me a little bit, because i could imagine a situation in which my friend the animal doctor could have been called and could have given them medicine, but oh well, that didn't happen. So then I had two roosters and two hens, one rooster with a limp. Who knows how it got that limp, I heard somewhere that they also wanted to eat that one, but thankfully they refrained because they knew that someone would tell on them. The healthy rooster was picking on the injured one and chickens are not monogomous anyways, so I decided to take the rooster to the market to sell it.

First a kid that had been picking kale with one of my students offered me 300 KSH for it, but this chicken was worth at least 400 KSH (probably more). Then with the help of my student I shackled the chickens legs with a piece of banana tree twine (the bark of the banana tree is peeled and then used to bind chickens, vegetables, and fix leaky water pipes) and set off for the market. Just outside of the school gate another man offered me 300 KSH for the chicken, but I countered with 600 KSH. I had been briefed on how to bargain from the sellers perspective by this point, and although I felt a little silly saying 600 KSH, which is more than I have ever paid for a chicken, I did it anyways. It worked well enough to get him up to 400 KSH, but I decided to try for 450 KSH and he didn't budge. So on we went. A friend of mine asked me how much it was, but then when I told her 450 KSH she told me she didn't have the money. After walking away I felt bad, and told the student that we should go back and give it to her, but he thought that we should try to get 450 and if we couldn't that we should go back. I agreed, and we walked up through the market, although we continued past the open air market because the student wanted to try selling it to a hotel he knows buys chickens. On the way some old men asked about the chicken, and we went through the bargaining process again, but they stopped too low and I told them "wazee, unacheza," in a joking tone. Translated into English this means, "old men, you are playing," which they appreciated hearing coming from a mzungu (white person) and so they laughed, and then we continuted to the hotel.

Here's how the final debate over the price of this chickens life went:
"Bwana, untaka kuku?" - sir, do you want a chicken?
"ladba, unataka bei gani?" - maybe, what is the price?
"mia sita" - 600
laugh from the shopkeeper. "hapana. Nitalipa mita tatu na hamsini" - no. I will buy it for 350
"bwana, kuku hi ni kubwa, na mimi hupatia chakula katika jioni. Kwa hivyo sasa tumbo yeye is empty (whoops, I used a little enlglish because I didn't remember empty)" - sir, this chicken is big and I feed it in the evening so it's stomach is empty (people selling chickens usually force feed them right before they try to sell them)
"400."
"450. Mimi patia chakula nzuri, na Kenbro ni kuku nzuri." - 450, I give the chicken good food, and Kenbro chickens are very good.
"sawa. 450, na kama utakua kuku wengine, leta hapa, nitanunua." - fine. 450 and if you grow more chickens bring them here, I will buy them.

So my chickens life was worth 450 KSH. Not bad for my first sale ever. Maybe the students can start raising chickens at the school and supply this guy.

Contrasts

Okay, some of you know that I took a two week vacation to the US recently. A common question that people ask is, "how is the transition?" - "is it difficult?" My standard answer is "not really," but I don't think that this answer is very descriptive. Here are a few of the situations that I found myself adjusting.

I was in transit from Nairobi to San Francisco for 20+ hours and the extent of my communication with people in a non-service position was "hello" to a couple of people sitting next to me on the plane. After that we put on our headphones and didn't say another word the entire flight. In Kenya I cannot sit next to someone for more than five or ten minutes without us casually chit-chating. I cannot walk through a town for more than 3 minutes without someone saying hello to me.

The first night in America, I was driving up from SFO with Julia and we stopped at a hotel for the night. It was around 10 or 11pm, I was half asleep, and she said she was going out to the car to get something. My response was, "what, this late? is it safe? do you want me to get up and go with you?" Okay, so we were in a hotel compound, and the car was only like 50 yards away. After acclimatizing to America I realized that going out to the car was a perfectly normal thing for people to do at night. In Kenya I only walk around the village after 8pm if I someone is walking with me, and usually they are carrying some sort of stick.

Americans are rich. It took me going home to realize just how much this is true. Okay, I will admit it, I am rich. I have a computer, a digital camera, money in the bank, and I get enough money each month to buy food. Oh, and I have an ipod nano. At the back of my mind all of this is outweighed by my student loans that I will have to repay someday, but then again I was able to get loans to go to school. Credit is so much more available in America. Even if a Kenyan has a computer and a digital camera, the American doesn't usually have the same deep attachment to that item that the Kenyan does.

In Kenya if seeds are sown they will grow (provided they have sufficient water). Here I don't have to wait until March or April to think about my garden. Most people plant just before the two rainy seasons, but for a small garden that can be watered by hand, I can plant anytime.

In America if I tried to bargain for a textbook the shop keeper would look at me funny. Here it seems nearly impossible to get away from bargaining. I even have to bargain if I want to buy something from a good friend.

America has so many more choices for beer, wine, food, and spices. Kenya has 6-7 choices for beer, Guiness and 6 that come from the same company. All of them from East African Breweries are lagers and are slightly better than Budweiser. I don't really mind the limited choices. I don't need any of those things to be happy. As long as I have a balanced diet in terms of the nutrients, the flavor doesn't matter too much. I did adapt back to all the American flavors very readily though.

All in all, adapting was not too difficult. The only other contrast is that in America I have family and very close friends, while in Kenya I have a few Kenyan friends that I really trust but we don't go back as far and our cultures are very different. This one is the hardest for me to adapt to. I feel so fortunate though that I got to visit my family and friends in America. I feel energized because I have seen that they are all doing well and so i am no longer anxious about being away from them for another year and 4 months.

Mr. Toinya

I mentioned that Mr. Toinya left towards the start of this term, which was about two months ago now. Shortly after he left we exchanged one or two calls, promising to meet eachother to talk and catch up, but neither of us really followed through. Then, the other day I ran into him in Maua. He was getting a letter typeset at a local computer shop, and I was picking up my cell phone battery.

He told me all about his new school, and here's the run down:

It is maybe two years old, and it has one classroom of its own. The rest is rented (for free) from the neighboring primary school. This is the situation all accross Kenya. The primary schools are much older than the secondary schools, so they all have classrooms and big sports fields. Even with my school, the land was donated by the primary school, and the soccer field that we use belongs to them. So Mr. Toinya keeps very busy running to Nairobi for 4 days and then back to talk to the secretaries for the member of parliment for our area, then back to talk to the parents of his school, all in the hopes that somehow they will find funds to construct more classrooms and a laboratory. That is what the letter was for when I ran into him, and then after I said hi to him, he rushed me along with him to the public planning office to deliver the letter for materials estimates and the official stamp of approval. Then we went to sit in a cafe to have lunch so that he could explain all of this to me.

He also told me, that his students understand the struggles of the school, and are very dedicated to coming early to school and going home late in the home that spending an extra half hour with their books will make them more successful students. And the issue of funding does not really stop at that infrastructure; Mr. Toinya, the principal, is the only official employee of the government in this government school. All six of the teachers are recent graduates of secondary school themselves, and are paid directly by the parents of the school. I think that I have mentioned that these teachers are usually the hardest working, which I think is because they can be fired very easily, but why should those who are paid the least, and have no experience as teachers work the most?

Mr. Toinya hopes that his consistent moving about will put enough pressure on the government to make some foreseeable change, but what about the other principals that don't spend as much time running around trying to seek funding for their schools? Or what about the school that in his absence is run by people who themselves graduated from secondary school within the past two years?

These are the struggles that I hear about not only from Mr. Toinya, but from almost all of the new days schools in Kenya. I don't know what the answer is, or what the effect will be. Hopefully these students will not lose hope and will see the value of sending their own children to schools. Maybe by that time these issues will be sorted out. In my eyes, which generation really has the right to feel like pioneers. I think that all generations have that right and obligation. We all want to change our world and improve on our parents' world. I hope that this generation of Kenyans can hear stories from their grandparents about how life used to be, and come to the conclusion that education, even if it has problems is improving their lives. I hope that it is true... I hope that their lives are improving, and I hope that their children will be born into a better world. With Somalia so close by, it is easy to think that if a generation here in Kenya gives up hope in education and reason the result could be ugly.

Volleyball

Let me admit something here that I have not admitted around my school: I don't know how to play volleyball (very well). I know, it seems like a silly thing to keep secret, but when you are the girls' volleyball coach it is sometimes necessary. By the end of the season I learned some lessons from my embarassing mistakes. For instance, you can't just tell girls to substitute with those on the field, you actually have to get the referees approval first. Not only that, but the substitute has to come from a specific section of the sidelines, and the player coming off has to return to a certain place.

My time on the sidelines was filled with whispering small admitions to a few trusted students and asking them about the rules. Despite the incompetance of their coach, our team still beat the teams of the 5 other schools in our zone and came in first place. This icluded a very well organized team from a distinguished all girls school. Their school is around 20 years old, has uniforms, and coaches that know the rules. They even have set plays. In contrast our students does not have uniforms, the school is only 5 years old, and lets face it, their coach isn't the best volleyballer.

This performance in zonals qualified them for districts, where unfortunately, they were beaten in the first round. They definitely did not play as well in districts as they had before, and some say that this was an intentional protest because I did not let "their boyfriends" come to watch them play. I think that it is true that they would have been more enthusisatic if more students were there to cheer them on, but I don't know how intentionally the consequence followed from my actions.

I was proud of them either way. It really didn't take much for them to do so well either. All they had to was have somebody to shoo away the boys. I found this to be the most infurriating behavior on the part of the boys. They would tell me that the girls were not good enough to play by themselves, and that the boys must be allowed to practice with them so that they wouldn't look so bad. After a few weeks of keeping the boys away pitch and introducing drills, the boys began to realize that I was right and they began to become proud of their sisters (or girlfriends).

I think if the other coaches had done as much for their teams, the other teams would have performed better also. As it is, most of the coaches watched their teams only play one or two times, but they sure were quick to chastize the players after the games.

I try to remind myself that everybody wants happiness in their life. If somebody ignores another, it is because they don't see how paying attention will bring them happiness. I also remind myself that the difference in America is not usually that the coaches are more enlightened, but that their supervisors can fire them.

How neat it would be to live in a society where people valued nurturing others above money. It is easy for me to say since I don't really have to worry about money. I don't really have a lot, in fact I owe quite a bit to the banks because of college, but I have everything that I need. 70 percent of Kenyans live on less than an American dollar a day. It must create a very different psychology to grow up seeing this all around you, and maybe come from one of these families yourself, and then find yourself with a regular salary.

This is not to say that my views are entirely different from all of the teachers. Mr. Mutia really shows his nurturing concern about the students and the school's welfare. Mr. Toiyna, the former deputy, was another example. I met with him recently and he is trying very hard to help his new school, which I will talk about more in another post. I know that the others shine in their own ways also. Maybe I just don't see it as much, because my life revolves around the school, where as they have their own children and seperate businesses in addition to being teachers.

I think that the more proud we become of the school though, the mroe energy we will put into it. Maybe the success of the girls' volleyball team can help us move in that direction.

Interior Shots of Classroom + My House

All of the classrooms at my school say 'silent' above the door. As far as I can tell, it is meant to deter students from talking during their prep time. It certainly doesn't accomplish its intended purpose.




The other picture shows my sitting room. My house contains three rooms that are this size. To the rigt is my bedroom and to the left is my kitchen. On the floor I am displaying my collection of bottle tops. The class one students at the next door primary school collected these for me and I spent 4 days with the nursery class teaching them about cleaning and playing with water. We had a good time together. I don't think that there is any way that I will be able to use all of these bottle tops as Go pieces, so I will return one day and make shaker instruments with them.

Wedding of James and Winnie Mutia

This is one of the teachers at my school on his wedding day. I volunteered to be his wedding photographer, which was a new experience and kind of fun. His wedding was very colorful, and I have been told that it was a "Nairobi wedding." Almost all weddings in Kenya are Christian weddings, but the difference with a Nairobi wedding is just the size and the grandeur.

He teaches agriculture and biology, and is a very understanding man.

Oven Picture

Here I am with a few of the students that dedicated the most time to helping me with the oven.

I have received requests for more information about my oven project. In response I will include a few pictures that look at the structural aspects of the oven, and an updated edition of the article.


Thomas Mosier
28 May 09
Not long after I arrived at site, I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I build a 'cavern' from this gravel and that cement, and then light a fire inside, do you think that it will explode?” After receiving enough looks of doubt, I instead began to ask if the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks. It was clear that the Kenyans working with me on the project had gaps in their conceptualizations of what I was doing, but they answered all of my questions as best they could and together we succeeded in builing a bread oven.

By the time I pulled the first batch of pizza and bread out of the oven, I had become confident that most of the holes in the understanding had been filled. Seeing the oven made it easy to grasp the concepts involved, especially when explaining thermal physics to my form 2 class. Now that the class has smelled the fresh bread, they perk right up at the mention of heat transfer or applications of the topic we are learning. They have even begun telling me that they are going to build their own ovens, at which point I perk right up and we talk about how to turn this interest into a science congress project.

The teachers have also been watching to understand how the oven works. Following a recent parents' day, I invited the teachers to a pizza party outside of my house. In preparation, Matt Palma and I cooked 8 pizzas and 5 loaves of bread. What pleased me about this party was that it marked one of the first times since I have come to the school that the teachers and staff were all together, enjoying each others company outside of the staff room. The male teachers even asked me to teach them to cook, which made all of the women smile with a mixture of approval and skepticism. In response to which, one male teacher said, “By the way, it is good to gain knowledge about all topics.” His words did more to spread my gospel than my words ever could.

The project is not finished - I am learning as much about building wood ovens and community as my students are. There are changes that the students and I will make to the design, and by the time science congress roles around, maybe the we will have even more ideas. Maybe by then, there will even be some male teachers who are artisan bakers. Matt Palma is hoping that we can invent a pizza delivery system so that I can put a pizza on a matatu and get it to him while it is still hot. I don't think there is any way that it could make it that far without an armed guard, but we all have a right to dream. Even if we can't send you a pizza, you are always still welcome to come to the source and bake it yourself.

Moles

The scouts at my school have planted kale. It is a very sizable plot, at about 15 ft by 80, with still more sprouts to be planted. Of course, the nice soft soil attracted some moles and the scouts had to figure out what to do about it. From my chair in front of my house I could hear them arguing about whether or not they could flush it out with water. One said, "it is close to this place" and then another jumped over the ditch and foliage separating me from them and informed me of the state of the situation, asking for my opinion as to whether or not they would be able to route him out. I told them that I didn't think so, and went back to reading the newspaper only to hear one of them squeal with excitement 5 minutes later. One of them jumped back over to ditch to tell me to come look.

There it was, the first real-live mole that I have ever seen. I remember my father borrowing a trap from the neighbor as a kid, but I didn't really like the idea of killing animals and never stuck around to help discard of the mole. This one was ugly, and they made sure to point out its teeth and then let it run a round a bit. If it wasn't so ugly, its activities would have seemed rather cute. It found a banana leaf laying on the ground and ran underneath, beginning to dig another hole.

Finally the students started playing with it a little too much for my taste and I brought them the panga to finish 'er off. Much to my surprise they did not chop it in two, but instead used the broad side to club it to death - what experienced scouts.

Mid-Term Week: A Break From Routine

This week we have been having mid-term examinations, which is a nice break from the usual routine, at least until it comes time to grading. I had a very nice day yesterday visiting with my newly wed teacher and his wife. They have a very nice apartment in Maua town, complete with electricity and running water. I didn't peek inside of the bathroom, but I suspect that they even have a shower.

That day their new furniture was being delivered, and when I arrived they had only one sofa and a computer. The furniture did not draw my attention, but what was unavoidable was listening to, and subsequentally watching, the video playing on the computer. It was some sort of pop band made up of singing boys with bleached hair. I guess they are called, “West Life,” but they might as well have been the Backstreet Boys or New Kids On the Block. These videos are so popular here. Well correction, there are like three of these videos that are popular here. They are played in the nice matatus, in the restaurants, and the privacy of peoples own homes it seems. Each of these videos features music that is unchanging from song to song and they are only an hour long, unless played on repeat, which always happens. For me, all I can think about while listening to them is the rate of brain decay during the experience, but for the people who play them, they must represent something more. I haven't brought up the subject yet, but I imagine it has something to due with the rapid changes that are taking place in Kenya. I certainly cannot imagine what it must be like for the 60 year olds who have lived through the Mau Mau revolution, through the years of Moi, and now walk around in villages that still do not have electricity, but where each person has their own cell phone. The experience of growing up with dirt floors and an economy with a daily event horizon contrasted with now having running water and a microwave must implant some values that differ from my own. I find it helpful to remember this when I don't understand someone's decision. It is not that they are Kenyan and I am American. It is not that Kenyans are unable to learn or appreciate mathematics, or that Americans are unable to relax and enjoy the moment. It is just that we have grown up so differently.

Then again, some things are the same. Later that day, I returned to school and found very many teachers still around a few hours after all of the teachers have usually departed. They told me that the form 4's had gone out on a field trip to watch a traveling play, but that they hadn't returned on time. When they did return, a few of the students were so drunk that when told to enter their classroom, they ran into the wall instead of making it through the door. There were even a few girls that were drunk, which is totally unacceptable in the culture here. Thankfully our BOG teachers (remember, they just finished secondary school and get hired by the schools directly to act as assistant teachers) had all decided to help control and monitor the students until the principal arrived. The principal was thoroughly upset for being called to school at 7:30pm, and upon arrival gave the two drunkest students a thorough slapping before leading them to the local police station.

I haven't figured out what to make of this situation yet. This is the sort of situation that happens in America also. What is maybe different are the techniques used for mitigating it. I think that power is less overtly forceful in America. The cops are ready to tackle someone, but they prefer to cuff you, put you in the drunk tank, and give you a fine in the morning. I think that the fate of these students was to get beaten a little while they were drunk, put in a cell at the police post, and then caned again in the morning.

In addition, I think that they will both be kicked out of school. I don't know exactly how I feel about this. On the one hand, that behavior is unacceptable and in conjunction with their previous offenses, they have shown that they have not fully reformed. Whether or not our school is capable of helping them reform I am not sure. Furthermore, what I want to think about a little bit is whether Kenya is better off to have them loitering outside of school, or causing trouble in school. They will disrupt people both places, but I tend to think that I will fear these boys more now that they are not trying to work towards a goal. I fear that their lives will involve more drinking and other deviant behaviors. At the same time, it is not fair for them to pull others down.

What makes the situation more regrettable is that one of the two was generally nice to me, and was one of 7 students in my form 3 physics class. He had shown me that he was capable of performing in physics and I wish that he had shown that he was also capable of making better choices.

Real. Live. Able to Shock You and Kill You. It's Electricity!

Yesterday power came to our school. Well, so far power lines have come to our school. I have heard that there was some sort of mix up in the office, we paid for 3-phase power but they only brought the lines for 1-phase. The presence of the electrical company brought a great energy to the school. The workers on these civic improvement projects must be some of the most warmly greeted workers in all of Africa.

As 8 workers drug the poles over the ground, from the truck to their resting place, they sang and even seemed to have a bounce in their step that is not usually present with construction workers. 8 men, working in unison, being watched and admired by villages day after day. I think that the singing and the bounce is proof of the power of indirect positive reinforcement.

Concurrently, another man dug a hole by hand about 6 feet deep in preparation for the pole's arrival. After all of the poles were erected, a man with spiked boots and a hand auger climbed each one to install guide wires and supports for the lines.

The sun was bright, but the day was not too hot. Even if they didn't turn on the lights, their presence was definitely felt. Teachers stopped complaining about the lack of staples and the school not paying for their daily lunch. Instead, they talked about the changes that electricity would bring. Students forgot about their mid-term exams during their breaks in order to consult each other and me about how electricity works. I quit worrying about the strength of the debate club and got really excited telling the students about how much voltage it takes for electricty to conduct through air and about how a ground (or "Earth-wire") works.

Birthday in Kenya

Birthdays aren't celebrated in Kenya. When you tell people about the concept, they tell you that birthdays are for the rich. It is easy to understand why, if you think about birthdays most people think of cakes and presents. If you see someone in a movie receiving a computer or a car for their birthday, you might say to yourself that a birthday is a luxury of the rich. More problematic though is that the movie depiction is often not far off from the truth. As a child I would become excited about what presents I thought I might get. Of course it is not necessary to see birthdays this way and instead they can be a nice excuse to remember friends. Should we need an excuse to visit friends though? No, not really. I would prefer it if we all agreed to remember our interrelatedness for its own sake, without excuses. So let's just do that instead. If someone forgets your birthday, but invites you to dinner two weeks later just to be with you, let's be more honored than if they had used our birthday as a crutch.

Instead of celebrating that I was one year closer to death, on my birthday I was more excited that I obtained a cow's stomach from the butcher. I celebrated as I hung it from the rafter, and I even gave the local stray dog some bits since I appreciate having him around. I celebrated the presence of the stomach because I am hoping to be able to use the naturally occurring rennet inside of it to make mozzarella cheese.

As a debut, I am inviting the teachers over this weekend. In addition to mozarella they will also learn what pizza is. They don't know it is my birthday, although admittedly me being one year closer to death was the reason that I chose this weekend to have them over.

Locally grown rosemary will one of the guests of honor at this party, as we kick off my mission to make food in our village that is currently only available in ritzy parts of Nairobi.

Striking Season

Today in the staff room a teacher mentioned that two well established secondary schools in the area went on strike over the weekend. At one school a student pastor was suspended and the other students struck out of solidarity. The result was that the entire student body was suspended. I am not sure of the cause at the other school, but the school's next door neighbor happens to be the police station and they were kept in school under the station's watchful eye.

This was kind of funny to me since my own school had an averted strike of its own just about two weeks ago, and upon asking the teacher it seems that June is striking month in the Kenyan school calendar. He was not able to explain this phenomenon to me, except that once one school strikes over an issue it inspires the others to follow suit.

My personal experience took place on a Friday, and as far as I know, it was the first in the area. Maybe it inspired the others, what leaders we are. It was about 6pm when I heard that the students were refusing to eat the githeri. They were claiming that it had been laced with lamp oil in order to dull their sexual excitability. I of course jumped right up for a bowl, and the githeri was as good as it ever is inside of the school. There were not any rocks in this bowl, which is my biggest criteria for grading. I absolutely do not think that the school intentionally put lamp oil in it, but there are always slight off flavors in the githeri from bugs that have been feasting on the corn only to find themselves part of the feast or from dirt. Who knows why they thought that this githeri was any different than normal. After refusing to eat, the principal was called, and at about the time that he arrived I was at the shop next door buying milk. When I was returning by the back way I heard shouting and rocks, which caused me to back track and go to the front gate to see what was happening. By the point that I reached the front gate the principal was standing next to the flag pole shouting and all of the students were silenced. From talking to the neighbors it seems that a few students started throwing rocks as he drove up in his car. There was even a girl studying in class that got hit and began to bleed as a rock broke through a classroom window. The rest of the rocks seem to have been thrown at the iron roofing. Who knows what they were trying to accomplish. They were then quieted down. I think that the principal handled the situation well. He told them about the proper channels for voicing concerns and about the struggles of the school. He also told them about the privileges that they had just sacrificed by committing this act. It was decided that really there were only a few instigators that were very dangerous. They were dealt with by the police and we all went to sleep. Since then we haven't had a problem.

Bread Oven - Article for the Kenya Peace Corps Newsletter

My supervisor with Peace Corps approached me about a month ago to write an article for the Peace Corps Newsletter about the bread oven that I have constructed. Below is a preliminary piece, which I will edit and repost as it evolves. I haven't decided if the scope is too wide or if it is appropriate for the newsletter, but I thought that I would post it here. You can read it and give me feedback.



Thomas Mosier
Newsletter Article – Bread Oven

22 June 09 - v. 4

Not long after I arrived at site I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I light a fire inside of a cavern made from this gravel and that cement, do you think it will explode?” Eventually this evolved into, “do the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks?” It wasn't much later that I had drawn up a design for the cavern and gotten one of the teachers at my school to help me source bricks from Nairobi. I had only been at site for a couple weeks and already we were beginning to build a bread oven.

The idea of building a bread oven arose from a friend in college who had built a portable pizza oven. On weekends he would wheel it around campus and invite students to join him to make pizza from scratch. I think that for him, he was teaching those American students about the processes that go into food production, from plant to pizza. It seemed to me that Kenyans already know where their food comes from and that this type of instruction would not be needed. What seemed more applicable to my situation was that he was also socializing and sharing his interests with others. In addition, as a physics teacher my oven would be a tool for teaching the students about heat transfer and thermal expansion.

In physics I have been able to use it as an example during lessons on thermal physics. We have also used the design process as a template for a competition that I held in class where I formed groups and asked the groups to design tools or components of a house that would make use of our knowledge of thermal physics. Many of the groups responded to the assignment by giving me detailed descriptions of how they would design their dream house, with an emphasis on the aspects that pertain to the physics we are learning. A few groups even came up with original methods for heating water, including placing a network of pipes inside of the schools concrete jiko or designing a roof so that the mabauti focus the light on a container of water.

The students who have had these ideas have seen that I have been able to build an oven and have begun to ask me if we can try building their ideas to see how they work and possibly submit them for the science congress. They have even told me that they want to build their own ovens now, at which point I get even more excited and tell them that I would like to build more test ovens to see how changing the shape and building materials affects the usability of the oven.

In this way, the oven has helped me bond with not only the students who helped build it, but also with students who see me baking foreign foods such as pizza or sourdough bread. The teachers have also been watching to understand how it works and following a recent parents' day I invited them all to a pizza party outside of my house. At the party they talked, ate, and asked questions. Even the more conservative male teachers said that they wanted to learn how to bake, which made all of the women smile and laugh with a mixture of approval and skepticism.

A frequent question is whether or not the oven can be used to make money, and I honestly do not know. I have heard that there is an orphanage group baking fried bread balls nearby, and if they can make a profit on those it seems feasible that we could make a profit also. One prohibitive aspect was the cost of the bricks. If my students try building ovens with local materials and are successful, their is a greater likelihood that similar ovens can be profitable. Regardless of the answer, as a teacher and someone who wants to share my interests and my culture with my community, the bread oven was a good investment.





10 June 2009 - v. 3

Not long after I arrived at site I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I light a fire inside of a cavern made from this gravel and that cement, do you think it will explode?” Eventually this evolved into, “do the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks?” It wasn't much later that I had drawn up a design for the cavern and gotten one of the teachers at my school to help me source bricks from Nairobi. I had only been at site for a couple weeks and already we were beginning to build a bread oven.

The idea of building a bread oven arose from a friend in college who had built a portable pizza oven. On weekends he would wheel it around campus and invite students to join him to make pizza from scratch. I think that for him, he was teaching those American students about the processes that go into food production, from plant to pizza. It seemed to me that Kenyans already know where their food comes from and that this type of instruction would not be needed. What seemed more applicable to my situation was that he was also socializing and sharing his interests with others. In addition, as a physics teacher I could justify the oven as a demonstration in thermal physics and a practical experience in thinking about the thought process of turning a concept into a reality.

A while after the oven was completed, a Kenyan friend complained to me that the children these days are growing up without knowing calabashes or cooking pots, the traditional tools for cooking and eating. The friend from college and his oven came back to me, and I realized that our situations have similarities. Both groups are evolving, and in the process appear to be losing knowledge of the past. My oven, I realized, could be a vehicle for showing that luxury can be synthesized from within one's own region. In addition to pizza and bread, for instance, our communities in Kenya can create mozzarella cheese from a cow's stomach and milk. They can also grow spices such as oregano, dill, lemon grass, sage, and rosemary, right here and use them to make dill pickles or “very sweet” soups.

If they become excited about my synthesis of tradition and locally available resources and I begin to ask them about their traditions, maybe they will begin to willingly ask their parents. Maybe a few will learn more about calabashes and cooking pots. Even if they do not catch this enthusiasm, it still makes me smile when people ask me for my bread recipe in addition to a watch from America.

The New Term Brings Changes

The new term is well under way. A highlight has been the presence of a new assistant teacher (helping me and the math teacher) and a new full time teacher. The new full time teacher is a "sportsman," not a "Sportsman," which is a popular cigarette. In one day he was able to help us revitalize the enthusiasm for sports at our school. His secret: intramural competitions. For the next week we are putting clubs on hold to give all attention to rehydrating the program.

As soon as clubs return I hope to give more time to the solid establishment of our debate club. Last semester it lacked continuity. Another project of mine is the introduction of the board game Go into the students consciousness. If you haven't heard of it, wikipedia has a nice article. A few of my house mates at Reed were really into it. It is considered to be about as strategically complex as chess, but there are fewer pieces required. All you need are stones of two different colors. You need a couple hundred just for one set, so with the help of my local kiosk mama I recruited the local primary school students to collect bottle tops for me. Glass bottles are the dominant means of soda transportation and the caps have made the roads here look like they are made out of skittles. I asked about 150 students, and much to my surprise received at least 2 thousand. Now they have to be cleaned, but thankfully labor is cheap. The nursery class will be completely happy to help if I give them a big smile and a few pieces of candy in exchange for their support.

The first day that I introduced Go to the teachers was just so pleasant. The smiles on their faces as they placed and captured stones dissolved all of my stress. That is, until I challenged the best of them to a match. I could tell that he really got the game. My heart started pounding and I became anxious thinking to myself, "come on, you have to beat this guy, you introduced the game." It was a little bit of a let down when I won though, since it meant that although I can teach the game, I probably wont be challenged right away.

The sad news around our school right now is the departure of Mr. Toinya, our deputy principal. He was called up for a government training in Embu and never returned. He called to say that he had been promoted to be the principal at another school about 25 km away. It is funny how the government deals with these issues. I don't think that he knew about the transfer before he left to Embu. Then a day or two after he left the training he was expected to begin his responsibilities at the new school. The students were very sad to hear that he was leaving as they thought that he was very fair with his discipline and was helping to move the school in the right direction. He was also my best friend around the school, so I feel a bit of a personal loss. Without him though, I have noticed some of the other teachers really stepping up when they are on duty. I definitely think we are starting off this semester in the right way.

In an effort to further my relationship with the other teachers I made fresh bread and served it to them on a platter with avocado during tea time two days ago. After I ran out of avocado I began serving it with peanut butter, which they preferred. It is still a little funny to me how common avocados are here, it is hard for me to imagine someone at home asking for peanut butter instead of fresh, buttery, perfectly ripe avocado. The landscape and climate in Kenya is so varied, and for me, coming from America, it reminds me of paradise.

Whenever I ask a local how to grow a particular plant the answer it always, "put it in the ground and it will grow." It keeps blowing my mind; instead of trying to do a science experiment in the kitchen window sprouting an avocado, I can actually grow an avocado tree. Just by putting it in the ground. Amazing! Passion fruit trees, papaya trees, avocado trees, here I come!

The other exciting news is that the teacher in charge of guidance and counseling at my school is getting married. I told him that I would help him by taking wedding photos for him since I brought my digital SLR with me. He is one of the more bubbly Kenyans I know, and I am very excited for him. It will also be a good opportunity for all of the teachers at my school to come together outside of school.

Back to School

Proffesor Griffiths is retiring from Reed this year. I think that his retirement party is today and I wanted to acknowledge it because of the impact that he has had on so many students world wide - his electricity and magnetism book has been translated into at least 5 languages. He has an ability to make elementary particle physics seem easy and I appreciated having seeing his teaching so that I can think about how to replicate it for my students.

Since I haven't written on the blog much recently, this entry will be mostly a recap of events that have happened in my life over the past month. I did at last upload a few pictures while I was borrowing a friends computer in Nairobi. As you can see from the pictures, the bread oven has been completed. I was able to use it once before leaving Athiru to attend my Peace Corps in-service training (IST). I have not perfected my bread baking technique by any stretch of the imagination. The loaves that came out all seemed to be too big because the bottom-middle of each loaf wasn't cooked thoroughly enough, while the outside was. I experienced the same problem with a chicken that I cooked with friends after training (see WORandPeace.blogspot.com article from Friday May 1st). The outside of the chicken was delicious, but the inside wasn't done well enough to alleviate our fear that we might get sick from eating it (my bet is that the germs were all dead, but others tend to appreciate having more than a hunch about these things). I really want to be able to roast a turkey for thanksgiving or Christmas, so hopefully I can develop my technique.

The best parts of IST were those where the volunteers directed the discussions. It was fun and insightful to learn from each others experiences with coping, disciplining students, and integrating into our students. The Peace Corps invited a lot of qualified speakers to talk to us about topics we had asked for, but with a lot of these speakers their presentations weren't directed towards our interests. Maybe they did not get briefed well enough about what we had already learned, but then it would be impossible to brief them sufficiently. I think what I took away from some of these talks is that a really good speaker needs to be highly dynamic. They need to be able to take input, find how that input relates to their topic, hear questions, and continually hone their presentation to the needs of the group. This awareness was a valuable lesson for me to learn, and it was good for me to be in a place mentally where I could both be thinking about myself as a teacher and thinking critically about the teaching styles I was witnessing.

We also elected volunteer advisory committee (VAC) representatives and I was elected to represent the teachers from my training group. I am honored and will do my best to be a voice for my electorate. A day later I participated in my first meeting with the Peace Corps Kenya country director and I feel comfortable with his reaction to volunteer concerns. The program has made changes on various issues where it is able, such as volunteer out of community policy, but there will always be some areas where they are less able to budge (for instance, now adays volunteers are prohibited from riding motorcycles).

I was very happy to come back to Maua and Athiru after being in Nairobi. Nairobi is big, loud, and scary; there are at least three volunteers from my training group that have been robbed in Nairobi already. In my absence the rains had come and made the landscape even more green than before. The grass around my school had grown a foot and a half, which really made the place feel empty since there were no students around when I returned. Luckily though, I returned with 4 of my friends and we spent our time hiking, baking, and even went to the 27th birthday of a Danish woman named Ea. The highlight might have been the Viking Game that we learned at the party, also called Cubb (or is it cuub?). You throw throwing sticks at blocks that are a little bit larger than 4x4's back home. They stand about 1 ft high, and you have to knock them over. It is more complicated than that, and I think that when I return to the States it will be my number one barbecue game. Maybe I can even find a carpenter here to make a set for me and my students to play together. The students are required to play games 3 days a week, but with only a 2 balls and 250 students most of them end up sitting around. I also may want to introduce Ultimate Frisbee, and I definitely want to introduce Go. There are tons of bottle caps that get ground into the dirt here, so maybe I can sort them by color and draw some boards on old plastic grain sacks. I think that they would be into it. The difficulty will be trying to juggle debate, frisbee, and go, but I think that students will be excited enough that once they get going we can elect student leaders for the various activities.

Before the term started I also went to a Peace Corps sponsored perma-culture workshop (paid for care of PEPFAR - Predisdent Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, started by President Bush the 2nd. I have been told that they have an annual budget in Kenya of around 500million usd, which is larger than the annual Peace Corps budget worldwide. They do lots of good, like buying anti-retro viral drugs for AIDS victims and paying for us to attend a permaculture workshop). One of the highlights of this workshop for me was finding out that dill, sage, lemon grass, parsley, and basil all grow in Kenya. I was trying to find the plants locally so that I wouldn't have to transport them from the workshop to my site, but I have been unable. There is a volunteer that lives next to the permaculture site so over a long weekend I may have to pay him a visit.

The arrow roots that I planted with my students have grown quite a bit. I didn't mention this before, but on one of the days that we were working three of us were trying to remove a very large rock and it pinched one of my fingers between itself and another rock. I didn't swear, but I sure did pace for a couple of hours. It hurt a lot and the majority of the nail instantly turned black. Now the new nail is growing back and the old nail is about to fall off. It reminds me a lot of when my adult teeth were coming in. The baby nail is so close to coming off, but it is attached just enough to cause a very large surge of pain when it gets caught on something. It doesn't cause me too many problems though, and it gives the students a conversation point to bring up since they just returned to school on Wednesday.

Classes have kind of begun, but three quarters of the students were sent home yesterday to bring their parents and explain why they didn't pay school fees. We have a staff meeting on Monday, which means that no teaching will get done by anyone, but hopefully on Tuesday we will begin the normal routine. I know that the students (especially the form 4's) are anxious to move ahead in the syllabus. Last term we moved at a normal pace, but when I arrived they were two years behind and I feel obligated to them to help them catch up a bit before their big Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) test at the end of the year. Whether or not I believe in the content of the syllabus (read "WORandPeace" especially Wednesday, April 22 for his thoughts on the content), I believe that I can teach the content in a way that will give them skills to improve their lives. We can gloss over some comentary on god in the books and can ask critical questions about how to extrappolate on the information in the book, or how to apply the basic principles to their lives.

That is what I will be spending my time thinking about this afternoon and tomorrow in preperation for Tuesday.