A Kenyan Teacher
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Today I spoke with the school director and decided I would teach english, math, creative arts, and physical education. Maybe science or social studies but I don't think so. I did a little bit of math in the standard 7 and I was surprised at how good they were. I think the teaching will be a lot of fun. I'm not sure about the teachers though. They speak so much Kiembu. I feel like an outcast. Maybe once I get to know them more it will be better. I worked with the environmental group today after school. There are four girls involved: Mercy, Anisia, Purity, and Judy. They are all really nice girls but at very different levels academically, even though they are all in standard 7. Mercy and Anisia have rather crude writing skills. Judy is good at coming up with ideas and has very basic writing skills but her english is not so good. Purity is very bright. She can generate ideas well and her writing is very good in comparison. All of them have a lot of potential and I look forward to the time spent with them.

Then I went to Mrs. Njeru's house the find Mumbi who was having her hair braided. I was expecting to leave soon after to go to Miss Njue's house where we had been invited for dinner. However, the braiding was slow and took a few hours and they had started 3 or 4 hours before I arrived. Drank lots of tea and ate bananas and macadamia nuts while I was waiting. The bananas were the very short and yellow ones. They had a hint of pineapple taste---delicious. The nuts were right off the tree. They have VERY hard shells so they were a bit hard to eat but worth the work. Eventually when we were ready to go we found 2 of Miss Njue's nephews (Crispin and Dunkin) waiting to show us the way. It was a very steep path to her house. Up hill up up up! But when we arrived dinner was ready and it was a tasty meal of chapatti, rice, cabbage and vegetables. It also had some meat. I'm not sure what kind. She was very nice and showed us some pictures of her family. We found out that she is Mr. Ndwega's sister. When I returned home I was met with more food! It was mashed cow peas with maize and rabbit. The mashed beans were very good but the rabbit was so chewy and the sound of everyone chomping the bones made me lose my appetite. It sounded like a wild animal eating. And this was probably the first time I had eaten an animal that I had seen living only a few days ago. I hope that we rarely eat meat. I like the vegetables better.