Terminator Must Charge

I spent most of last week marking compositions.  I can't say that this is one of my favorite pastimes.  It takes a lot of time to edit them all and their stories tend to be a bit...dramatic.  I get excited when actually find a story where no one dies, gets beaten or goes to jail.  It almost never happens.  Occasionally, though, things like this do happen:

"I went to the sitting room to watch the news and the journalist announced that the people they to watch out themselves because that smartly dressed man he was the robot named Terminator and he was looking for a place to charge himself. 

When I heard that, I went to the shelf to look at the photograph in the album of my brother.  I saw the robot in the picture then I knew that my brother is the one who made it so let me help it to avoid the policemen." - Lucky

I may or may not have laughed out loud, by myself, in the living room.  Of course, the robot then went on to kill several officers of the law with a hand grenade. Thus continuing the cycle. 

Eid-al-Fun

I’m terrible at picking favorites.  I can never settle on just one thing.  I’m much better at making top pick lists.  In that vein, I’m going to declare that I have recently added one more to my list of favorite days in Kenya.  A couple weeks ago was Eid-al-Fitr, a Musim holiday which marks the end of the fasting month, Ramadan.  I happen to live in a rather Muslim city.  I also happen to love experiencing local celebrations the world over.  You can probably see where this is going.

I headed downtown on Sunday afternoon with the other volunteer staff, enticing them with promises of street food.  Sadly, it was a bit rainy and we were a bit early for the food portion of the evening.  We entertained ourselves by taking pictures of one of Mombasa’s beautiful sights – a garbage dump right next to a lovely park.  Then, after a pit stop for amazing chicken and samosas, we finally started to happen upon the promised food stalls serving meat on a stick (Paula’s favorite) and Zanzibar pizza (Paula’s other favorite).    We also found plenty of shawarma, though we were a bit too full for it at the time (I’ll be back for you!). 

Guys, go take a picture with the rubbish!

Then, just as we thought we’d exhausted our options and it was time to head for the market, we discovered…the carnival.  This turned out to be one of my favorite places (there I go again) in Africa and I kind of never wanted it to end.  There is no reason that I liked it so much except that it just seemed so perfect for the time and place.  It was just like any carnival at home, with amusement park rides and food stalls and souvenirs and photo booths and camel rides (what, you don’t have those?).   Except that it was just so African.  Everything about it.  All of the rides were based on very basic physics and appeared as though some guy had welded them together in his garage.   The food and souvenir stalls were the same cobbled together shacks you see on every road, in every market.  Nothing felt mass produced or modern.  Everything felt a bit rickety and unstable.

The girls decided to be bold and try out a flying Dutchmen ride while I took pictures (spinning rides make me feel ill) and then we all decided to ride the giant swings.  Think of two benches facing each other, connected by the floor and pushed almost to the horizontal by a couple buff men.  You used to occasionally find these on backyard playsets, albeit scaled down a bit (and without the men, of course).  Full disclosure - I expected it to be kind of lame.  Actual experience - it was really awesome.  I really think the fun factor was significantly increased by the complete lack of oversight in the safety department.  Falling out seemed like a legitimate concern, unlike most amusement park rides at home.  If ride people would just stop making everything so safe, they wouldn’t need to make things nearly as high or fast to achieve the same level of terror.  Just a thought.

On our way out, we stopped to get our picture taken in one of the myriad photo booths set up for the occasion.  Whereas, at home, you might find a couple of plywood figures with their faces cut out, waiting for you stick yours in and snap a silly picture; here you find little stalls swathed in rainbows of gaudy fabric and Eid banners where, for a small fee, you can pose for a picture.  Don’t worry, we made sure to pick the tackiest one we could. 

Staff photo!

After the fair, we took a quick jaunt back down the street so Leigh could pick up some more amazing samosas and I could check out the ice cream parlour I’d had my eye on.  It was totally worth it.  Actual chocolate.  Soft serve.  Coated in chocolate sprinkles.  Served in the stalest cone ever.  The perfect end to an absolutely wonderful day.  

Fish, fish, fish,fish, fish

Yesterday we went to the beach for what I expected to be a lazy, uneventful Sunday afternoon.  We went down to the water and were just chilling when Leigh suddenly pointed out to me the fishermen on the shore, pulling ropes on either side of us.  She informed me that they were pulling in their nets.

Let me just take a moment to say, that I can't imagine the energy it takes to pull in one of these nets.  I'm terrible at judging distances, so suffice it to say that the net is rather far out at sea and at least as long as several of me stacked on top of each other.  Not to mention that the bottom half is weighted with rocks.  And it's hopefully full of fish (though it's mostly full of seaweed).  The drag it must have is astounding.  And these guys haul it in several times in a day.  There're also about 15 of them, but still.  

We watched them pull it in twice and both times joined the crush of locals trying to see what they caught.  (I can only imagine how old it would get to have so many people crowded around every time you tried to do your job, but my sympathy was overruled by my curiosity to see what they brought in.)  It was really cool.  I'm bummed because of course I've reached the point where I think I've seen everything, so I decided not to bring my camera, and I would love to show y'all what we saw.  There were, of course, a fair number of  man-hand-sized fish and loads of smaller fish, most of which disappeared pretty quickly.  But there was also an odd lobster and crab, many many blowfish and several of the most beautiful sea urchins I have ever seen.  They were big, dark black-purple, with gorgeous red and blue designs on the shells.  So pretty.  This is what I really want a picture of.

The fisherman gathered up all the good-sized fish and anything else worth eating pretty quickly.  Once they were finished, the locals were left to dig through the mounds of seaweed looking for the tiny fish, which I'm assuming will either become dinner or bait.  We got to hold several of them before they were taken off and I just have to say that fish are so beautiful before they are dead.  They are colorful and iridescent and just brilliant and then when they die they go a lifeless dull grey.  It's a shame, really.  

All in all, I would say it was a rather successful trip to the beach.  I've never noticed them hauling in the nets before, but I'm really hoping we catch them again sometime.  You just never know what you might find in there.

Candy Land

This past week the kids at Olives have been on summer holiday.  Instead of having classes, we’ve essentially been having summer camp.  Most of the kids are busy at home or up country visiting relatives, but we’ve had a pretty steady 30-40 kids from the village turn up to play games and do puzzles. 

It’s been loads of fun to get to just relax and play with the kids.  Most of them don’t really have access to games and puzzles, so it’s been interesting trying to teach them through the language barrier.  They’re having a blast, though.  They come in and get right down to the business of playing.  I’ve been really impressed with how respectful the kids have been with all of the materials.  The first couple days were a bit chaotic but now, by Friday, everyone is happily occupied with their game of choice and actually playing it correctly, which is an achievement.  Thanks to all the volunteers for having the patience to teach everyone!

I think it took Jan several days before the kids started to understand how ConnectFour works.

I managed to pull Standard 8 away from their studies for 3 mornings in a row!  They were fans of Scrabble.

I think the thing that’s been the most fun for me this week has been the reminder of how simple games can surpass so many boundaries.  It’s been surreal to see our village kids playing the same games as the kids back home, half a world away.  I always appreciate these little reminders that all kids everywhere are essentially the same.  I also think it says something for the games themselves that something like Candy Land can stand the test of time and be so universally understood.  

Candy Land, unlike ConnectFour, was understood and enjoyed almost immediately.

Fantastic Friday

Hello, all!  I hope you’re having an excellent Friday thus far.  I, for one, am having a great day.  I’m having an ‘I love Kenya’ day.  Would you like to know why?  Of course you would!  (If you don’t, you should probably stop reading because, if you hadn’t already guessed, I’m going to tell you now.)

My lessons this morning were awesome.  We got finished with our grammar a bit early in standard 8, so I got out the collection of “James and the Giant Peach” books that my mom got in book donations and brought out with her.  They are actually an adaptation that’s a play, but what’s great about them is there are enough so the kids can follow along as I read.  I read the first few scenes, acting it out and trying to make voices for the characters and the kids had a lot of fun with it.  We’ve had a pretty good week in standard 8 in general, what with jazz hands and a grammatical version of Pictionary/Charades.

Then, I was doing my planning for standard 7 and realized that I wasn’t looking forward to teaching at all.  And if I’m not looking forward to teaching, the kids probably aren’t looking forward to coming.  That’s not good.  So, instead of working on our grammar like we’ve been doing, we spent the class period making up actions for our vocabulary words and then testing each other on them.  I may or may not have made up a song about baking that sounds very similar to a song about making a peanut butter sandwich. 

After school I had to make a trek into town to renew my visa, since the wonderful immigration officer at the airport only gave me a month instead of the 90 days I paid for.  I can’t say I was looking forward to this task, but it turned out so much better than I dared to hope.  I asked for 4 more months, expecting them to give me 3 and tell me to come back.  Instead, he kindly gave me 6, which is the longest you can stay without leaving the country.  So now I’m good until January, and it didn’t even cost me extra.  Thanks, immigration officer, you’re my hero of the day.  (Don’t worry, mom, I’m coming home in November, promise.)

After my excellent rendezvous with the immigration office, (which, by the way, I managed to find without getting lost!) I did a wander of downtown Mombasa, which I always enjoy.  Found loads of street food, though I mostly just looked, and bought some produce that we don’t usually get at the house (apples!).  Now I’m just chilling, charging my computer so that I can go watch the synchro finals tonight.  Huzzah!  (I probably shouldn't get too excited about that just yet.  In Kenya, nothing goes as planned.)

At any rate, that’s been my day.  I hope everyone else has an equally wonderful day to take them into the weekend.  Cheers!