Well, I've gotten off to a better start this week. I'm pleased to tell you that I have Not been living in a constant state of fear. Peter and I were discussing the Mombasa incident and he was really surprised. He said crime is much less common there than here in Nairobi. And armed robbery is punishable by death so it's not as common either. so i'm glad i could shake the stats up a bit :) in any case, i've put it behind me and am pressing forward with a cautious attitude but without a spirit of fear.
Monday I went to the juvenile home again to teach. I was worried i wouldn't get to do anything again, since i waited for an hour and a half upon arrival. but thankfully we did get somewhere. i was able to teach 2 English classes. they went really well for teaching on the fly i think. Heidi, one of the Brits, came with me. she's super fun...20, blond, bubbly, smiley, etc. so a good person to come around...a lot like Ashley, my sister now that i think about it. the other exciting thing is that they're going to let me teach art with the kids too. i was really surprised when the head teacher told me how he thought art was really important even though it's non existent in primary schools here. his daughter struggles academically but is very talented at art. so yeah for that. i go back there tomorrow and i'm planning to make journals with them. i'm thinking of trying something like the journals they wrote in during the Freedom Writers movie...true story too. there's a lot of hurt in these kids lives, so i'm hoping maybe they'll open up some by writing. we'll see. i love that here i can talk about God in schools and it's fine. b/c God is really the only one who can see these kids through the crap that they've been through.
today i was back in the schools in kibera. i'm so happy that the schools are open again. the more i spend time in a classroom, the more i feel like my calling is in teaching. so heidi and i had fun teaching english. we also made these kids write. i'm amazed at how challenging it is for kids to do anything that is not an exercise from the book. they seriously never do anything unless it's in the book. this has to be the most boring way to learn ever but that's how the whole country is.
yesterday i spent all morning at the post office--2 1/2 hours! i did find all of my packages from home. what a process though. they make you cut open the box yourself and then they write down everything that's in it. then they decide how much to charge you based on what you have and the weight. it's pretty random i think. then i had to go over to the bank and pay for it there and come back. sillyness. the man in front of me received DVDS of ann of green gables, or something, and it was a really long movie so it had 2 DVDs in each case. so when they itemized it, they counted each movie as 2 instead of 1 so that they can charge more. corruption at its best i think. i had to have victor come help me carry all my stuff b/c it was so heavy. we had to go all the way across town with this stuff...i have very nice arm muscles now :)
one last story of muzungu privilege...last week my phone wasn't working so i went to the customer care center to get it fixed. last time i went there i waited in line for 1 hour--and i had a kenyan with me. this time i went with another muzungu. i asked the lady working there for a number so i could stand in line. she thought i wanted a new phone number. but i explained, no i needed help fixing my phone. then she told me to wait a minute. and came back and proceeded to pull me to the front of the line. she pulls me to the counter where a man is helping another customer and he says, "can i help you?" so basically i cut in front of 30 people. then i didn't know the password for my phone, and he looked it up and told me...which i've been told they will never do for the locals. they would ask all sorts of security questions and really give them a hard time. so pretty much this whole situation made me feel terrible...i hate when people cut in line, and the fact that i got to b/c i'm white is crazyiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment