Official Peace Corps Volunteer!

Its done!  We are now officially called Peace Corps Volunteers.  We are now "government employees" even though Peace Corps are not exactly an agency of the US Government, but we are under its umbrella.  During the ceremony, three of us gave our single speech that we developed jointly, but I presented it in Kenyan Sign Language, another person in Kiswahili, and third person in English.  This video is edited to show only my speech to keep the time short.  For the transcript of the video, see the text under it.

Three short months ago a group of scared Americans sat on a bus en route to John F. Kennedy Airport. The airport who’s name sake is the same man that started the Peace Corps 61 years ago with a goal in mind, a goal of global understanding and promoting a more peaceful world. 

We stand here today as a testament to that man’s will, the magnificent goal of a common peace and understanding between nations. 

Three short months ago we arrived in Kenya as children, confused, scared but filled with excitement at the great potential of this country. In the beginning we were individuals. But through an exchange of knowledge, a sharing of experiences, and a common interest we will all become part of a greater whole, something more than any one individual. This is exactly the exchange we as educators what to create in our schools. 

We spent many long hours in class learning Kiswahili, or Kenyan Sign Language, the culture of Kenya, and the art of teaching. Now we have the tools we need to be successful in our journeys. For this we need to thank the town of Liotoktitok and Machakos for being accepting and understanding. We need to thank our host families for being loving and nurturing and our teachers for being patient and supportive. 

We look forward to being part of these changes that will bring about the Kenya of tomorrow. Two days ago was Kenya’s Independence Day, 49 years ago marks the beginning of something great. It is our goal as Peace Corps Volunteers to contribute a small piece to that larger puzzle. No matter what color your skin is, what language you speak, what physical challenges you may have, or what gender you identify with, we all share something common, that we all have the same heart,  and that we all bleed the same red blood. 

Thank you for being with us today to celebrate our swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers. Over the next few years I have the utmost confidence in this group of individuals to be successful in all their endeavors as volunteers in Kenya. 

The leaders, innovation and creators of tomorrow are sitting is school all across Kenya today. These children are the future of Kenya. And Kenya has a very bright future my friends. A future full of opportunity and promise. 

Two of us wore Maasai Tribe outfit.  The Liotokitok crew (Math and Science education group) lived in Massai's lands.  I visited the town for three days couple of weeks ago and saw some of their local folk wearing those outfits.  I am posing the Maasai way.  They stand that way with a herding pole for balance to rest one leg and then switch legs during the day as they tend to their herds all day long.

We had our Swearing In Ceremony in the residence of US Ambassador for Kenya.

Tribal dances were presented for our enjoyment.  They changed outfits throughout the day.

Alternating our common speech in three languages.  In the background, the house is the US Ambassador to Kenya's residence.

My principal (headmaster) Elizabeth Gituku was part of my ceremony and celebration.  Look forward in working with her for the next two years at her school.

Our gang of Deaf Educators.  Almost all of us wearing African garb.

50th year of Peace Corps and Kenya collaboration.  

Learning the tribal dance techniques.  Involves lot of shoulder shakes along with hip twisting, grins.

Chocolate Chips!  Have I died and gone to Heaven?  I have not had my favorite cookie for three months, and I ate 6 of them!

Ahh, American food, that does not require any toothpicks.  Actually there are no toothpick containers on our tables at all.  Had burgers, chicken, potato salad, and other stuff.

Notice something?  Not the cake, but the US seal and gold trimmed plate.  Wonder if it is a federal crime if I took this plate home with me?

Twirling my worries away!

A Mzungu doing the Bolt salute Kenyan way!

Farewell My Host Family, The Mutuas

Today is my last day living with my host family, the Mutuas.  They have taught me so much how to live like a Kenyan.  I learned how to wash my clothes, take a bath from a bucket, cook and eat Kenyan meals.  The family was very loving and laughs a lot, which brings warmth and happiness in the house.  They have a wonderful and comfortable home.  It was a challenge for me to find a perfect appreciation gift for the family because they pretty much got everything.  I decided on these gifts, and was very happy seeing that they were so thrilled.  I gave Mama Lafline a big umbrella, Baba (father) Anthony a baseball cap, Aunt Elizabeth a scarf, Papa (brother) Jones African mixed nuts, Sister Faith a novel of Africian stories, Sister Alice the "Trouble" game that I brought from America, and a jumping rope, and lastly but not least, Ndunge (house help, but like my second mama) set of 4 pot-holder towels (since she has been using ripped paper to hold hot boiling pots).

Farewell, and you will always be in my memories, and therefore, part of my life.

Sister Alice and me

Sister Faith and me

Me, Sister Faith and Sister Alice

Me and Baba Anthony

Sister Alice, Family Dog, Papa Jones

Papa Jones, Me, Sister Alice

Sister Alice floating!

Ndunge, Me and Aunt Elizabeth

Mama Lafline and Me

Pre Service Training

This week we will have our last week of our Pre Service Training (PST).  Also this week we will be leaving our host families where we lived with for the past three months.  Lastly, this Friday, we will be sworn in, and that in effect transforms us from being Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) into Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV).  It also means, pretty much, that we became official US Government Employees, grins.  Peace Corps is an agency of the US Government, yet it has complete autonomy from the politics of the government.

Anyway, some of you asked me what the heck did we learn in PST.  I thought it would be great if I listed all the topics we had during our PST.  The list became long and even I myself am amazed to the diversified topics.  They were basically grouped into "language", "technical" and "operations" categories.  Except for a few topics, all topics were given to us in 2-hour sessions.  The rest, such as Kenyan Sign Language and Kiswahili, were given to us repeatedly for many hours.

There ya go...

Swahili (two weeks)

Meet Host Families

Diarrhea and Food Hygiene

School Visit

Cross-Cultural Behavior and Values

Personal Safety

Malaria Self-Testing 

Vaccinations

Peace Corps Approach to Development

Ministry of Education-Structure and Roles

Gender

Common Health Problems

Coping with Unwanted Attention

Volunteer Diversity

Deaf Culture

Role of Volunteer in Development

Adjustment Cycle & Rules of the House

Introduction to Pre Service Training

Kenyan Sign Language (many many hours)

Language Awareness

Reading Comprehension

Maintaining Strong Emotions

Teaching Vocabulary

Successful Teacher = Successful Student

Functions and Notions

Schemes of Work

Lesson Planning

Kenya: Current Political Situation

Teaching Methods

First Lesson

Sexual Assault Awareness

Sexual Assault Impact, Reporting and Response

STI/HIV, Drugs and Alcohol

Site Information Briefing

Micro-teaching

Cross Educational Cultures

Content-based Instruction

Travel Safety Phrases and Tips

Preparing for Shadowing

Shadowing (5 days)

Building Good School Relationships

Nutrition, Dental and Vaccines

First Aid

Effective Feedback and Correction

Blended Pedagogies

Behavior Change

Peer Observation

Kenyan History

Improvisation of Instructional Material

Students with Special Needs & Behaviors

Learning Styles and Differentiated Instruction

Crime Mitigation & Incident Reporting

Gender Equitable Practices

Teaching Large Classes

Classroom Management

Classroom Interactions & Transitions

Taking Charge of your Classroom & Teaching

Mock Language Proficiency Interview

Using Education Tools

HIV/AIDS

Kenya and HIV Statistics

Field Visit of Level 5 Hospital Facility

Volunteer Committees

HIV/AIDS Stigma Reduction

Written Medical Post Test

Mental Health: Coping with Stress

Safety Simulations

Host Family Home Tasks

Ethnic Groups of Kenya

Drugs & Alcohol

Life Skills

Student Centered Classrooms

Working with Limited Resources

Material Design

Model School Teaching (5 days) and Teacher on Duty (overnight)

Language Proficiency Interview

Integrating into the Community

Establishing and Maintaining Credibility

Setting Volunteer Norms

Resources: Who's Who

Reporting Allegations

Peace Corps Policies & Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook

Emergency Action Plan

Supporting Marginalized Students

Assessment

Guidance and Counseling

Assessment: Designing Rubrics

Critical Thinking (I taught this session)

Host Family Appreciation

Peace Corps Expectations of Supervisor/Peace Corps Volunteer Collaboration

Workplace Values

Peace Corps Volunteer Assignments and Work Plans

Roles and Responsibilities of Supervisors

Swearing In

My Goat Story

Entered this contest.  Please, please let me win.  What would I do with 330 goats?  Well I could learn to be a goat herder, and lay down in an open field relaxing while watching my goat munch down pretty much everything.  And I could help folk passing by by telling them the current time by lifting a goat's nuts.  Oh for those of you who scratched your heads with "what the heck did I mean by lifting a goat's nuts to tell time?"  Well, for those of you who knew the goat story would have a chuckle on this, but for those of you who didn't, well, thats another story.

Anyway, in America, our sweepstakes and contents tend to involve large cash prizes, cars, or electronics.  Its amusing to see what excites the folk here -- winning 330 goats may be a dream come true for the village folk around here.

Okay, Ill tell you my goat story…

I was walking on a road toward town to the hotel for my Peace Corps Training.  I passed by an open field full of goats and noticed a goat herder laying on the ground relaxing while watching his herd munch on everything including trash.  

I decided to ask the herder if he knew the current time.  The herder said sure, leaned to his right side where a goat was munching on a pile of weeds.  He then lifted the goat's nuts and told me its now 10:00 am.

I was dumbfounded -- thinking how the hell can the herder determine current time by lifting a goat's nuts?  Did the Kenyans know something that we don't?

But I walked away to the hotel.

Later in the afternoon, after training, I walked back on the same road toward home, and noticed the same herder laying on the same spot on the ground watching his herd.  So, I decided to try again and asked the herder what the current time is. 

The herder said, oh you needed the time again, sure, let me find out for you.  Again, he leaned to his right where the same goat was close by and lifted his nuts again. Its now 4:00 pm, said the herder.

My mouth was wide open and I just cannot leave without learning how the heck the herder could do that.  So I asked again -- sir, could you please explain how in the world could you tell the current time by lifting a goat's nuts?

The herder chuckled, and asked me to come down and lay on the ground besides him.  Then he explained there is a clock on a tower on top of a church down the road, but this goat is blocking his view, so he has to lift his nuts so he can look under it and see the clock.

Ohhhhhh!

Model Secondary School f/t Deaf

Well, I am not talking about the Model Secondary School f/t Deaf in Washington DC, but rather the one at Machakos Deaf School.  The school itself is actually closed for the Christmas holiday (a month off), but the Peace Corps "hired" the school, 5 teachers, school kitchen staff, and 45 kids (out of 280 kids) to stay on for an additional week and provide us a Model School.  This way, we can practice our lesson planning, get immersed in Kenyan Deaf classroom environment, learn and practice their language, and so forth.  I selected to teach Form 1 (freshmen) maths (mathematics but they call it Maths), and Physics.  There were 15 kids in my class.

Being Deaf myself, I do find it easy and enjoyable being able to engage the deaf students because of our natural sign languages as our communication did not even get in our way, which enabled us to interact easier and more naturally.  I do see that good and natural communication do make a huge difference in their learning.  We were able to practice, review, challenge, and do other techniques to ensure they understood the material that is being taught.  I avoid asking them with "you understand?", or "you know?" because they will aways respond with yes even when they may not really understand.

I never thought I would ever fill up the wall-to-wall blackboard with mathematic numbers and graphs.  I taught the class "coordinates and graphs".  Then I went further by adding linear equations.

Yeah, wearing a watch, a pen in my pocket, and my reading glasses, wherever it decides to run away from me -- from my pocket or my desk or the floor nearby.

Near the end of the week, I was hoping to teach physics and have a lab.  I wanted to demonstrate an experiment that maybe every American kid knows -- dropping mentos in a liter of diet Pepsi.  I was able to find Pepsi (not diet), but could not find mentos anywhere.  I tried another candy that seem to look like mentos but the experiment failed and did not even erupt into 10-15 feet tall.  I did not have much time to research alternatives to mentor, so I changed the class to "life skills" and did several team building activities.  The picture below -- the boys (they usually do not mix girls and boys in activities like this where there are close body contact) were to find a way to fit everyone on a small piece of poster paper on the ground.  They made it.

The girls did the "trust" activity where they catch the person falling backwards with eyes closed.  I even  challenged them by having the falling girl fall backwards from a chair.  

On Thursday evening, I was assigned as a Teacher on Duty (TOD) where I have to sleep at the school and monitor the campus.  The kids were well behaved and they basically took care of me rather than the other way around.  Its amazing to see them do their own manual laundry and hang up their own clothes, even when they are young.  For those who are very young they have older kids help out.

They gave us a talent show, and unlike in America where it meant skits, they were mostly tribal dances.  There were a skit or two, but all involved dancing.

No, this one isn't tribal, but floor swirling dance -- the kid was good at that, especially the body wave on the floor.

 This is the bed I had for the night.  No, I have not slept on it yet, and I am not that heavy anymore.  The bed mattresses are all foam, and worn out.  I tried putting two foam mattresses to straighten it out but its so C-curved.  I did not sleep well, especially with a large florescent light shining right through my window from outside.

The kitchen had three large vats to cook our meals.  Everything is heated by firewood.  Lot of smoke coming outside, and sometimes even inside.

They seem serious with the flag raising ceremony.  The three selected kids who work together to hang the flag had their "military" movements with locked knee walking etc.

An 8 inch centipede (or larger) visited us in our teachers staff room.  I was not sure if it was begging for more education, or sacrificing itself for biology class.  No, these are not my hands, but someone else, I only took the photo.  Not sure if I want to handle it ha.

My Form 1 class -- enjoyed them very much.  I did once give them a practice Chemistry exam three weeks ago, which they failed miserably.  See my earlier story on that.  But with four days of teaching them Maths, and giving them an exam with content that I know I taught them, they did extremely well this time.  9 of 15 students earned an A.  Yes I know I am comparing Apples with Oranges but I like to think I am maybe comparing Big Apple with a Small Apple (grins).  I believe I have proved that a teacher (Deaf or one that is fluent in sign language) will help any class improve their grades.  I will observe that more when I teach for the next two years at my school. As a reward, I manage to get 11 student "exercise books" to give to those kids who earned an A.  I gave two books to two kids who earned 90 and above.  Exercise books are those cheap recycled paper bound into books that they use to copy everything off the blackboards.  They cannot afford to buy more so they try to use every paper they can find, so getting these books as their rewards brought big smiles.  Sigh, that would not even work in America, except maybe giving them iPod Touches.  

The Peace Corps gave each kid certifications which they were very happy with.  I guess it meant a lot to them than how much it would have meant to the American kids (we probably make paper airplanes out of them).

The kids were very sad to go home.  This is typical for deaf kids with families that have no communication for them at all, so they always felt residential schools are their real homes, and dread to go home.  One principal told a girl that her parents are now here to bring them home, she got upset and begged the principal to tell her parents to come back tomorrow instead.  Nope, that cannot happen because many kids live far away from the school.

This "model school" week was a great change in our training routine.  Time went by so fast, and that wraps up our week 8.  Next week will be our "last full week" of training.  The following, and final, week will not be a full week, with us traveling back to Nairobi and get ready for our swearing in ceremony on December 14th.

I was asked to represent the Deaf Education group giving a speech (short one, whew) in KSL to the VIPs at the swearing ceremony.  I will also have two other volunteers giving the same speech (maybe one sentence at a time) in Swahili and English.