Yellow House

This is out of order (I am going to upload Monday's post now) because yesterday I lost my zip drive in my purse.

Last night was my worst night. No. That's a vast exaggeration. It was a swamp of heightened emotion set off by my day, followed by a crazy crazy story that is not mine to share (new rule) and my proximity to it all and capped off nicely with a very real conversation about the possibility of being raped in my home. A chat I could have done with out. My favorite part of the conversation was "if you believe that so you can sleep better at night..." Yes actually. I do. And now I will wake up when every friggin dog barks and person walks past and window bangs and all those other sounds that make up the cacophony of the night. It was well meaning, I was just in a tail spin.

I have spent the day in Vihiga. Assessing kids. "Mild mental impairment" says one, "she didn't walk until she was 6, she didn't stand until she was 4, she doesn't speak, probably not mild" says me. "mild speech and language disorder" says one. "mild nothing" says I. At least in Kisumu we have placement options. In Vihiga they don't refer to the special school because you have to pay fees. I don't know what happened to the free primary school for all in that district! It's so frustrating "this one, this one can learn" says two. "Of course he can, we can all learn" says I. Anyway.. I agreed to do a special workshop for their distance learners who are becoming special education teachers "for the pay raise" per three. "They've never seen a learning disabled child." Whatever. They picked the one open week before the term ends. Lucky them. Lucky me. Seeing as they are paying for their own transportation to get there. I'll even spring for tea.

February 26, 2007 – Melissa’s Birthday Hooray.

I bet you are just dying to know what I had for dinner tonight.. and so I will tell you.. diced carrot, green pepper, garlic and onion sautéed with kidney beans and served with hot sauce and a handful of cooked rice. Delicious. As I am sure I have mentioned before I do like the process of shopping and preparing meals. Tomorrow I even have someone coming for dinner. He even promised to play Scrabble.

I fear this is all becoming rather trite, so I am going to write about a rather exciting project I may focus on in August during the school holidays when Mira and Abbie are around.

As you might recall I was at Pistis Academy in Nakuru last week visiting the Early Childhood teachers I’d worked with this summer when I remembered my manners and went to greet the Head Teacher Leonard (typically this is the very first thing you should do when entering a school). We had a discussion about developmentally appropriate practices (ha!) and why pre-K teaching looks different from older classes, and why they need more consumable materials (e.g. markers and paper) so on and so forth. Anyway, the conversation meandered and Leonard told me he had been loaned/given a house (?) and he didn’t want to live there because it was far from the school so he had decided to start what he calls Mbugani Center for Vulnerable Girls (Mbugani means forest or clearing.. something woody??). Anyway he envisions an informal school for girls who have had to leave the education system due to other responsibilities, money or other miscellaneous reasons. He hopes to get them involved in income-generating activities and start a women’s co-op as I understand it. I asked him if he planned to include young mums and babies, and said I would definitely be interested in being involved. I also said I would help write grants, and gave him some possible leads through Nakuru’s assessment centers. I suggested he email Sofia who is also going to be back in Kenya next summer. How very very exciting.

My current development philosophy is.. I will do whatever I am asked to do and help where ever I can. But if the request doesn’t come from a Kenyan, forget about it. From what I have heard, projects that aren’t inspired by the locals who are here long term and an intrinsic part of the community are just a waste of time and money. The projects are just not.. and here comes the buzz word.. sustainable. Which brings me to a little story.. I was having a fish sandwich in a café in town and reading my book when I noticed this very excited muzungu telling a Kenyan all about this plan he had to get all these community people to come together and buy motor bikes. He had done the math, they would save money on transportation… it was all a very logical. I wondered about parts and maintenance and went back to my book.. (because it’s really a recommendably good read). My understanding of these things is that it is hard to conceive of all the (real and imagined) difficulties and problems you are likely to encounter in a culture, in a town you are only vaguely familiar with, and Kenyan’s won’t displease, discourage or disagree if they can avoid it. It is just so very easy to be blinded by your own enthusiasm for an idea. It’s definitely my M.O. in Chicago (it’s why I recognize it so quickly), but typically back home there is a whole lot less time, money and more importantly hope at stake.

Now I am all for grand optimistic plans and projects and I am willing to support anything my local colleagues are eager enough or mad enough to attempt. It’s really about ownership.. this is not the time in my life for Brenda motivated programming.. I’ll save all my inspirational mayhem to unleash on Chicago Public Schools or some other community based/low resource organization where the need is nearly as great, but everyone’s expectations are so low that they anticipates things will be a catastrophic waste of everyone’s time and money.

So.. my week unfolds and promises to be fairly dull, which I welcome. All our schools/community based rehab groups are writing proposals. I think I missed something.. maybe they are requesting money from VSO?? I have no idea. I am chugging along in my own little current.. I need to write 30 hours of speech and language training. Unfortunately the deadline is still too far away (March 19th) to motivate the mental juices and get me writing.. Franklin or Covey or some one (who is the famous planner/date book guy?) says doing things when they are due is bad. However.. anything before that is likely to be tepid.

Although I took a jumbo nap this afternoon I am to bed. It’s raining and my crisp white sheets beckon. I’m sleeping in the spare room for a change of scenery. Or maybe I just like having two bedrooms.