My blogging abilities have gone down the toilet. Too tired to write. Too disorganized to get around to uploading things I do write. Sorry.
Great weekend. But that's another story for another time. The highlight.. perhaps spending the afternoon by the pool at Kiboko Bay drinking cold Tusker Malt. Headed to Nairobi tomorrow. b xx
p.s. i forget the words exactly but i was told my last post was terrible, pompous, something something, contrived, superficial... you get the gist. My apologies.
May 10, 2007
Kisumu is in the midst of district training. It is challenging my inner control freak. Really. Does it matter where the chart paper is posted on the wall. No. Of course not. But I still have to squelch this desire to have things happen the way I would do it. I am just in a supporting role. Oh, that’s right.
I must say Caro and Silas are doing very very well. I did get this overwhelming sinking feeling during the assessment session though. I wondered.. what is the point of doing a speech and language training when children with special needs are basically sitting in classrooms in their own little universe, while teachers do what they do without ever attempting to meet the child at their level. So basically as we talk about service provision, we are talking about actually finding out what the kids know. I keep chanting “everyone is doing the best that they can with what they have, everyone is doing the best they can with what they know.” It’s true. I need to develop better checklists to assess the teachers and measure their behavioral change.
“Let’s take time and pray for our tea” says Silas. Here. Here.
Evening
I have been eating so much raw onion lately I am officially undateable. Guacamole on toast tonight which is a considerable step up from the two packets of Maggi/ramen noodles last night. Tuesday night I did make a pretty stunning Provincial Tomato soup if I may say so myself. It was so weird though.. I was standing in the kitchen cooking, listening for Brian to arrive and I swear I heard a key turn in the lock, like “honey I’m home.” But the thing is I don’t even have a lock like that, I have bolts and a padlock. It must have been my dismissed inner housewife calling.
Getting home from work at 6 pm is significantly worse than getting home at just say 3 or 4. I was very very cranky this afternoon because I had to go back into town and print off the certificates for tomorrow’s ceremony. I would have suggested someone else do it, but it occurred to me that my colleagues don’t actually type anything themselves. They hand write documents and take them to a lady downtown who does the typing and prints it out. Not particularly expedient. There was also a threat of no transportation, which never really materialized as an issue. I would have been doubly cranky if I had to hoof it through Kondele at 7pm.
Speaking of which.. I came home the other day, took my shoes off, walked in and stood on something. Disgustingly enough is was a massive roach. I was so disturbed to have killed in such a manner. Urrggh.
Anyway, this week is one of minimal excitement. They are building an actual wall around the compound so now it actually seems like one (was a barbed wire fence covered in blossoms of bougainvillea (sp?) before). More privacy now, less light, I’m not thrilled about it, but I may create a potted garden by my back door. Sadly the chickens and goats can’t really wander through.
Kajiado’s training is next week so I am going to head to Nairobi on Monday I think. I’ll write next week. b
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