Things have finally started to settle down a hair from all the initial excitement of all the new experiences, people, travel and whatnot from these last few months, so perhaps I should paint a better picture of what my day to day life is actually like here.
I live in a very rural farming community called Ndalat. The centre where matatus pass through isn't big enough to be called a town, so I usually tell friends Eldoret, the nearby city about a 40 min ride away. From this Ndalat centre where you will be dropped off if you're taking a matatu, my school is about 15 min walk away, and my house another 30 min or so past that. When you walk around this area, you're always on some kind of dirt path in between farms, trees, or homes, and it is very green and beautiful. You occasionally pass by locals who are typically very friendly and become excited if you try to greet them in their local mothertongue, "Nandi," a dialect of Kalenjin. Most also speak Kiswahili, so sometimes I'll have some simple conversations with people I meet as I walk to and from school. The children are particularly charming here; they are really excited just to see a white person, and love saying "How are you?" and getting any kind of response, whether in English or Kiswahili or Nandi. Sometimes little groups of kids will gather together and follow me as I walk home, giggling and chattering. Honestly, it's pretty much exactly what I would have expected "Africa" to look like, which is a surprise for me. I even cut through a little wooded area with a stream and tiny wooden makeshift bridge in order to get to school. It's ridiculously awesome.
Most days I get up at 6 to go for a jog with my puppy Rex. Even though it's January, it never gets below maybe 60 degrees : ) I pump some well water for the day when I get back and make some pb and oatmeal and tea or coffee most days. I get to school at 8, and most of the teachers are rarely on time - the culture in this country does not highly value punctuality, but that's one thing I'm hoping I can keep maintaining for myself. When I'm not teaching at school, I'm either lesson planning, working on exams or marking or other planning, or reading my kindle. While my home does not have electricity, my school has a very basic access (2 outlets) so I can charge my things occasionally which is nice.
Teaching here is incredibly challenging, but a lot of fun. The classes are required to be taught in English for secondary school (this is throughout Kenya) but English is a third language for Kenyans. I'm sure you can imagine that as the primary barrier in education; when the teachers themselves don't have the best grasp of a language and are then required to teach in it, the students suffer. So, I do a tiny bit of English teaching in my classes, even though I'm only teaching sciences.
I'm teaching Form 1 Biology and Physics, Form 2 Chemistry and Physics, and Form 3 Chemistry, along with a "life skills" weekly session starting soon. I'm also coaching athletics and soccer because none of the other teachers were interested, and I'm the Form 3 class teacher, which basically just means I take attendance for them. This school hasn't had a full time science teacher EVER in it's 10 year existence, only hiring temporary teachers, typically University students on break looking for a little cash. I compiled comprehensive exams on the material the students should have covered by this point, with the scores averaging between 0-30%. This is going to be a lot of work.
And of course, while the language barrier is what I consider the student's main hinderance, there are many other problems to consider. Many students' parents can't or won't pay the school fees (about $160 a year), so the school has a hard time even paying for lunches, let alone lab equipment or textbooks. There seems to be a very different relationship between students and teachers here, one that so far hasn't shown much flexibility to allow for the encouragement, respect and motivation that students need from their teachers. Of course, I've only been teaching a few weeks now so I do not understand the subtleties of these things yet. I just hope I can gracefully handle myself if I encounter a teaching caning (read: beating) a student, something that is unfortunately very, very common in this country.
The teaching itself of course is the reason I'm here, and so far I'm getting into the swing of things more easily than I expected. I'm pretty good at coming up with real life examples on the fly and finding ways to relate to and engage the kids. Like when we go over a definition, I might say "What does this even mean? If your mom asks you what you learned in chemistry, are you going to tell her Boyle's Law states that a given mass of gas held at constant temperature will have a volume inversely proportional to it's pressure?" I try to steer them away from rote memorization, and so far they've been pretty receptive and actually fairly quick to learn when I give many example problems. I try to have a little fun too. "Is this answer 45? 45 what, cows? Bowls of Ugali? OH 45 Newtons!" Conceptual topics are going to be a challenge for a while, but maybe as time passes, they'll understand my "accent" better, I'll pick up more swahili, and we'll manage to communicate abstract ideas a bit better.
So! I'm pretty busy during the week, but I'm always traveling on the weekends, whether it's to my lovely lady friend in Kakamega or hanging out with other pcvs (peace corps volunteers). I'm having a lot of fun on the weekends too. Except when I have to handwash my clothes...
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