Training

 So back in summer of 2011 when the decision to return to Kenya was made, a list was created of all the things I would have to do.  World Gospel Mission (WGM) had recommended trainings for all those going through their Missionary Discipleship program to complete. Through various reasons (mainly being Canadian) I was not sent by WGM but Samaritan's Purse. Samaritan's Purse does not send medical people long term so they did not have recommended training. Thinking some training would still be a good thing I wrote down a list of the training WGM would have required of me and set out to do them. I’m thankful Samaritan’s purse was very supportive of these training courses and allowed me to use some of my raised funds to cover the cost of these courses.

                The first course I took was called Perspectives. This was a compact course that explained everything it could in a week of seven hour classes. We learned about missions, why we do them – To glorify God, history of missions, lessons we can learn from previous mistakes and how God can use anybody. This was a great course; I still have the textbook – somewhere, and will probably find it again someday.

                The second course I took was called PLANT’s, this is a Canadian version of a course offered in the States called PILAT. It was out in Ontario and fit better in my schedule as well as allowed me to spend some great time with my Ontario relatives. This course was all about language – learning styles, methods in and out of the classroom, how long it will take etc. It was a helpful course and I use some of the methods in my current studies.

                The last course that I took on North American soil was called SPLICE  - all about living cross culturally, sacrifices and joys and meeting a wonderful community of people.

                That leaves me with the 4^th and final training language learning. After being taught French from grades 4-12 and being able to speak very little I was not looking forward to this time. I prayed that I would catch on quick, and be able to endure it. Six weeks in and at the halfway point I am very thankful for what God has done. Not only am I learning the language I am enjoying it.  The grammar is fun (I hate English grammar, and Shawna who edits each and every blog post can attest to the fact that I am horrible at it). Being able to have a conversation in another language is exciting, and a week after you learn a word to hear it and recognize it outside of school reminds me that this learning is a good thing. I am so thankful that God has given me ear to hear and mouth to speak this language and he is going beyond what I asked for and has allowed me to enjoy it. I still make many mistakes and you can hear my teacher's and my laughter carrying out of the classroom. This week I confused the word think and horse saying “I horse”.  I also made coffee into a verb and when I was told “no” I put in the people class making it human – I argued, to no avail, that coffee is necessary for life and therefore should have human like adjectives. Mistakes I have learned from, although I may make again.

                So by the middle of May my training that had been spread out over a year, almost to the day, will be complete and I will get to work. This year of training has stretched my brain, and had me in many places and one of the best parts has been to meet so many missionaries headed out all over the world. I plan on putting up a map surrounded by prayer cards of all my friends around the globe.

             
 Aside from language I have been exploring the beautiful country of Kenya I visited the Tigoni fall’s last weekend and this weekend I hiked mount Longonot, a dormant volcano. I have some pictures of both for you to enjoy. For Easter I will be heading to Tenwek. As Tenwek is  about four hours from Nairobi I have not been there since I arrived in Kenya almost three months ago. I am looking forward to seeing friends both old and new.

Tigoni Falls

The view from Mt. Longonot - the lake is Lake Naivasha

3 of us hikers on the rim we are scouting out the cape buffalo

Levi, one of my teacher and our friend and "guide" for the day.  the crater of Longonot is in the background

Shade School of Language & Culture

I have been at language school for five weeks now – passed my first exam and now in a class of just myself as I go Haraka, Haraka (quickly)to catch up with a class that started a few weeks before I did. It was good to get back to class on Monday after a week off for the election. I am very happy that the election was peaceful, we (the mission organization) were very prepared but I am thankful it was not needed.

I’m writing this post for two reasons, the first to give you a window of what life is like here and the second to provide some free advertising for the my language school – The Shade School of Language &Culture. If you stumbled across this blog while researching the school you have come to the right place. I am not paid by the school to do this, I’m just a simple Canadian girl called to missions and taking three months of Swahili lessons.

The school is located about 30min outside of (the outskirts of Nairobi). My commute is easy as I wake up and walk downstairs for breakfast and around the back of the house to my classroom. The house where the school is located is an interesting design – I’m not sure how each room was used when it was a home as some only have access from the outside but it works quite well for the purpose of the school. I live upstairs in one of the four bedrooms, there are also four bathrooms upstairs which helps maintain a healthy relationship with my housemates. There is a small sitting room upstairs with familiar looking Kenyan furniture – we don’t use it much. There is a small front and back balcony, most mornings you will  find someone sitting there doing their devotions. The back balcony also has our laundryroom  - consisting of clothes lines and a sink.

The school is very well organized and runs on more of a western than an African timetable. We start at 8:30am with each of us going to our respective classes, 10:30 is Chai time. The school provides tea, coffee, and hot chocolate as well as some sort of snack. After Chai it is back to class until 12:00. The first few weeks class was done at noon – it was like kindergarten, only half days as that is all your brain can take. I now have class until 3:00. We have a lunch break from 12-1 and are fed a Kenyan lunch often Githeri(Potatoes, beans, corn & carrots all cooked together), Rice &Beans, or lentils and  chapatti. In the afternoon we have an hour of grammar and an hour of conversation. Conversation is one-on-one time with an instructor or good Swahili speaker, that the school has hired for that purpose. I love to talk so this hour is great, however I do stumble through the Swahili. Today I am hoping to do more listening than talking. I find by now I can get my point across in my halting Swahili but listening takes work. I occasionally think conversation time is just pure entertainment for the language helper as I often string together words in the strangest ways.

I started with a class with three others of a more experienced generation.People learn at different speeds especially when there is a large age gap. As I am only here for 3 months and want to maximize my time I have requested to join a class that started a few weeks before I did. The instructors have been most generous and this week I have been in a class by myself, occasionally joining my former class for shared grammar lessons. It just so happens that the class I wish to join will all be away next week – this works well as when they are back I should be caught up to where they left off. Being in a class of one is an interesting dynamic. All the questions are up to me to answer so by the end of the day my voice is tired from all the translating from English to Swahili. I know some of you are astonished that my voice is capable of wearing out. In the afternoons it’s my free time. I occasionally walk to Tigoni where I can buy most basic things or catch a ride with my housemates to Village Market if I need more wazungu (white people) things. My evenings are filled with grammar review,vocab flashcards, and staying in touch with friends and family back home. All the brain work makes me tired and I am thankful to duck under my mosquito net (thankfully I brought one) and go to bed early

I will end here with some pictures of the school and my home.

Dining room from the kitchen

One of the classrooms

Kitchen, the fridge/freezer is off to the side

4 weeks of language, election & a license

So I am supposed to be studying right now –making sure I know how all the noun classes work but I am taking a break as I think I got it down to make the word “this” the subject prefix doubles the vowel and starts with H, for “that” you change the last letter to an O. When doing the possessives I need to remember that a u sounds like a w and I sounds like a y – make sense?So that’s a window into my life the last 4 weeks trying to find the logic in a language that is logical but has so many parts, it is difficult to keep straight  and  trying to keep up with piles of flashcards.This is interspersed with phone calls home (calling friends and family is much more exciting than flashcards), running errands, making meals, washing clothes and visiting with my housemates. When I started I only had class from 8:30-12now its 8:30-3:00. I have really noticed the loss of 2 hours and have more studying to do as I learn more in class and conversation practice.

This week March 4-8 I do not have any class, as Kenya is having an election. The last election was not peaceful and classes are canceled so I can go to the safety of the home a long term missionary in Nairobi. Please join me in prayer that Kenyans will make wise decisions as they go to the poll, that violence is minimal and that I can take this week to work ahead in my Swahili lessons.

On a non-language related note I received good news last week. I received my licence from the Kenya Society of Physiotherapists. I was quite excited to receive this via e-mail and look forward to holding it in my hands next week. This licence has required quite a bit of work I made a special trip to Kenya last April to take the exam – oral and written. This past summer I wrote e-mails concerning the dates of my practicum (they wanted me to do it before October and I wanted to do it in January).  The practicum was done in January and it was four weeks in the hospital working as a physiotherapist – an interesting job for an RT. Since January I have made phone calls to attempt to expedite the paperwork I am glad it is done. I can now move forward with a work permit application, please pray that this will be a quick process.

My life has not been that exciting lately but I have a few pictures and I will end here with them. Just a note of warning the 2nd and last picture should not be viewed by those with a weak stomach.

A few of the teachers playing badminton during lunch break, apparently we are not too hard on them

My housemate injured his toe when a motorbike fell on it. This is the closest I have gotten to medicine the last few weeks as I do an occasional dressing change for him. the other day we had to do it outside so I would have light as the power was out, which is why the grass is the background of the picture.

My Life in Tigoni

So I have lived in Tigoni for just over two weeks now. I thought I would share a little bit what everyday life is like. As I mentioned in an earlier post I live in a house that is combined with the school. My bedroom is on the top left of this picture, and my classroom is on the bottom left. It makes it easy in class when we are practicing our Swahili and I am asked where I live - I can simply respond with up. Right behind the house is a safricom cell tower. I appreciate this as my internet is reasonably fast.

I have a cozy bedroom but it has everything I need: windows to let the light in when the power is out (which is quite rare here) and let the moths and the mosquitoes in at night. (Mom, you will be proud to know I am mostly over my fear of moths, although I wish I had a vacuum cleaner to suck them up). I take great security in my mosquito net, although I still have the odd bite. The bedroom also has 2 wardrobe style closets so I have been able to unpack and settle in. 

I don't know if it is due to the sun rising, the birds singing, or my house mates stirring but I have been up early most days. I often sit outside, on the balcony, and read a book or just enjoy the beauty around me. The picture below does not do justice to the amount of greenery I am surrounded by.

There are some interesting facts about living in Africa and one thing I have had to get used to is a different shower. I love a hot shower with lots of water - not happening. In Kenya I have encountered two types of hot water heaters.   The first is the North American style of a tank, BUT, you turn it on a hour before you shower as to not waste electricity (this was the system I had for my month in Nairobi, however water did not come consistently to our home so no long hot shower or you would not be able to do the laundry or flush the toilet the next day).Here in Tigoni we have the second system. I admire the technology behind the system but it slightly terrifies me. I don't know what the actual name is of this thing is but I have often heard it dubbed the widow maker. It works on a simple principle coils are in the shower head and when water is turned on they are heated by electricity, this heat is than transferred to the water as it passes over the coils and voila instant hot shower. If it is not hot enough you turn the flow of  the water down and if it is to hot you increase the amount of water. You have to be careful not to touch the shower head while its on as you may get a shock, we all know how well electricity and water mix. My shower broke the other day, when I turned it off a whole lot of steam came out. So I am using my house mates shower and hope mine will be fixed soon. 

 I have one more picture I would like to share with you - my laundry room as you can tell  it had a lot of natural light. You can see my  washing machine pictured on the bottom - yup the lovely blue bucket. I am washing by hand and since I only have class part of the day I can't justify having house help so the wash is done by my hands. I have discovered wringing out clothes is an excellent workout for the forearms.

 So I hope you appreciated this little view of my life. I am enjoying life here and its slower pace. This afternoon I am going to walk to the store. I hope it is open. This will be my 4th trip to the store this week and every time it has been closed - aggh. Once I was there in an afternoon when he is normally closed, another time I got there on the lunch break, yesterday he was supposed to be open but wasn't  This afternoon he is supposed to be open we I guess I will see. I appreciate the walk either way.

Back to Kindergarten

This past Saturday I did something I have gotten quite used to the past few months – I packed my bags and moved on. I have lost count any times I have packed and unpacked since I moved out of my place in Edmonton in June. Sometimes it was for a quick trip, other times it was for longer like when I was  living on the road for two months. This time, I sent some of my stuff ahead to Tenwek – I will be reunited with it in May. The remaining two bags and I moved to Tigoni. Tigoni is my home for the next few months as I learn Swahili. I am staying in a house that is combined with the language school – my bedroom is directly above my classroom – so I have no excuse to be late in the morning, although my fellow students have sometimes arrived at school while I am still finishing breakfast.

I am enjoying my classes and I often feel like I am in Kindergarten, although I am missing out on centers. In the first few days my class (which is only four people) spent time learning the alphabet and the sounds of each letter – “i”  sounds like “ee ” so a Kenyan would spell tea - ti. The “e” is a great sound for a Canadian to make as it is the “eh” we are so well known for. So I have learned the alphabet and yesterday my homework was to memorize how to count to 10. Today we learned a counting song, just like kindergarten.  As language learning is difficult, especially at first when you are trying to turn that part of your brain on, I only have classes in the morning the first week or two. I have spent  the afternoons studying  and occasionally taking a nap – just like kindergarten.

A highlight of everyone’s kindergarten experience is a field trip and Wednesday that was done. We piled in a few cars, some of the students drove and we had no seat-belts – which would have never happened in kindergarten. We went a few kilometers down the road to a tea farm. Here we received an introduction to the tea industry from a third generation tea farmer. Her grandfather was one of the first to start growing tea in Kenya. It was interesting to hear the history, this was followed by a walk through the woods and an amazing four course lunch.

A silvery winged horn bill (I think that's what it was called)

Beautiful Tea Fields

So that has been my week, I pray I will progress out of kindergarten and learn Swahili  quickly – so I better end here and study my flashcards.

Not Wrong, Just Different

A few weeks before leaving for Kenya I took a course called SPLICE. I have already shared via this blog a few things I learned there. One thing I have not yet shared is the saying "not wrong, just different". Frequently we come up against things in a new culture and immediately think "that is wrong"for example we say that in England people drive on the "wrong" side of the road. Here in Kenya they do not drive on the wrong side of the road but on the other side of the road. This is different than Canada and I have almost got in the driver side once or twice when I am meaning to be the passenger and been confused when entering a traffic circle but this is not wrong just different.

So I have compiled a list of differences that I have noticed, some I need to remind myself that they are not wrong others are just interesting differences.

• The power here is 240V and the plug in are British style, whenever I have to plug something in I double check the small writing to make sure I don't fry it.
• People here dress "smart", they are expected to dress cleanly and their best. Last week I lectured at the Kenya Medical Training College - all the men are in dress pants and white tops and the girls in blue dresses, they also have sweaters to put on top which they often wear as well even when its 25 degrees. They look good or "smart" as they say.
• I need to be more aware of my surroundings when walking, being white=money so I am careful to guard my  pockets, also the sidewalks are not level and there might not be a cover on the manhole that I just walked by. The first part of this is wrong, stealing needs to be stopped.
• I can walk down the block and buy 2 mangoes, 1 avocado and 4 (large) bananas for the equivalent of $1.70 Cad. This is definitely not wrong
• Just because you are going somewhere by car does not mean you will get there quickly. I have been walking to and from my practicums about 4 km one way. When I started my jaunt the other day I noticed a large van with 3 nuns inside, when I got to my turn, 4 km later, I looked to cross the road and there was that same van with the 3 nuns.
• When eating out it is not always a good idea to eat everything on your plate. Fresh veggies are full of bacteria and need to be bleached before you eat them, this is not always done at public eating places, they are washed in tap water, wich is not clean, and foreign guts do not appreciate new bacteria and parasites
• I may not drink the tap water, I may not brush my teeth with tap water, I may not wash my veggies in tap water  The reason - the above mentioned bacteria and parasites
• I must plan my bathroom breaks to include comfort - by comfort I am talking a toilet with a seat and toilet paper. In public the options are often not up to the standard north Americans expect. 
• Just because you are told something starts at such and such a time does not mean it will.

I will end there but there may be part 2 of this when I start work at Tenwek.

Finally an update from Nairobi

So I have been meaning to write this post for a while but life in Nairobi has been busy filled with many new faces, a new home (for now) and interesting experiences. I am looking forward to some time to catch my breath....maybe tomorrow.
I arrived in Nairobi January 4th. I was seated close to the front of the plane and was one of the first ones off. I thought to myself - yes now I won't have to wait in the Visa line forever and I can get to bed at a decent time tonight. Well,I was half right, I got out of the visa line in record time and went downstairs to grab my bags. That is when the waiting began, after about 1.5 hours all the bags had finally been unloaded and gone around the carousel. I was one bag short. So I filled out the paper work and was told the missing bag was still in Amsterdam and that it would be delivered in a day or 2 - which it was. So one bag short I walked through customs and went out to the sea of people holding signs. I looked for the one with my name on it, and looked again  No sign  therefore for some reason or another my driver had not come. I knew I should have sent an e-mail to double check. I made a few phone calls and found a taxi to take me to my home in Nairobi for the next month.
Finally I made it, the door was opened and I was greeted with hug from the Nurse Practictioner who has graciously let me stay with her this month.
Saturday and Sunday were busy picking up a few things, unpacking, Sunday service at church and realizing that I am actually in Kenya and I will be here the next 27 months.
I am living in Nairobi for the month of January. I have had to jump through a few hoops to get a registration to work in the hospital in Kenya. One of these hoops, and hopefully the last, is a 4 week practicum in the hospitals in Nairobi. I have completed a week at the public hospital here and it has been interesting. I have been placed at these hospitals to learn, and to see how the Kenyan system works. I have been paired with physiotherapists (they are the closest thing to an RT in Kenya) and spending time in the ICU. Since I am going through this process to receive a stamp of approval, not to teach them, it had been a little tough. I witness things happening routinely that are wrong and not in the patient's best interest. I try to bring it up gently but if they do not listen there is nothing I can do. Don't worry. I have not seen anything happen that could cause immediate death but just a lot of little things that grate on my nerves.
This week my practicum has been teaching 3rd year physiotherapy students. This has been fun .I am procrastinating preparing my slides, but that is normal for me. The lectures go well, although I have to continually remind myself to talk slowly. The last 2 weeks of my practicum will be back in the ICU at 2 different private hospitals.

I walk by these plants for sale during my daily walk, I call it the greenhouse they grow them right along the road

I am thankful 3 out of my 4 weeks I am going to places close by, only about 4.5km, unfortunately the buses are all full, so I have been walking 9km round trip/day. I have enjoyed the walk and the close up of the people it allows me to see. The last week I head a little further out and will be taking a taxi, spending all the money, and more,  I have saved by walking.

This past weekend I got out of the city with the Nurse Practioner I am staying with as well as her team and the Tenwek eye team. We headed out of the city to a blind school started by the Salvation Army. The children have varying stages of vision loss and you literally see the blind leading the blind. The eye team saw about 150 children while the medical team saw the same children for a quick assessment and handed out deworming pills and multivitamins. A few of these children will be coming to Tenwek for further assessment as it is possible something may be done to restore their sight. WOW what a difference that will make in a child's life.

Eye Assessments

I think that has you mostly caught up I will try to post again soon.