Nothing in particular.
"4:53am Sleep is the last and final sanctuary for the troubled soul. For the same reason that I am never having babies, I bet Hitler was an insomniac."
That was the start of an entry I've decided not to post. This morning, after listening to the dogs in my yard bark for an hour, I wrote it on the back of a stationery pad that I've started taking to bed with me. I write letters until I get sleepy or until I give up fighting the cold and tuck myself in.
I finally went back to sleep around 7, but because I wanted to get a lot done today, I was really nervous about sleeping too late. I woke up every three minutes to check the time. When I finally got out of bed at 9, I felt a lot worse. The screaming toddler next door did not help.
As I left my house I saw a little chameleon on our front gate. He was so cute I considered taking him home. "After all," I thought, "he won't bark or cry, and he has prehensile hands and feet!" I had to undo the latch he was standing on, but he held on as it swung him around. I closed the gate again and turned to him. He watched me suspiciously as I pondered how, evolutionarily, he could be so much like a primate. He reached around for a swaying branch like a human baby reaches for invisible things in the air, then caught it and got a bit greener. I wondered what defense mechanisms he could use against me. He inched forward, his eye swiveling keenly, and browned. I wondered how long he could survive in a cardboard box with only a branch to keep him company. He inched forward again, hiding in a dense bunch of leaves. I decided to leave him alone.
I'm going to a nearby school today to do a story-sharing activity with the students who board there. It's a simple activity, a binary tree optimization, where each person shares a story with another, and the partners pick the one they like better. Then the pairs pair up and repeat. This goes on until you only have a few groups left, and each group tells their story. You can do it with whatever theme you want, and our theme today is going to be how AIDS has impacted us personally. I think I'm going to have them present their stories in skit form, because Kenyans love skits. At the end I'll give some stats about how AIDS has impacted the world and various parts of it, and then we'll call it a day. The beauty of this activity is that they do all the work, so I don't know what can go wrong, but this is my first class ever, and I'm nervous.*
As far as teaching in schools is concerned, I think I'm going to hold off on formal sessions. I'll do some games here and there but I'm trying to find a couple of Kenyans who can teach with me as a team so that we can reach more schools and provide feedback for each other. After a year or so of us doing all the teaching, I want to train teachers to teach it in their own schools, though I feel hesitant about it because schoolteachers already work from dawn to dusk. The officer at my local Ministry of Education department said he didn't have a problem with it, but only after he essentially washed his hands of doing anything to help me organize. In the meantime I'm going to continue developing lesson plans and meet the local chiefs, because even though I was reluctant to meet any of them at first, I've decided that I really want people to get to know and trust me before I start vocalizing issues that the community is relatively hush about.
Other than that I don't have any news. I look forward to every chance I get to see my Peace Corps friends as The Homesickness Ache evolves into something permanent, a little chameleon clinging to my heart, silent and resolute, changing from fond reminiscence to unbearable longing and back again. I wonder what would happen if I tried to flick it off. I don't think it would budge.
*The activity went really well, entirely because the kids were amazing.
That was the start of an entry I've decided not to post. This morning, after listening to the dogs in my yard bark for an hour, I wrote it on the back of a stationery pad that I've started taking to bed with me. I write letters until I get sleepy or until I give up fighting the cold and tuck myself in.
I finally went back to sleep around 7, but because I wanted to get a lot done today, I was really nervous about sleeping too late. I woke up every three minutes to check the time. When I finally got out of bed at 9, I felt a lot worse. The screaming toddler next door did not help.
As I left my house I saw a little chameleon on our front gate. He was so cute I considered taking him home. "After all," I thought, "he won't bark or cry, and he has prehensile hands and feet!" I had to undo the latch he was standing on, but he held on as it swung him around. I closed the gate again and turned to him. He watched me suspiciously as I pondered how, evolutionarily, he could be so much like a primate. He reached around for a swaying branch like a human baby reaches for invisible things in the air, then caught it and got a bit greener. I wondered what defense mechanisms he could use against me. He inched forward, his eye swiveling keenly, and browned. I wondered how long he could survive in a cardboard box with only a branch to keep him company. He inched forward again, hiding in a dense bunch of leaves. I decided to leave him alone.
I'm going to a nearby school today to do a story-sharing activity with the students who board there. It's a simple activity, a binary tree optimization, where each person shares a story with another, and the partners pick the one they like better. Then the pairs pair up and repeat. This goes on until you only have a few groups left, and each group tells their story. You can do it with whatever theme you want, and our theme today is going to be how AIDS has impacted us personally. I think I'm going to have them present their stories in skit form, because Kenyans love skits. At the end I'll give some stats about how AIDS has impacted the world and various parts of it, and then we'll call it a day. The beauty of this activity is that they do all the work, so I don't know what can go wrong, but this is my first class ever, and I'm nervous.*
As far as teaching in schools is concerned, I think I'm going to hold off on formal sessions. I'll do some games here and there but I'm trying to find a couple of Kenyans who can teach with me as a team so that we can reach more schools and provide feedback for each other. After a year or so of us doing all the teaching, I want to train teachers to teach it in their own schools, though I feel hesitant about it because schoolteachers already work from dawn to dusk. The officer at my local Ministry of Education department said he didn't have a problem with it, but only after he essentially washed his hands of doing anything to help me organize. In the meantime I'm going to continue developing lesson plans and meet the local chiefs, because even though I was reluctant to meet any of them at first, I've decided that I really want people to get to know and trust me before I start vocalizing issues that the community is relatively hush about.
Other than that I don't have any news. I look forward to every chance I get to see my Peace Corps friends as The Homesickness Ache evolves into something permanent, a little chameleon clinging to my heart, silent and resolute, changing from fond reminiscence to unbearable longing and back again. I wonder what would happen if I tried to flick it off. I don't think it would budge.
*The activity went really well, entirely because the kids were amazing.
posted by Anonymous at
10:25 AM
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