First Weeks Training

Initial Entry to Training
Peace Corps Service began in Philadelphia on the 3rd of October with several exercises to confirm our commitment to service, bonding exercises and an introduction to the organization. The adventure began in earnest though at 2:45 AM the next morning with checkout and loading the bus for the trip to Kennedy Airport. We flew to Johannesburg, South Africa (15hrs 40 Min) and then on to Nairobi, Kenya. It was apparent when we landed in Kenya that we were expected, well treated and welcome. I recall coming past immigration, waved through and proceeding with a mountain of luggage, tired and lost only to see several smiling faces with a huge WELCOME PEACE CORPS banner. It all melted away. We were ushered to buses and loaded our bags and then proceeded to the AFRALTI training facility.
Peace Corps Training began with cultural and bonding activities all with student presentations by groups. We also had the first four shots and were given our malaria preventative. We were fortunate to have wi-fi available. Each night it was amusing to see all of the trainees outside the dorm lit by the lights from their computer screens. This experience provided just enough time to get beyond our jet lag and disorientation.
Loitokitok
Peace Corps training for the education volunteers is conducted in Loitokitok. This is a dusty little town at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Classes are distributed all over the town and we walk everywhere. We have met the chief of police, the local representative of the Ministry of Youth, the Chief and other entities of importance in the town. The Peace Corps has blossomed for us after the dearth of information received waiting for our departure. We are in a first class training program intended to sensitize us to the nuances of the Kenyan culture and give us a working competence in the Swahili language. It is hard to believe, but we are becoming conversant in the language and by the time swearing in comes around, in the middle of December, we will be able to survive in the field with our language skills.
Home Stay
Each volunteer, while in the training program, lives with a host family. It is our good fortune to live with the family of Lucia Mungai. She is our Mama. Baba (Lucia’s husband) is Mungai and we have a nine year old brother named Davis. Davis is a whirlwind to say the least. Smart, independent and self directed, not always in a positive direction. He had an earache one day and went to the hospital alone for treatment! This boy has come to this earth to accomplish something!
We have a great family. Others complain about the amount of chores they have to do each day. We do our own laundry each Saturday, wash the floor in our room, set the table and haul water for the choo (bathroom). You know you are no longer in Kansas when you see the choo. It is similar to some in Asia. One must squat over an elliptical opening in the floor and consummate your business. One then flushes by sloshing a bucket of water across the opening to the hole in the back. Frankly I miss sitting and doing the morning puzzles in the newspaper at this time.
We have a great assortment of vegetables cooked by a marvelous cook. Mama can take cabbage, tomatoes, onions and a little oil and rice and make a delicious dish. Add in the gallon of rice and peas, lentils, okra and carrots and we have a feast. Baba makes sure we eat a lot. The great thing about it is that there are not a whole lot of calories involved. Satisfaction comes at a lower cost here! Sometimes we have a small dish with meat in it. I may be a vegetarian by the time we are through with our tour. I really don’t miss it.
It is easy to see the British influence here. We have tea at mid morning and at 4-5 in the afternoon. The English carries the British accent as well. We have a hard time hearing the words sometimes and they do as well. Davis said as much this morning. What we say is not always understood either. When I look for a specific answer, I may have to ask six times. Swahili is really the first language, if not the tribal language (our family is Kukuyu). English may then be the third language, even if it is the official language.
Walking
Walking is our mode of transportation. We are forbidden to use the piki pikis (small motorcycle taxis) and with good reason. They are an accident waiting to happen and an extra cost on a very short budget. We got paid yesterday, KSW 2500 ($25). Oddly enough we get by with what we get. We just don’t get to go to the Golden Corral!
One of the downsides of walking is the dust. Except for the main roads in the town all are dirt. Vehicles make a fine dust and it gets all over shoes and clothes. “Smart” is the way one dresses here (Mama wears a nice suit – skirt and jacket – to the market to buy her veggies) and one is obliged to clean shoes regularly. Walking is also improving our waistlines. (I still miss the Honda though.)
Greetings
We tend to live in a private world in the US. We like to be independent. Here in Kenya, it would be rude not to extend greetings. Hujambo—Sijambo, Habari Za Asabuhi …hello, good morning. We in the US say how are you as an obligatory and don’t care, it’s just a greeting; here they care, and be prepared to fill in the blanks!
As in the stages of grieving, we have been told that we will go through four phases. Phase two is the culture shock time. We are still in phase one and plan to stay there. We have been in enough cultures to know the drill. Kenyans are good and friendly people and it is a place we like to be.
We have a good family, a very professional staff of trainers, a beautiful mountain, more stars than I have ever seen, and they pay us (well, sort of)! Life is good, if hectic — learning the language from a three inch fire hose.
Looking Forward
We are about to start the third (can you believe it) week of training. We will continue the language with marketing and bargaining. We have a whole day on Maintaining Strong Emotions and Personal security. Nothing is left to chance about the well being of a volunteer. On Saturday we are going back to Nairobi and then off to the west. We think we are going to Lake Victoria area. It will be a great break from the routine and an opportunity to see the country. We haven’t seen any lions or elephants yet. We will do Amboseli at Thanksgiving with the group. We will be out of touch in week four so expect no email or other communication. We will be back in town for week 5. More later.
Kwaheri, Marafiiki Wangu (So long my friends)

Invited to Service in Kenya

Well, at long last, we have been invited to Kenya to teach math and science at secondary level. It is hard to believe all the waiting is over and the real work of preparing is at hand. We have until the third of October to wrap things up and report to Philadelphia for staging. On the fifth it is off to Africa and twenty-six months of service.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/kenya/

Preparing For Service

My wife and I are now 63 years old and wish to make one last contribution to this world before we settle into the world of retirement. At this age we are affectionately know by the Peace Corps to be in a group known as “grave dodgers.”

The process, for one used to planning and executing life and career is a very frustrating one. Once you make the initial inquiry there is a significant application process and interview to be completed. We thought for several meaningful (to us) reasons that we would like to serve in The Ukraine. We have ties to Europe and felt that it would be convenient to travel on occasion to Germany to visit friends and relatives. We had realized that it would be harder to place two people in a location than a single volunteer, so logically we researched the largest service country with our skillset and chose the Ukraine. That was not to be. After a long process we were initially nominated to Africa as math and science teachers.

Not to be dismayed, we accepted the idea and settled into the notion of Africa. We realize that Africa is a big continent and naturally would like to know approximately where we would spend the twenty seven month service experience. Once again we went back to the published materials from The Peace Corps website and researched the participating countries with language and skill demands. There were eight countries that fit the bill. We now had a better idea of where we might go. We were excited and made a map with the country profiles and took it to our volunteer coordinator to show him and try to deduce some more detail. Once again we found out that it was not possible to determine where we would go yet. Our coordinator had just returned from meetings at headquarters and informed us that until a month or two before posting we could go any number of places. It was counter productive to attempt this degree of planning at this time.

What is the lesson in all this? Do you really want to be of service? Find out what your patience levels are and what your motivations are. We have settled back and realize that it is now not really an issue of where we go. We want to go and that knowledge I believe comes as a result of this process.

Next: The dreaded medical process.