Where am I?

It took us a long time to find out where we actually live, because Kenyans hardly ever use maps, and buying one proved not to be easy. When we finally did find one in the right scale, our village was not there! So Ingeborg had to put it in - look for "Sigowet" in hand writing just below the middle. Now you know where to find me!

Game night

I have played dozens of board games, card games and other games almost all my life, I love winning and hate losing (if you’ve ever played against me, you know…), and still, I had one of my best game experiences last week, playing a simple game of Ludo. Ingeborg and I invited our neighbours over for a traditional Norwegain game night on Wednesday. We knew that they had already got some board games from Norway, however, no one seemed to have explained to them how to play, something we wanted to change. We started of with the easiest one, Ludo. If you ever thought Ludo was a boring game - try to play it with someone who has never even rolled a dice before, let alone played a board game, and I promise you a great experience. How do you roll a dice? Which way are you supposed to walk on the board? Why can’t you walk backwards? Why can I only move the red ones? We spent a few minutes going through the basics, then answered millions of questions as they came up during the game. Their enthusiasm was incredible, their winner instincts unbelievable. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much laughter and screaming at a game night, at least not when playing Ludo. Ingeborg and I had a fantastic time as well – giving away the joy of playing board games is great!

Inspired by the success with Ludo, the Norwegian girls decided to make up two more board games to give to the pupils at the boarding school. We made one each, on large posters. Not too complicated, like “stigespill”, where you try to reach a destination, and on the way you can jump backwards or forwards depending on which square you land at. We made them really big so that many people can play at the same time. Hopefully they won’t create hostility between winners and losers.

Pictures will come when the network allows me to upload it. Stay patient, I do.

Everyday life

Just thought I should post some more pictures from the interiour of our house.

The first one is from our living room, it's me sitting on the sofa, mending a night gown. Notice the carpet on the floor! The other picture is kind of a follow-up to a post I put out last week. Even after learning how to cook the Kenyan way, these Wazungu still prefer their Western food. Our kitchen is packed wih great food, and we love cooking.

Domestic duties

We had planned to get a housekeeper to help us clean the house and wash our clothes, but so far we’ve managed on our own. It is not that I all of a sudden love doing housework (that would surprise you, wouldn’t it, mamma?), but we have plenty of time to do it, and it’s a good workout, sweeping and washing the house. A thing we’ve learned, is that cleaning the house before we leave for three days, is not a good idea. In Norway, the house would still be clean when you got back. Here, however, a large number of different bugs have visited the house – and died – while we were away, and thus leaving us with more sweeping to do.

The Kenyan way of washing has also made me discover new ways of getting blisters. Washing all our clothes by hand makes the outside of our fingers sore, because of the way we rub the clothes between our hands (and you can not blame our technique, we learned from the pros next door!). I guess we could use rubber gloves to protect our hands, but when in Africa, do as the Africans…And besides, I hate rubber gloves.

Washing floors manually is of course not a new experience to me– but washing an entire house with no stick to put the cloth on, is. You can definately feel it in your back afterwards.

Food

I'm bringing pictures of the three main dishes in the Kenyan kitchen: ugali, which is the maize porridge without any taste, it just make your stomach feel like you dropped stones down your mouth. Second is sukuma wiki, a spinach-like vegetable that they cut and boil. Not bad, not delicious. Third is chapati, the bread originally from India. Definately a favourite if I have to pick one of these three. The girls teaching us how to cook the Kenyan way are Mercy and Mercy, they live next door (one is a daughter in the house, the other one works there as a housekeeper).

Strange coincidences

What are the odds for running into Norwegians that I know in Kenya? Not great. And still, two weeks ago, as I walked into a restaurant in Kisumu, I met two girls that I studied comparative religion with in India in 2002. All of us were completely shocked, I haven't spoken to either of them since India. Here they are, Astrid and Birgitte.

Teaching and learning

My third week as a teacher (and I finally got the results from my teacher’s exam in Norway, meaning I’m actually a teacher now!) has come to an end, and by now I know a lot more about teaching 50 children at the same time. Not quite a professional yet, I make many mistakes as I go on – but how else am I supposed to learn? I have learnt that Kenyan children are not used to ask questions, even when they don’t understand a single word of what I’ve just said. They are experts in repeating and memorizing, though, and they love singing. In fact, they love to sing so much that I sometimes use it as a reward for good behavoiur in class; If they are able to finish the tasks I’ve given them, I promise them five minutes of singing. The strange thing is that when 90% of them are too shy to talk out loud alone, none of them are afraid of singing alone, it seems. Another thing I’ve learned about their singing, however, is that the African way of singing is hardly ever in unison. Every time I teach them a song, I have to sing each line alone, and they will repeat. Even when they have learnt the song, they will not start with me, because the typical African way of singing is done in the “call-and-response”way. I’ve taught them songs about penguins, a moose, beavers and ponys – and any CISV member reading this will know which songs I’m talking about. The Kenyan children love them just as much as Norwegian children. The top picture shows one of my classes, the bottom one is outside the school, when all 730 pupils are going home for lunch.