Sunday, December 6, 2009

Outward Bound

Today 25 secondary school children arrived at the Outward Bound facility in Loitokitok. They are going to help in creating a mock secondary school for the Peace Corps Traineers. Since I will be teaching at Pwani Secondary School for the Deaf, 5 of the students are deaf. The children arrived shortly after a huge rain cloud gathered over Loitokitok. Unlike Arkansas, when it starts to rain in Kenya, it doesn't stop for awhile. And in Loitokitok, when it rains it gets extremely slippery. (I fell twice). The matatu's carrying the children ended up getting stuck. Luckily a Peace Corps vehicle came to rescue.

After dinner, we gathered outside of the "volunteer/trainee" house on the Outward Bound grounds. We played "bite the bag". This is a game where we all get in a circle around a paper bag. One person says their name and then hops on one foot to the paper bag and tries to bend down and pick up the bag with their teeth. Then they pick someone from a different school to state their name and try to "bite the bag."

After the game, we broke the children into groups. We thought that since the deaf children were small in number they could help a group of hearing students learn Kenyan Sign Language. The students were taught the manual alphabet, family members, and how to introduce themselves. They were even given sign names. Tonight was a great night! The students will be here until Saturday, so the memorable events have only begun!!!!!

I'm going to get some sleep, now. 5 am will come early, and tomorrow will start another very busy week.