Around the Coffee Table (Thursday 7/9)

The sound of my alarm woke me up once more. As I laid in bed, I heard Joseph outside getting ready. I fully expected him to say good morning and check if I was up, but by the time I got up from bed he had already left for the office! I suppose it’s a subtle way to tell me that I get to be more independent here. Something I’m totally okay with!

I brushed my teeth, packed my backpack, and went to the office. On the road to the office, I saw Jonathan carrying a suitcase and I walked up to him to say good morning. We walked together and he told me that the suitcase is full of the things that I had asked for yesterday! He mentioned that the things might not work and that I had free reign to do whatever I wanted to with them. We got to the office and I brought the suitcase into the main room. I unpacked it and found several Raspberry Pi computers, some WiFi routers, and other miscellaneous things. All of the components were older, but would still be incredibly helpful for my Kolibri Project. I found it funny that there were two Raspberry Pis that were still in their unopened boxes from 2015 and 2017 (they could’ve been collector’s items at this point)! After I finished unpacking and inspecting everything, I noticed that none of the Raspberry Pis had microSD cards (their storage system so nothing will work). I got to tell Jonathan if he could get some for me and it sounds like he’ll be able to!

Up until tea time I worked on my blog as I’ve been getting behind and didn’t have any other world besides making my videos. If you can’t tell, I’m kind of procrastinating that work. When tea time came at 10:00am, I continued to work on my laptop until Joseph told me to stop working! In his eyes, to work into a break is foolish and that I should immediately go to Roza’s house when the clock strikes 10. I would’ve liked to walk to Roza’s house with Eli and Miraclin, but I listened to Joseph and headed straight there. In my opinion I’ll stop working when Miraclin and Eli are ready to go!

I get to the house and wait in the main room until Eli and Miraclin show up. For breakfast we had something called “chapati” which is essentially a pancake tortilla crossover. They were absolutely amazing and when paired with Miraclin’s bitter coffee it was a match made in heaven! Leftover mandazi was also served and added to the wonderful breakfast. I hope that Roza makes chapati again for us, or shows us how to make it as I’d love to have it again!

With our bellies full, we walked back to the office and I did more of the same until it was time for lunch! Since I was blogging the entire time and typing fast, I had several people come up to me asking how and where I learned how to type. They were always so surprised that I learned so young and how much I’m able to write. I promised all of them I would teach them later today and get them on track to type faster! The impetus for everyone in the education department to learn how to type is for exam creation. With their chicken-pecking typing, it will take three days to create one exam! When you have hundreds of exams that need several revisions, you can clearly see how much time the department would be saved if they could type even a little faster.

12:30pm came around which meant it was time for our lunch break! Of course we knew that the food wouldn’t be ready for a while so we stayed back at the office while everyone left to eat. Before leaving, Rapheali, the one who talked to me about Branham yesterday, had another odd conversation with me. To summarize, he talked about how nice things are in America and that when I come back, or when others from America come to Bukimau, he wants them to bring back stuff for him in America. He said that he would pay the person coming so they could bring things like iPhones or laptops back for him to use. It all had a very weird vibe to it and I just went along with what he said. The next part of the conversation was about being a bachelor and what not. I’m not sure what he was trying to say, but left when he realized that he needed to go to make his own food because he’s a bachelor. Eli listened in to the conversation as well and thought it was odd too! It turns out that Eli had an interesting conversation about food with Raphaeli. Apparently Raphaeli is short because he doesn’t eat ugali and would rather not eat than have to eat the same things over and over again. Interesting!

We worked on our stuff until it was closer to 1:30pm where we figured that it was time for lunch. Miraclin was working in another room so Eli and I went over to pick her up to go. When we entered, Miraclin told us that Roza would text her when the food was ready and should wait a while longer. We agree and begin talking about posters. Eli wanted a poster on the concept of the Atom and I wanted one for Kolibri. It turns out that if you want a poster made by Miraclin, there is a whole bureaucratic way to do it now. You must fill out an entire form to be added to the queue of posters! We talked about some science (the “weak force” is an actual thing) before going back to the main room to work some more. Miraclin came by and we all went to Roza’s house for lunch around 2:10pm. 

For lunch we ate a very hot, but delicious spaghetti that had a sauce full of vegetables and potatoes! Roza is always saying “pole” when the food is super hot and we assure her that we’re just happy to have warm food! The food was filling and I’ve come to really enjoy all of us eating together at the coffee table. Even though we have to lean over for the food and there's a lot less table space, it’s nice to be close and eat from the same plate like a family. I think it’d be fun to eat this way for a meal back home!

Another thing I’d like to note is it’s getting annoying for me to untie and tie my shoes when I enter a home. I want to show respect by taking them off every time, but it’s starting to get cumbersome to do all that tying for a few moments in a house! Eli and Miraclin just slip off their shoes and I have to rush to catch up. Perhaps I’ll start living more like the locals here and start wearing sandals!

We finished up and went back to the office as soon as 2:30pm hit. I did not want to be late for teaching! However, when we reached the office almost all of the education members were inside of the main office room watching something. I asked Roza what was going on and she told me an “assessment” that would end at 3:30pm and left to go do her work in another room. Eli and I sat outside and enjoyed the wonderful sun in the meantime (played on our phones a bit)! Jonathan came out to go to lunch and explained that an assessment is how the education department does their teacher interviews. When it comes to the assessment, there are two parts. The first part, which I did not see, is in another room where a regular behavioral interview takes place (how do you know about VST? Why do you want to be a teacher?, ect.). 

The second part, the one I did see, is in the main office where the teacher has time to prepare a lesson on their subject of teaching and teach the education department a short class. While the teacher is teaching, everyone in the education department acts like a class of students to test the teacher’s ability to teach: asking tons of questions, not listening, being disruptive etc.. After about 10 minutes, the education department starts getting rowdy and the teacher has to command the classroom effectively! Jonathan said it’s quite fun to be a part of one and hopes that I get to sit in on an assessment here soon!

3:30pm came and it was time for me to teach. Since I lost my first hour of teaching time, I figured we would cover two simple topics: how the physical components of Kolibri work and how to type (I was requested to teach this several times). The teaching went great and I’ve really found my groove. During every lesson it is imperative to talk with a low voice and speak very slowly to ensure they understand me. I have to talk this way not because they don’t understand English well, but because this is how everyone talks in English here. When they speak English together (or were taught English) it’s slower, with a smaller vocabulary, and with a low tone (Swahili is a language that is naturally lower in tone, English is the opposite). To ensure everyone is engaged I make sure to ask a lot of questions of varying difficulty (easy ones to instill confidence and hard ones to be inquisitive towards learning). The first half with Kolibri went well and I think they understand it better.

When it came time for typing, they all were very excited to learn. They all know how long it takes them to do anything on the computer and want to start saving time! I used the same program as I did for the students back in Madisi, Type Fu, and made sure it was downloaded onto all of their computers. I went over which fingers went with what key and gave them time to practice. There were a ton of questions about the limitations of Type Fu, specifically from Moses who was wondering if there was a phonetic pronunciation alphabet. It took me a bit to understand what he was truly asking and I asked him if he could explain more. Moses went to go get a dictionary and pulled up a seemingly random word to demonstrate what he was talking about. I’m not sure if he was pulling my leg or it was a complete coincidence, but the word he chose as his example was “bitch”! I had to tell him that word is inappropriate in America and that he needed to find another one (all of the teachers found this very funny). To Moses' dismay, there is no way to type the pronunciation alphabet and the best bet is to simply copy and paste it from the internet when you need it!

Towards the end, a man named Mateo asked me if I could teach them how to draw on Microsoft Word and Google Docs to make better diagrams for their exams. What a great idea! Hopefully there’s time this weekend. I dismissed the class and Peter and Rapheali were in a fierce typing competition. I told them that at the end of the month we’ll have an official typing race to see who’s the fastest typer!

Before I knew it, it was quittin’ time (4:30pm)! Eli and I packed up and Peter talked to us about his excitement to learn more about computers. Peter is one of my favorite people in the education department and has an inspiring desire to always learn more. Out of everyone in the department, he is one of the hardest workers and kindest souls. Eli and I promised him that we would teach him everything we know before we leave! On the way out, Peter asked if he could bring his broken laptop tonight and I of course agreed!

Excited to play volleyball, I walked to my house, changed into my volleyball clothes, and waited for Joseph to change. On our walk to the volleyball grounds, all of the students were working together to clean the entire area: sweeping the road, burning trash and dead plant material, and carrying buckets of water to the school for further cleaning. To us Americans it seems odd to sweep dirt roads and paths, but it does make them look a lot better. Overall it’s so cool to see such cooperation to take care of something that’s so important to them. The students do this large scale clean up once or twice a week and seem to be enjoying the entire process! The students in America could learn a thing or two. 

At the ground we started by warming up with the ball in a little circle and waited for more people to show up. Soon enough there was enough to have our regular 6 on 6 matches! My team had a slow start, but an amazing comeback towards the end. At one point the set score was 1-4 and my team was losing quite badly. What turned the tables was Joseph’s ball hogging. He would try to play each and every position resulting in a lack of plays on his side. I could tell Eli was getting super upset by this, especially when Joseph would coach him on mistakes that were usually Joseph’s fault in the first place. The selfish energy started to affect their team. By the end of the night, the sets ended up being tied 4-4.  

To my satisfaction, I’m finally adjusted to playing here and finally had some amazing games! During the very last game, I had four amazing blocks and created a new celebration called “HAMBURGER” where I roared out “HAMBURGER” and rubbed my belly. The story behind this celebration comes from Joseph who was playing the same position. I was frequently on the next block, blocking him on the net. Sometimes we would hit bodies and he’d exclaim, “How are you so heavy? What do you eat in America?”! My response, “Hamburger”! 

With the games over, it was time for our end of game brief. At this point, Eli was very upset and you could see this visibly on his face. I can’t blame him either as I experienced the same thing a few days prior. It’s hard to play well and get into a groove when someone is stealing your hit and giving you sets into the net. To my surprise, Joseph during the brief period owned up for his mistakes and promised he would be a better team player that passes more! 

As the brief ended, Magaka let El and I know that Miraclin and Roza were waiting for us to go to the village! During lunch, Roza had briefly mentioned going to the village with all of us in the evening, but Eli and I thought Miraclin and her would go without us since we would be playing volleyball. Since they were still waiting for us, we both ran back home, got dressed quickly, put some shillings in our pockets, and went to Roza’s house. We all waited outside of Roza’s house and I talked with Jordan, Joseph, and another man I did not get the name of. For some reason the conversation was about boxing and we all laughed with the thought of me boxing Jordan (he’s short). I also gave Joseph a hard time about the whole key situation from yesterday and accidentally shared where we put the key (we might need a new spot now…).

Soon enough it was time to go to the village! Roza, Miraclin, Eli, and I were on our way. The walk was about 10 minutes through paths that went by many corn fields and houses. It was dark at this point and we all used our phone flashlights to navigate. The purpose of the village excursion was to get some food for tonight and see what the village center was like. When we got there Roza needed to get some money from the bank and we stood outside waiting for her. The banks here are small shops that have someone working inside where you deposit money on the phone to them and they’ll dispense the deposited amount! Standing outside there were many people and one of them named Brazili started talking to us. Our Swahili knowledge is so little that it was hard to actually answer his questions. We introduced ourselves and he wanted to get us a gift. When Brazili disappeared, Roza reappeared and we went to some shops to buy food.

We walked around and got avocados, okra, small eggplants, eggs, and some tiny peppers. Brazili reappeared and gave me an orange for our gift! During the shopping trip I heard a lot of “Mzungo” and wish I could speak better Swahili! We finished up our shopping and walked back home. On the way we saw a massive agave plant that in its death bloom and I argued that it was not. I was swiftly proven wrong and learned something new! Agave plants here are used for property boundaries and every 10-30 years shoot up a massive stalk to spread their seeds.

When we all got back to Roza’s house, Eli and I began shucking corn! The blister on my thumb has since drained and it started to heal. I of course ripped off the blister while shucking corn, but it didn’t hurt much. Before Eli and I could even take the kernels off of two cobs, our water was ready for us to bathe. I took my bucket to Joseph’s house, bathed, and got dressed. Now that I take all of these evening showers, I change into the clean clothes of the next day.

I bathed and got all ready quickly.. Eli was having a rough day from volleyball so I got a drink from my suitcase and was ready to walk out the door when Peter was there! I completely forgot he was coming and we sat down on the couch together to diagnose the problems. To spare the technical details, nothing serious is wrong and I’ll be able to do a lot more tomorrow when we are connected to the internet. I told Peter that there was hope and gave him back his very nice laptop before heading to Eli’s house.

When I arrived, Eli was in his host’s room playing this piano. I sat down with him and he showed me the new chords that Jordan taught him (they were cool!). I played them a bunch and began to teach Eli how chords work (all those band classes didn’t go to waste). During the chord learning, he recognized a song and with a simple Google search, we were singing and playing an entire song. We had a ton of fun and hope we can learn more chords of songs in the future. 

It was time to go to dinner and Eli and I walked to Roza’s house. If you haven’t noticed we eat dinner here quite late and tonight was no exception (10:00pm). When we got inside we were met with a feast: ugali, avocados galore, okra, greens, and two different types of eggs. Everything was amazing and the eggs were fantastic. Dorris ate with us and shot me a lot of dirty looks when I made funny comments. During the meal and completely by accident, I farted really loudly and she gave a look of death. Everyone bursted out laughing and all in all it was a great time. I asked for Dorris forgiveness and all she said was “okay”. To add to the chaos, Eli started farting too while I tried to catch ugali in my mouth and proceeded to hit my head on the couch. I said that I had a “boo boo” which caused even more laughter. Roza explained to me that a “boo boo” is someone who is mute and speaks in sign language! We all enjoyed each other’s company with full bellies until it was time to go.

We all left around 11:00pm which is late! I walked home, got ready for bed, blogged, and fell asleep! What an amazing day!