Party Time!

So I have been in Kahunda for 3 weeks and have been to a funeral, a wake, a retirement party and a graduation party, that’s a lot.

So the latest thing I have been to was the graduation party of the form 4’s from the secondary school. So you have a picture of the day’s events on the invitation it said from 9am- It started around half past 11 we arrived at 12:20 and it finished around half five for the food and we got left at about half 6 after we had eaten. It is culturally acceptable to be late but not to leave early. It was rewarding to have the meal when we finished which consisted of rice, beef, plantain and cucumber which you eat with your right hand only. I really enjoyed the food and eating the way that they eat it. – can’t wait to get some cooking practice in!

You teachers out there may be saying ‘Graduation party? But it’s only September!’ Well here the school year runs alongside the calendar year. The form 4’s who have ‘graduated’ will sit their final national exams at the end of October.

I have been spending more and more time with secondary students – this is challenging. They speak English – some can say a few phrases others are near enough fluent, so it is easy to hold a conversation with them for longer than passing formalities. One experience: I tried to ask a guy how old he was and then for his age and again when his birthday was the response was consistently ‘yes’. They seem to say that to anything that they don’t understand rather than saying they don’t understand. Part of my reason being here is to practice conversational English with the guys.

Party = a formal occasion where the invited guests sit and watch presentations by the local choir, people singing, sketches, poems sang/read, publically give gifts inc. monetary gifts these total the majority of the party it is then followed by a meal.

Threw a rugby ball round with some secondary guys on a couple of occasions, they can pick up the spin pass fairly easily. Managed to do the simplest passing drill I know with a few of them. Their initial reaction when they see and hold the ball is to laugh which is also comical for me. I wonder how long it will take to get to a game of touch!? I can also see that it will require commitment from them as unfortunately because they have never seen a ball before we can’t just pick up a ball and play a game unlike football.

Each morning this week from 10-11am I have been at the kindergarten (Lake Victoria Christian Academy) doing the PE time for both classes. Ages range from 4-9. Arne & I have been progressively teaching Kickball (baseball with no bat and a football that is rolled not thrown and then kicked). The days when we were only teaching them to kick and run around the bases, there was a lot of sweaty running involved for me to fetch the ball, they thought it was funny when I had to do that.

Please pray for me as I continue to get to know and establish friendships with students at the secondary school.

Settling of scores

So on my first Sunday here in Kahunda and I went with the Andersens, Arne and Marlene. To a church plant on a nearby island and a fishing village called Burongero. The church is a fair few feet up the side of a hill so it has a great view of the bay Burongero is situated in. It was so cool to travel there and back on the Andersens catermerang! On the way it was pretty calm (no wind) so they have a 3.5 Hp engine to do the work of the nonpresent wind. However on the way back it was a fairly choppy and I got satisfyingly wet from the spray. The whole church service was in Swahili I couldn't understand anything – apart from Bwana Asifewe = Praise the Lord – I attempted to translate a verse into Swahili using an English-Swahili dictionary. But this will become less of a problem as I learn Swahili and sooner or later employ someone to help me learn the language.

We already employ a lady called Mama Esther – who does our laundry and some other bits of housework. This is culturally the norm, as it shows that as a wealthy person we are sharing our wealth by employing someone to work for us. It is very hard to communicate with her as I aforementioned I don't speak enough Swahili yet! So as you can already see a main current prayer point is Language learning.

My job title for my time here is 'youth worker with the AIC (Africa Inland Church)'. Arne and I had a meeting with the Andersens, a teacher from the school and the Pastor to look at the different youth groups that were already running and areas where we can be involved. The majority of them are at the AIC secondary school, about 10 min walk from our house. But the secondary school is closed for a weeks holiday next week so our schedule will fall into place when it starts back up again. (I may be confusing you because I am talking in plural, this is when I am talking about Arne and I (Arne and I are doing this year together – both having the same job title and also living together))

We went to the market in Kahunda – which is every Wednesday. Not exactly walking down Castle Street on a Saturday morning. We bought some tomatoes and cucumber. Also spent over two hours on Saturday cutting up some pork. When you buy meat here you don't so much as get a cut of meat but a portion that they just hack off for you so it is a 'cut of meat' but it doesn't represent something you would be able to pick up from Tesco, I'll get used to it. I am looking forward to getting a duck sometime, it will come alive.

We played football the other day with a load of lads from Kahunda. One guy asked for my football. That's something I am going to have to get used to as we have been told this will happen a lot. I say we played football, but it was like playing football on a really sandy beach. That's tough in itself until we figure that they were playing tiny goals – barely visible to the naked eye – made for an interesting game. But I am glad to report that the English and my team beat the German (Arne) and the team he was on, easily making up for the defeat we had to them in the World Cup.

But credit to the Germans they can make a good potato salad! Arne & I made a potato salad with potatoes cooked in a solar oven. The solar oven is basically a box with 4 mirrors attached reflecting the sunlight into the box. You just stick what ever you wan to bake in the box close the lid(made out of glass) and position the whole thing to make sure that the sun light is entering it. It was a fairly sunny day the temperature inside reached 130 C at one point. Then we just threw in a few bits and pieces and whala a German potato salad – not sure what made it German though!

 

 

Kahunda Time

Praise the Lord for a safe journey - reminded by RVA chi time that it is not something to be taken for granted.

So I am updating my blog from Arne's and my Kahunda home built by the Wycliffe Bible translators.

It's great place - as I am not going to attempt to try and upload pictures on this internet speed today you will have to rely on my descriptive writing - not exactly JK Rowling but hopefully you'll get a rough idea.

The house looks like a elongated circular metal tent - that makes it oval - with a brick kitchen and bathroom attached at the rear. The metal tent looking part is underneath a separate shade roof - which acts to prevent the house becoming like an oven!

It definitely beats my expectations mainly because my room is bigger here than at home, as is the kitchen.

Animals

When I woke this morning there were monkeys (green vervet monkeys) behind our house and just now goats have passed through our front yard, where there is a public footpath to the AIDS clinic. The is geko excretion on the wall in our kitchen - you can tell the difference between geko excretion and mice excretion because geko waste has a little bit of white on the end of it - useful. I have seen loads spiders but none that appear to be lethal. Apparently we may have a female monitor lizard living at the back of the house.

Well I'm itching all over now so will change topic...

The weather here is nice currently 35% humidity - gets easily above 80 here. The View from the front of our house is spectacular - Lake Victoria and a couple of islands. There are also cacti in our front yard - the cacti are will not be the best for rugby balls.

Pretty much set the house up today - water filter going through it's first cycle.

Here's a question for you would you rather watch the water drip through the filter drip by drip or watch paint dry?

Gas stove also set up, pressure lantern ready to try tonight and soda supply = full.

You must be able to tell that there has been some American influence on me already as I'm using words like yard and soda!

So solar will only work as long as the sun shines so I am going to run out of that soon - the sun is setting and we need the battery power for light.