Finished the 3-days trip to Mt Kenya last weekend. The trip was awsome!! Great companions (other volunteers) and beautiful scenery! pity that i was totally out of shape and always out of breath. the mountain was really cold at night. i put on all the clothes i brought to the trip and slept in a sleeping bag but i could not sleep at all. for the 2 nights staying in the mountain, i think i only slept for 2 hours in total! at the last night, we woke up at 2:30am (!!!) and started the most difficult part, trying to mount to the top. and it was really really really difficult to me. the slope is really steep and we had to use our hands to climb as well. it was so hard that i felt like crying all the time, asking for break all the time...... at last, another girl and I decided to sit down and declared that this point was the summit for both of us and refused to walk further. the rest of the group kept going and the girl and me kept moving slowing and reached around 4700m of the mountain, which is just 200m away from the walkable top of the mountain. i didn't regret about that 200m at all as the memory of climbing the last part of the mountain was really painful. to be honest, i felt like dying. and the way back to foot hill was....... painful as well, sad to say. as my sneakers were torn and was difficult to walk on, one of the volunteers borrowed me her pair of sneakers. unfortunately, her sneakers are a bit small to me and after more 5 hours walk, all my toes were sore and i found that both my big toes are purple in colour!!! hope they will get better soon or i don't know how i can wear heels when i am back to work...... **************************************** i decided to sponsor a 13-year old girl, Victoria, from the children's home i am teaching at. she is not one of my students but we spent some time together when she came to the hosted family to help out some days. her little brother, Patrick, is in my class though. their parents abandoned them last year and they ended up living on the streets. a social worker took them to the children's home then, when they cried and begged to stay in the orphanage. nothing really dramatic but u can always imagine how difficult when this happen to u when u r 13 years old and a little brother is with you. it was Victoria's birthday last Wed so another volunteer and i are going to take her and Patrick out for a movie tmr, hoping that they can share the experience together. if you are also interested in sponsoring a child in Kenya, please drop me a line. i can tell u more about the sponsorship programme and the kids. i think i can you more about the kids as i spend time with them almost everyday.

Although I have been in Kenya for weeks, i just start to feel that i am settling well recently.  The reason why i did not feel settling in the past is probably because most of the volunteers around are canadians or someone who use english as first language.  being a chinese would sometimes feel left out as my culture is very different from theirs and especially when i can't express myself clearly or understand others clearly.

My english is still of the same level but i think i don't feel uneasy anymore telling ppl that i don't understand or simply i can't express myself clearly.  also, it is easier when u stay with the same ppl and you start to understand each other more.

we all went to movie in nairobi last sunday together with catherine from the hosted family (watching a hollywood movie "pink pather" though).  we went in the cinema 45 minutes before the movie started and had a little chat before that.  we talked about HIV/Aids in Kenya (kenya has a very high HIV infection rate) and catherine told us that even there is much publicity urging them to use condum and condum is relatively cheap here, ppl would not use it anyway.  the reason is if the girl asks the boy to use it, it implies that the girl doesn't trust the boy (!!!).  and usually it is the girl who requests the boy not to use it...... i found it hard to believe but it is the fact here.  also, although they are not open talking about sex, kids start to have sex as young as 12 according to catherine.  she knows some kids have sex at 7 (i really doubt it as i question if the kids are "mature" enough to have sex). 

one of the volunteers have helped to compile a profile for each orphan in children's home to prepare them for looking for sponsorship.  i read some of their profiles today and found out that the happy faces that i see everyday have really tragic backgrounds.  some of the parents were died because of AIDS, and some of them were abused (physically or sexually) by parents or relatives.  one girl's mother was even stabbed to death as she tried to sell liquor in a slum for a living, which threatened the interest of the established group in the slum (and it was the girl who found her mother bathed in blood at home.......)  i just feel that i am sooooo lucky and really impressed how these little kids leave their tragic past behind and move on.

There are three more volunteers joining me in the hosted family and we are going to climb mt. kenya this friday.  hope i will have a good time there.

 

Having stayed in Kenya for weeks, I observe that some interesting cultural differences here.

First, Kenyans like Chinese Kung Fu.  Kung Fu movies are always the blockbuster here.  And they think all Chinese know kung fu.  The first time I visited my hosted family, I asked if the neighbourhood is safe for me to walk around, Mary told me that I need not worry about safety as I am a Chinese, everyone will be afraid of me  as they believe I can kick their ass if they try to rob me.  And everyone is so disappointed when I told them that I don't know Chinese Kung Fu and not many Hong Kong ppl know kung fu.

Kenyans like shaking hands.  When they meet people, they do not just say hi.  They always shake hands.  Even a five-year-old will come and shake hands with you.

Kenyans hate sweet dishes for their meals.  Another volunteer which stay with me in the same family made the hosted family a dish of sweet chicken with coconut milk, of which i found really delicious.  The hosted family don't like it because it is sweet.  They find it very weird to have something sweet for meals.  I also helped to prepare fried rice in the same meal and they didn't like it too because they said rice and egg should not be on the same dish.

Kenyans like to say sorry.  When u cough, they said sorry.  When you drop something they said sorry.  When i was sick and drowsy, i stared at one place for a long time and my brain went blank, they said, "i am sorry wing......"  oh that's not their fault but they like to be sorry.

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Thank you for the warm messages from my dear friends.  I have almost fully recovered after I visited Nairobi Hospital the other day.  I still cough a bit but I feel fine now.

Miss you all and I will be back very soon!! 

 

Have been sick for 2 days so I stay home today and do not go to the orphanage for the teaching.  Keep coughing and sneezing. Feeling tired all the time.....  Hope will get well soon coz feeling mo sum kei all the time.

Went to the orphanage on Wed and it was the free day so there was no class and students can do whatever they want.  The students gave us some performances like dancing and singing.  Africans really have the sense of rhythm and the performance was spectacular.  They just like the students in the movie "Sisters are crazy" (I think this movie is more than 10 years old) , if you have watched that film. 

Started my teaching yesterday.  Although I expect that I will be teaching lower grades (owing to my lack of teaching experience), I was asked to teach grade 4 - 6 English and maths.   When I entered the classroom, thinking that I can observe a little bit what the teacher does in class, the teacher said, "your teacher arrives so she will take over and check the answers of the test with you."  then gave me the test paper (which is without answers) and sat at the back. 

I looked at the test paper and there were questions on preposition (which I am not very confident in) and comprehension.  I was going fine (although I sometimes just guess the answers :P) but then I had some problems on the passage of comprehension.  As Kenya is famous for its national parks and wildlife, the passage was full of animal names, which I was totally unfamiliar of (of course they are not as common as lion, leopard etc) What I could do was asking my students what animals were, saying that there are no such animal in HK......

And maths....... I have not yet started my lesson but I can imagine the difficulties.  I have not been good at maths, although Chinese is usually considered as good at maths.  I guess what I can do is to do homework myself lor.

It is very nice staying with my hosted family.  Food here is very filling and the hosted family always asks me to take a lot.  Sometimes I feel sick after I have been taken too much.  But it doesn't look nice if I refuse to take more.  Of course, they do not have the variety here so start to miss home.

I told my hosted family that I may cook them some Chinese food before I leave so start to think what I can cook.  May be lemon chicken but need to ask my mother for recipe and there seems to have no soya sauce here.....

Just start my second week in Kenya. I move in to my hosted family today, where is the suburb of Nairobi. The family is very very nice to me and I think my days in Kenya will be taken care of. I did some safaris the week before and it is fantastic!!! I saw almost every kind of animal in Kenya and took several pictures of lion, leopard, elephants etc..... Zebras and giraffes are soooo beautiful. Mary, the head of the hosted family that I am staying with is the director of the orphanage that I am staying with. She is very very nice to me. The family has a humble beginning that Catherine, the daughter of Mary, told me that they were living on streets some years ago and with some help of some generous ppl in Kenya, they manage to start an orphanage and living in a good house, where i am now staying. Mary got cancer some years ago and she thought she was going to die so she sent her kids to orphanage. She was cured miraclely afterwards. But this experience makes her realise how painful it is to have children in orphanage so she decided to devote her time and money to help others. I just hope I can contribute my part to them and the community. I have more to share but I really have to run now. I hope I can update more later.