Link Explosion

If anyone has been following some of the other volunteers due to their blogs being linked-to on my site, prepare to be engrossed by even more peace corps kenya bloggage!  My blog roll has been added to considerably, so feel free to now keep tabs not only on me, but also on what many other [...]

PMOG – an approach at cultural exchange through play

Being an ICT Volunteer, it’s in my job description to figure out how technology can aid my country of service. The more general role of a Volunteer is to help make connections: connections between organizations within countries, connections with people in different countries, connections. But the most general, and most important role Volunteers [...]

Rain

Below I will list the effects of rain on Kenya as I have witnessed:

People are happy because it waters the crops they desperately need.
In many cases it removes the humidity from the air and cools a place down. This does not always hold true on the coast where saying it lowers the humidity would [...]

An interesting fact

One of my classes did not show up today. This was their second time not doing so. Upon consulting my principal we both discover that they have collectively decided to no longer attend my compulsory sessions. I have never felt so inadequate in my life. But i keep on trucking. Thats what peace corps is [...]

Camping

Went camping with some Peace Corps and a British volunteer down in Msambweni, about an hour and a half matatu ride south of me.  The campsite is actually part of the PCV Jeff’s project (he’s from my training group), and we were helping assess the situation and prove it’s viability, and also just giving some [...]

Cognitive Dissonance

Can we all just think about the cognitive dissonance one must experience every day when living in a society where it is more acceptable to have a 3G cellular modem and cell phone than a refrigerator?
Also, I don’t know if cognitive dissonance is the correct phrase per se, I just like how it sounds.

In other news today…

Monkeys stole my lunch.  And no, this is not like my knife where I just couldn’t find it, and then eventually did, and made up a story about monkeys stealing.  This actually happened.
I was sitting on my sofa just thinking (we do that a lot in Peace Corps apparently.  The Corps’ tagline should be, “Two [...]

I wouldn’t call it toast

I attempted to make toast today.  No toaster, no oven, no broiler of any sort.  I wouldn’t really call the end result toast as anyone knows it, maybe more just burned bread.  But, given that everything in kenya is just slightly different, maybe calling it Kenyan toast would be appropriate.  Thankfully I didn’t have to [...]

Maybe I am a bad teacher?

I kicked out my entire Thursday afternoon class.  Immediately.  They were the one class that I have ever assigned homework to.  Their assignment was to defend their answer as to why the sky was blue in the last exam.  There are over 30 people in this class, though I only run at about 2/3 attendance [...]

An Update on teaching Part II

Many of my readers have raised a concern that my posts are too long to read in some free time.  Sorry.  I have a lot of time, and like to express completed thoughts, being as objective and non-ranty as possible.  This usually results in long posts.  But I took the initiative and split this one [...]