Hi everyone!
It’s October the 2nd, that means I have by now been in Taveta for 31 days. So it’s time for a recap, in English so I can keep training since I fear a serious corruption of my vocabulary and grammar here.
I am staying with a host family, my „baba“ is 87 years old and, if I may say it like that, a lovely ol‘ fellow. My hostmother is thirty years younger and always good for a calm talk about our differing views and values. I am living in a guest room, about 50 meters from the house of my family away. That is something I came to appreciate dearly, since I can have my peace when I want to and don’t feel like all eyes are on me all the time (because that’s the case pretty much everywhere else).
My project is the St. Patrick Kimala Primary School, about twenty minutes by foot from my house. The first two weeks I was allowed to teach Physical Education and Creative Arts, but until the exams this year are over I refrained from doing so and taken over the responsibility for the library. The first couple of days this has been quite monotonous and boring even, but this week the pupils have developed a sudden interest in literature and I am working on sorting and systemizing the books, so I am quite busy now.
After school I regularly meet with other German volunteers in Taveta and we exchange our ideas, issues and plans. Here you have to make a considerable effort to stay busy when you are not at work, since there is pretty much nothing going on here. I play lots and lots of guitar, taken up running again and I devour one book after another. I am slowly connecting to other people living in Taveta, but my personal experience so far has been that you, as a person of light skin colour, are very often met with an expectation of wealth to the extent of absolute abundance. „No, I don’t want to give you money, I don’t know you! I don’t want or can fund your business neither.“ – Has happened to me on multiple occasions.
The living conditions are quite different from what I am used to, but it has been absolutely no problem accommodating to the different way of showering, eating etc.
That but be it for the time being, gotta catch a little sleep. If you got any questions, corrections on proper speech or own ideas about any of the topics I wrote ‚bout, feel free to leave a comment.
Bye bye! Tutaonana!
Report Abroad 