Time flies when you're having fun, right?

          I can truly say that I have had some of my best times of PC life so far during August, September and October. Of course a 3 month summary will be super long so if you're short on time(silly Americans and their lack of time:) her are a few of the highlights/special events-

• I sat through a demonstration of NGOs/donations gone bad.
• I successfully ended my second term. 
• I attended camp GLOW(GIRLS LEADING OUR WORLD). So great!!!
• Managed to step out my safe little bubble and travel around Kenya to see wonderful people and amazing places, even spent a few days out the country. 
• Officially Started a secondary project
• Celebrated my one year in Kenya with my close PC buddies
• Found a family that has a 6 year old girl with autism to play/work with. So excited to be spending time with my first 'special needs' love again.
• Oh yeah and watched Kenyan teachers have a 17 day strike.Fun:/

July

     The last month of the second term (the longest term of the year) and I can honestly say part of me was crawling to the finish line. I love my kids but it was obvious that we all needed a break or at least a change of pace for a bit.We all spent of week of being sick-coughs, sniffles, diarrhea, you name it- the school had it. With at least 20 little ones, who don't usually wash their hands, running around germs spread like wildfire. Mmmm Fun.

     In other news, I spent quite a bit of the month in meetings. Meeting with the BOG chairman of the school, the livestock and agricultural officer in our area and our principal to get everyone's ideas on the secondary project. I truly believe for a project to be even slightly successful there has to be a lot of local support. I reiterated the fact that this is not my project, my intention is to begin it and it to carry on for the benefit of the school as well as the women in the community. Everyone seemed to be very excited/supportive and full of ideas so it was good to hear. We developed blueprints, budgets, list of names of widows in the area and possible donors of chickens and some of the smaller materials. The most difficult part was finding a grant donor but this soon fell into place.

      I was selected to be a counselor of Camp GLOW(details to follow) so I  went to a meeting for preparation of that as well. It was good to get out of the village(to Nairobi) and see friends that I have not seen in a while. It was also nice to meet people in the other sectors(Public health and Business) including one PCV who is only 20 mins away from me. It's so crazy one moment you think you're so isolated and then BAM there's a person who shares your culture(very comforting fact at tmes) right up the road. Being an Ed vol and only having specific times allotted for vacation/traveling means that meeting others can be a difficult task.

       Another fun event of July was the distribution of hearing aids to all my kids! About 4 months prior, a group of guys came to my school and made hearing aid impressions(molds) for all my students. They even offered me one, and as cool as it may sound I had to decline. So we waited and waited for our chance to be shipped to the big city of Nakuru to get our brand new hearing aids. The date was moved a few times but it finally came right before the end of school in July. My kids were stoked! Day out of school, bread and soda for lunch and of course everyone just knew that they  getting a shiny new toy-what more can we ask for? We arrive at Ngala School for the Deaf(a very nice Deaf school in Nakuru) where we found many other students and community members. This organization was giving aids to all deaf schools as well as deaf individuals in the community. Sounds great right? If you would have mentioned to this me a few years ago(before reading numerous articles/having discussions in grad school and of course coming to Kenya and seeing aid gone wrong time and time again) I would have thought it was the best idea ever.Times have changed.

 But I can't do this story as much justice as a fellow PCV Jenny Black so here was her spill on it...

"How to assemble a hearing child in six easy steps"
Step 1: Take a deaf child (poor african preferred) and make molds of his/her ears.
Step 2: clean the child's ears in an assembly line fashion
Step 3: Insert ear molds into ears. If done correctly, the children will now resemble a line of robots.
Step 4: Attach a suitable hearing aid onto the child. Check effectiveness by making the silliest noises possible. Provide limited supply of batteries.
Step 5: Using the most condescending manner possible, teach the children how to insert a battery. (Note. There is no need to teach any further maintenance  These hearing aids will not get dirty, or nor are they to be repaired. The whole thing will probably just get replaced next year anyway. Nor is it at all reasonable to provide training for the children's teachers. Ignore all requests in as rude a manner as possible) Provide a quick hearing test to check if the child is understanding and/ or hearing human speech. Be sure this is done in a large tent with lots of distracting sights and sounds. Any possible reaction to sound means unqualified success.
Step 6: time to triple check the hearing aid. Be sure and talk to the child, expecting them to understand you. It does not matter if they have never been exposed to sound before or your dialect of English. Now that you have Given Them The Gift Of Hearing, it is only a matter of time before they start speaking.

Congratulations! You have just Made A Difference in the life of a child."

A little(ok ok a lot) of sarcasm-you would not believe how cynical most of us have become over the last 12 months, but that's pretty how it went. Giving the gift of hearing(as this org put it) is amazing if there is a way to do it well, but you must go deeper than the surface. Swooping in with your more than 300$ (30 thousand kenyan shillings) per hearing aid solution without proper training, care, or even evaluation is just not the way to go about it. I think so many times donors/westerners have their idea of what will help people but they do not do enough research. Too many solutions, not enough questions....How will these hearing aids perform in this climate? What will happen during rainy season? How many four year olds can keep up with a year supply of batteries when they can't even keep up with their own shoes? Who is going to help this kid learn to distinguish these very new and different sounds?...The hearing/speech therapist?

I think it's fair to say that at 700$ per child this money can obviously be put to better use. My kids eat all their meals outside on the ground and they sleep in dorms made with logs and iron sheets, so yeah if you really want to change a life start somewhere that matters. About 75 of my kids got hearing aids that day(a few were rejected because they were profoundly deaf-but the ones that are completely hearing got one:). Of those 75 I would say 50 had them in the next day of class, all day long  there was constant 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' sound  (think fingernails scratching chalk board)in every classroom because the aid wasn't in their ear properly and of course the only ones suffering were the teachers. By the time they packed up and headed home, about 2 weeks later, there was not one child with a hearing aid in their ear and not one came back this term with a hearing aid. $700 x 70=$49,000 completely wasted. Def enough for a spiffy new dorm.

Jenny said it best...'This is not the way to make a difference.'

I will say that I am very thankful for my prior knowledge and the chance to experience situations such as this one to put the world in better perspective for me. I have done so many things, truly meaning well but in retrospect it prob hurt more than it helped. Life is def a learning process.


And that my friends was the month of June in a nutshell.Well I've decided not to torture you guys much more. I'm tired of typing so I know you're tired of reading, so I will post this as is. But I must say I have tons of happier things to write so stay tuned.