The Fun of Communication

Do you ever have it where you are speaking words and phrases but the message just isn't getting through? Or where you understand the words and phrases of someone else, but it just doesn't make sense? Welcome to my world! I often just have to laugh at the lack of my ability to communicate things here- especially details! The staff all speak English to varying degrees, but there still seems to be a pretty big understanding gap going both ways. One thing I have figured out is that when they don't hear something, they say 'Yes.' So now, whenever I get a yes, I repeat myself. I wonder how many times the are completely puzzled by my responses to what they say... ahhhh... what fun. This past week, I have been trying to get details about upcoming volunteers because I just like to know stuff. I like to know who and what and when and all those details even if it doesn't matter- I just like to know! Well, at first, I thought they were coming last week. But none showed up. Then I heard that there was going to be two couples but they were really young. One couple showed up from California, but they aren't really young. Then I heard that I would have a roommate and I got a roommate from Germany (really nice lady! So far we have hit it off great!). She has joined my pursuit of finding out about the mysterious volunteers that are coming. We were told yesterday that one more volunteer was coming today. Then today, we found out it was three. Then today, two showed up! Lol. And it wasn't a couple and a male, which I thought it was- it was two more girls. From what I understood, all the volunteers were going to be here for two months, but so far four of them are here for two weeks. Stella tried asking more about it today and came back to the room and laughed because she had no idea what information was just communicated. I guess I will just have to learn to just go with the flow a bit more. I have learned that some already, but I obviously have more to go.

As I mentioned, I have been joined by more volunteers. Right now there are a married couple from California, my roomie, Stella, from Germany, someone from South Korea and one from London (I think). I think it will be fun to have more people here. There already seems to be more gel between this group of volunteers than the ones that were here when I got here.

Not much is new with me. This week, I start teaching the older orphanage kids for four hours a day. I am going to focus on literacy, ESL, and math, all of which I love. Because the kids are on a month of holidays, there is no curriculum to follow (they just don't want the kids idle) and I get to do whatever I want as long as it somehow relates to what they learn in school. I already have my daily structure in place and I start on Monday.

I will probably head to Nairobi on Tuesday to go clothes shopping for the kids, but other than that, this week will be fairly normal.

The end of my two months at this orphanage is coming up so I am starting to think of what to do next. The director at the orphanage thinks that volunteers should stay for a maximum of two months and then he gets them to volunteer at other places. I have mixed feelings about the whole situation, but I am sure I will figure something out. I think I have until the end of April at least.

Well, I am feeling like I have nothing to say today. Probably because I have been having conversations with people this week in English rather than just in my head so I don't have stored up conversations to tell you all about.

Happy Easter to you all! and have a good week.