Language and Final Posting

Good news today. This morning I finally figured out how to use my cell phone to get internet on my laptop. It involved a USB cable and much fiddling, but it's pretty awesome. The thought of updating the blog from a phone seemed pretty rough.

We got some more good news today. We found out our permanent sites today! Mandy and I will be spending 24 months on the eastern edge of Lake Victoria teaching at an all-girls school. We'll have our own house and nearby access to electricity! It's quite exciting. The school requested that I teach Math and Physics and Mandy to teach Chemistry and Physics, both at a freshman/sophomore level. We're very happy they're not asking us to teach biology. We would not have been the best choice for that.

There is supposed to be a market only 3 km away and several larger cities within a days travel by bus. Over-all we're quite happy. There's even a chance that they'll install electricity at our house during out stay. We're not getting our hopes up though. J

I suppose I should actually tell you about what we're doing for the next month and a half. Well… currently we're living in a mid-sized town near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Oloitokitok. We're here with all the new teaching volunteers getting training in Kiswahili Language, Kenyan Culture, and Teaching. They keep us very busy during the week with 2-4 hrs of language in the morning, 2 hrs of culture, and a few hours of education training every day. The language is intense, but we're learning very fast. Mandy is especially doing well. Our language group is only three people and we get tons of practice and one-on-one attention. It seems like Mandy's brain is like a steel trap for language. I'm doing okay, but my brain sometime acts like a sieve for memorizing things.

We're hoping to reach "proficiency" in Kiswahili within the next few weeks so that we can leave it behind and speak Luo. Our permanent site speaks Luo and we can't wait to get started learning about it. Oh – I should clarify. Learning basic Kiswahili is required as a PCV, but once you reach a minimum level, they'll allow you to start learning a local language. Most Kenya's speak English, Kiswahili, and their local language. I'm sure we could get by on English and Kiswahili, but In order to "fit in" more at our site I want to learn the local language (Luo).

Here as a few pictures from my phone. I'll post more in the next few weeks of our host family and the scenery.

The above picture is our bedroom during training. The beautiful lady is Mandy taking a nap under a mosquito net. The bucket and jugs are for water preparation (we treat our water). And yes, we have lighting J

This is me.

Okay that's all for today. If you want to contact us, email is the fastest. We can also talk on the weekends if we plan it out. Oh, and if you want to send us a Christmas present (hint hint, wink wink) the address is below.

Jon & Mandy Van Regenmorter

Peace Corps Kenya

P.O. Box 698-00621, Nairobi Kenya