Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Non-School Day (in pictures)

Today we decided to take a stroll around the school and nearby shambas and I grabbed a few pictures for ya'll

Picture 1 - the remnants of a cared up goulosh we left soaking when we went to nairobi... it was a lot easier to clean!

Picture 2 - Mandy relaxing on our front porch reading "three cups of tea"

Picture 3 &4 - A chameleon I was carrying decided to climb up to for a better view

Video!! - our school is building a new latrine for our students because the boys filled up the old one and it is... Unpleasant to use. They will happy to find this when they get back

I don't really know if the pictures will show up in that order, but here's hoping.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Nairobi, Relaxing, and packages

We just finished our last night in Nairobi and we are currently in a matatu on the way home.

We were in nairobi as part of our IST training. The training was every day from 8 to 5pm and covered topics like classroom discipline, permaculture (sustainable agriculture), malaria, HIV, and other things. The most important part for me was a chance to catch up with the other volunteers and share our experiences and teaching strategies. oh.. And of course free wifi and hot showers.

While in Nairobi we also did some shopping and even saw a movie. It is really nice to slip back into western conveniences, but it is not cheap on a peace corps budget!

School doesn't start back for another week so we will be living pretty alone on the empty teachers compound trying to entertain ourselves. Unfortunately they won't turn on the generator or water pump until the boys arrive so we'll be a bit closer to camping.

In technology news, we got a new phone! I am quite excited. In fact I am writing this blog from the phone! I also got a neat program which logs me into facebook, Sykpe, gmail, and any other chat program all at the same time. It is great! Therefore I may end up being "online" more now.

also, here is a list of items that we would love in a care-package.

-Chocolate chips (dark chocolate)
-Doritos
-Taco bell taco seasoning
-update about your lives
-Book
-misc. snacks like candy bars, cookies, sweets
-A pair of good pair of thin smart wool socks
low cut ankle size 10
-Gatorade mix, anything but red
-Potato peeler
-stickers for grades
-Cheap american candy that kids would get excited about
-Art supplies like paint, pencils, clay
-DVD of some some basketball games for my kids to watch
-A basketball ;)
-A good hackey-sack

Those are some ideas, but the most important thing are your notes and updates!

Miss you all

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Quick Update

Hey hey hey,

Just wanted to give a quick update. I'm sitting in a nice tourist hostel in Kampala (Uganda's Capital) enjoying our vacation from school. The last two days we were in Jinja, Uganda. Jinja is on the mouth of the Victoria Nile river and is touted as the begining of the Nile river. We went rafting two days ago on some awesome rapids and went bungee jumping into the river this morning. We're now hanging out getting a flavor of Kampala, but I can tell it won't be enough. The city is huge and is supposed to be quite safe. Especially when compared to Nairobi.

Anyways, I'll write more later and most pictures.
Jon