Visitors

Last week, my friend Nick called and asked if he could come visit my site over the weekend. I haven't had any visitors since April (that's mostly my fault; I don't invite people, since I know it's far out of the way for most and there's not a whole lot for visitors to do), so I was excited about this. Nick was actually the second one, since my friend Emily had also asked if she could come on Monday and see my site, since I had to turn her down the last time she asked.

Unfortunately, the timing didn't work out that all of us could hang out, but perhaps that was for the best, since it would be quite a struggle for too many of us to sleep here. I spent the end of last week trying frantically to make my house presentable and to find water so that people could cook and drink and bathe while they were here. I made a picture to put up on one of my walls (I used something I learned in elementary school art class: Thanks Mr. Patterson!) so that they would be less bare. But, I was a bit tied up at school, since I was also planning for exams which are this week, so I reached a stage that could charitably described as semi-presentable. Good thing it was only Peace Corps volunteers coming to visit.

On Saturday, I went to school to wrap up on organic chem with my third years and supervise the compound. When the bell rang at noon, I bolted over to the main road and miraculously caught a bus right away heading to Voi. I met up with Nick and we grabbed a delicious lunch before taking care of some errands. I grabbed a spare mattress (I don't think my house will be nearly as popular if I make my guests sleep on a concrete floor), we surfed at the cyber a bit, I made photocopies of a chemistry review packet that I had made for my fourth years and then Nick went to the keysmith while I went to the phone store to ask about a modem. We both realized that we needed more cash, so we went to the ATM. The machine proceeded to eat Nick's card and tried to skip the part where it gives me my money, so we were not in a good mood as we finished errands and ran over to the supermarket to grab a bit of food for the ride back to site.

We got back and played with the modem a bit (okay, a lot) before we realized that we were late (that means more than two hours past the starting time) for the goat-eating party that my neighbor was throwing. We went and knocked on his door only to find him sleeping and he told us that the party was cancelled since most people bailed. However, he is never one to turn down a beer, so we did the village pub crawl (not a challenging feat when there are only two bars). We swung to one of the late night cafes and grabbed a late supper and then played cut-throat (a three player billiards game) before returning home and crashing.

The next day, I stopped into church for a short time, but Nick and I spent most of the morning further tinkering with the modem before I put him on a bus back to his site. I spent most of the rest of the day trying to make ubuntu work (not only is the machine now capable of playing audio and visual files, but sound also comes out of the speakers now). I tried to do a bit more clean-up before Emily's arrival (Nick tried to conceal his disapproval of my slovenly lifestyle, which is mostly caused by immense thriftiness with water), but found myself pretty lazy so it didn't really go anywhere.

Yesterday, I went to school for the start of midterm exams. I used the chemistry exam with my third years to tie up loose ends in organic chemistry and start the next chapter on nitrogen compounds (I don't think anyone else at the school knows about my decision not to give the 3rd year math or chemistry exams yet). One of my third years came to me with some pretty vague symptoms (this is rare for him, since he usually has pretty specific symptoms when it comes to exam time) and I tried to get him permission to go to the doctor as discreetly as possible, but the whole staff room caught wind of it and started accusing him of faking everything. Though he has quite a track record for becoming sick during exams, it seemed like a pretty lousy claim, since these exams won't count toward their final grade and he has been trying to get more practice. After the session was over and he had gone to the doctor, I played the swine flu card (some of the students had had the same thought). I commented that though it seemed like an extreme long-shot, it wasn't impossible with his symptoms. As the village's likely preparedness for this in terms of testing and treatment is nil, I figured it was better safe than sorry. Perhaps a bit alarmist on my part, but I worry a lot about my students (I already had a flu shot).

After I gave an exam for another staff member in the afternoon, I ran out to the main road. I only had to wait ten minutes before I saw a bus coming by, which I was pretty sure contained Emily. I flagged it down and she hopped off. I had collected them there deliberately so that the bus wouldn't take them to the other side of the village before dropping them off, but also so that it would seem like I'm completely in the middle of nowhere (from where we were standing, there was not a single building visible; only weeds and power lines). We walked and talked as we headed to the school where the students were studying for the next day's exams. I introduced Emily to the teachers, and then we went to meet the students, one class at a time. It was a big hit. My third years even suggested Taita names (Emily is now Malemba, which is a nice name). Then we went back to my place. Emily was relieved when we were able to grab a matatu (driven by my neighbor) to get a lift instead of walking the 3 km to my house. She was even more impressed when we didn't have to pay.

We grabbed a cold soda at a cafe near my house before going home and watching a movie (fortunately Emily brought speakers, since my computer can play sound, but that doesn't mean the machine has terribly audible speakers built in). After that, I whipped up some of my peanut soup while Emily bathed and cleaned my room a bit (yeah, it's that bad). Then, we ate on my bed, since I am still pretty limited in terms of furniture. After that, we played computer and talked for a long time before crashing (I should be wary of using that term, but the bed was able to support three of us sitting on it, though for sleeping, I was on the spare mattress in the kitchen). We thoroughly enjoyed the conservapedia article on Barack Obama's use of "mind control" during the election.

In the morning, we woke up early, but didn't move very quickly, so we left a little later than planned. Fortunately, about halfway to school, we saw one of my second years, and he agreed to help Emily to school so she wouldn't have to put any more weight on that ankle, so I walked to school without her. I had 30 minutes before I was supposed to give an exam, but I still had to prepare a few things, so I left Emily in the staff room. I came back after the exam and they seemed to be having a good time with the other teachers during the tea break, so I didn't feel bad abandoning them. Emily told me she wanted to put some money toward the school fees of the student who had helped her get to school, so I think everyone won in that situation.

Then, the headmaster informed me that I was supposed to have submitted the agriculture reports from the fourth years (their napier grass projects) last week at the latest. I had been putting that off since, in spite of the hard part being over, it was still a source of great frustration. Still, I realized that I needed to deal with that right away, so I abandoned Emily again. I was about halfway done when she found me and told me that it was time for them to go. I took a ten minute break and walked them to the main road. Even though they were only here for 18 hours, we had a lot of fun and I was sad to say good-bye to them. We agreed that we'll have to hang out again soon and then I hurried back to finish up those agriculture reports and make sure that the teachers were giving their exams (they weren't).

I finished a bit before lunch but I had to wait more than an hour for the headmaster to sign the documents. I was ready to sprint to the district offices (60 km away), but the teachers stopped me as I was at the gate and assured me that the office would be closed for the day before I would arrive. I guess that's my project for tomorrow.