On Wednesday, I got my car and my luggage that I left at my pastor’s house. I found out that there was a new teacher dessert social that night. For the past week and a half, my mom was in Nairobi working at an orphanage, so I went to pick up my mom to bring her to the dessert social that night. I was glad that my mom was able to meet some of the people that I will be working with and that she could see the school as well.
On Thursday, I started the New Teacher Orientation. This is the official end to my traveling season, so I must get down to work. I got to meet all the new teachers and their families the night before, so now we will get to know each other better. The Spanish teacher was the one facilitating the orientation. We learned about the overall ins and outs of the school and Christian education.
That night, I went back to get my mom so that she could spend the night with me and then we would have more time on Friday together. We ate at Village Market and then we went home and watched a movie. Partly through the movie, the alarm to the house behind us went off and then their guards all came to see what happened. This was a bit unsettling because I didn’t know much about this area and how safe it was. The alarm went off a second time, which started to worry us. Things ended up being ok and we survived the night. Come to find out, there was an earthquake that night around the time that the house alarm went off. There is an active volcano in a neighboring country that is causing small earthquakes here in Kenya. Who would have thought about that in Africa?!
On Friday, the morning was filled with school stuff. Then I got my mom from the house. My mom spent the day with my house lady, Florence, who will be doing the cleaning, laundry, ironing, and some cooking for my roommate and me. I think it is going to be hard returning to the States. I took my mom to the Maasai market to get some souvenirs and then we met up with my pastor and his family to eat dinner before taking my mom to the airport.
My mom’s flight was at 11:30 pm, so we got her there around 8:30 pm. At the Nairobi airport, only the people with a passport and ticket are allowed into the airport, even the check-in area. So this time it was very hard to say good-bye to my mom. She already had to do it once in the States and now she had to relive that. Although it was hard, she was able to let go and leave me in God’s hands.
On Saturday, the new superintendent and his wife had all the new staff and their families over to their house/compound for lunch. We had hot dogs and hamburgers – it felt like the Fourth of July. This was another good chance to get to know the other staff better.
Monday and Tuesday followed the same pattern of Thursday and Friday – more meetings and information about the school. We also had to / got to watch three videos for our ACSI (American Christian Schools International) certification. We need to write a paper about our philosophy of Christian education in order to get the certificate. This is important because we are accredited through ASCI.
On Wednesday (my 27th birthday), we had an all day tour of the city. We got to see the elephant orphanage and visit some malls. This was mainly to give the new people an idea of where things are and to expose them to the city. That night, I was invited to eat Mexican with four other singles. It was a great time. They even made me a birthday cake and got me a card. I had a good birthday … my first in Kenya.
The next few days, I spent relaxing and spending time with my pastor and his family. They were preparing for the church’s 2-year anniversary.
My school - the administration building
The high school building - my room is on the second floor on the left
Elephants at the Elephant Orphanage
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