April showers, no flowers, just more meat.

Shurie and I are now on April holiday, meaning that we spend our days painting pictures, making play-dough figures with Kathy, talkin’ with Mama Shiro, and doing exercises with Keith and Livingston (one of the men who cuts firewood at Icaciri. The other day he came up while we were doing exercises and did a headstand! It was impressive and quite shocking. Then, he proceeded to walk down a tree into a backbend. For having three children, he is still so young!) And Bwana asifiwe, the long rains are here! We aren’t stuck in Gatundu yet, but if you don’t hear from me for a while, you know where I’ll be :)

The end of the term means exams, exams and more exams! I marked about 150 in all, some of which were really good! Others…well…

Example #1:
Question: Define the following word: SCANNING.
Answer: It is the process of operating humans or animals.

Example #2:
Question: My hen lays eggs on thorns.
1. Identify the above genre.
- eggs
2. What are the functions of the genre?
- it contains protein
- it becomes a baby chick one day
- it is used in the manufacturing of cakes.

I might have written, “When have we EVER talked about the EGG genre in my class??” on the student’s exam… I just couldn’t help myself.

The end of the term also means a teacher outing! You remember the last time we took a trip (you know, the one with all of the bus mishaps…we changed the tire not once, not twice, but three times!) Luckily we have a new bus (which really looks like the Mystery Van from Scooby Doo) and the trip was much less dangerous.

Anyways, as we were all seated waiting for our former Deputy Principal to arrive, I saw a familiar face in the door. It was Francis! (…a teacher who’d left us in January to move to Mombasa.) Shurie and I were pretty happy to see him, as he always has the funniest stories to share.

It just so happens that this outing was another meat-eating occasion, meaning that I had to hide behind my pile of potatoes, pretending like I was eating the meat on the plate next to me. My act didn’t last, and Carole (seated beside me) said, “You mean you haven’t tried the meat? By the way, it is so sweet!” Sighs. So I picked the smallest piece I could find and went for it. Francis, who was very happy to see me eating goat, smiled and said, “How is it? It’s like salvation, isn’t it?” Haha, welllll…there’s only so much that a vegetarian could reply to such a comment.

I am starting to feel so much a part of the community in Gatundu that sometimes I forget that I’m still so different. When Shurie and I are occasionally taunted in town, we joke that we must have “forgotten our costumes.” It doesn’t happen often anymore, though. In fact, nowadays people on the road to Gatundu call us “mwalimu” (teachers!) instead of “mzungu” (foreigner.) The other day, a girl even tossed Shurie a mango, and told us to have a safe journey!

And so when I look off our back porch at the Abadaire Mountains, I can hardly believe that it will all come to an end. I cannot believe that in a few short months, I will no longer be laughing with the students in my class, or playing silly games with Keith and Kathy. I won’t be fending off speedy spiders or killing termites. I won’t be in the market talking to Mama Carolyn or telling Patrick, the bread man, about all of the blessings we’ve had that week. But Gatundu will always be in my heart. I won’t ever be able to forget this valley, the smiles, the children, the way the sun looks as it sets across the field. I will always remember this place, and I will always remember the exact feeling I have when Kathy and I hold hands and sweep the pine needles away from the dirt path that leads to my home.