Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
As some of you may know, I have been teaching Crochet to second year vocational students. The girls have come a long way and have recently started to finish their term-long project: chair covers! Check out their lovely work!
For all you crafty-types, they worked the main piece in triple crochet and then made a shell border of double crochet.
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Flood or famine, right? Well, to follow up our blog post famine, here is a second post in one day!
So, today I teamed up with a student teacher to present a demonstration on how the immune system works. The student teacher took the initiative to make all sorts of props: placards for the Cd4 helper cells, spears for the B-cell factory, antigens, etc.
Before the demonstration and after the lecture on the topic, I quizzed the students asking them “What is an antigen?” “B-cells do what?” Blank faces abounded. Hmmm. Onward with the demonstration. Using volunteers to hold the placards the teacher and I used the students as live models to show how the HIV virus kills the CD4 Helper cells and makes them unable to “call” the B Cell factory to make antibodies. More blank faces…hmmm. So we went through the demonstration a few more times calling up different students each time to explain what happens to the immune system when HIV antigens enter the body.
At first we had to force students to come up. Eventually, as more and more students went through the story, they started to get it! I knew they got it because they started to volunteer themselves eagerly to come up and show how the “strong and bad HIV antigen murders the CD4 Helper cells who then can no longer call the B Cell factory.” What drama!
Two important lessons were reinforced for me. One, repetition is essential when teaching the Deaf. Shyness and reluctance to participate are likely the students taking time to absorb what’s happening and waiting until they feel comfortable engaging. Two, visual visual visual. It is the only way. Lecturing and simply writing notes on the board does not help Deaf students to understand. Duh. But you would be surprised at how many teachers stand by that method.
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Without offering up excuses, I will say that it has definitely been too long since the last blog post. I hope you all haven’t given up on us. Here’s what we have been up to:
Second printing of Easy to Learn KSL posters
You may remember an earlier post on a poster we developed together with Frank Lester, a fellow PCV. The original purpose of the poster was to aid parents in communicating with their Deaf children. A first printing of 1,500 posters have been distributed. Parents who have gone home with their poster have been overwhelmingly grateful to have a tool to use for communicating with their child. Even more exciting than meeting that goal of ours is to hear stories of all the other ways that these posters are being used.
-Education Assessment Resource centers are using the posters when they go out in the field to look for Deaf children who are not yet in school
-Teachers are using the posters in the classroom as a visual aid. Several teachers have reported that their students love to play a little game in which they cover the English word and students have to fingerspell the word while looking at the sign.
-Countless workers and other school community members have come to our house asking for a poster. It is the hottest thing in town right now.
…Loads of other success stories have come our way since we started distributing these things. Sooo, in the upcoming second printing we are boosting the number to about 5,000 and aiming to distribute them as widely as possible.
Hospital Signs and booklet
In the spirit of the Easy to Learn KSL poster, we are now in the process of developing a poster and pocket guide for signs and basic communication typically used in the hospital. We decided that this project was a must after getting story after story about the kinds of confusion, misdiagnosis, and sometimes mistreatment that Deaf adults face when visiting the hospital.
Right now we are meeting with and collecting information from the Liverpool Voluntary Counseling and (HIV) Testing center in Kisumu, a hospital in Kericho and two schools in the Western province to gather all the signs and information we need to develop the poster and booklet. We felt that booklets would be a great tool for doctors and nurses to carry around in their pockets as they meet with patients throughout the day. While the poster will have the same basic format as Easy to Learn KSL, the booklets will expand on essential topics such as getting patient particulars and prescribing medication.
We hope to have prototypes ready at the end of the month and a first printing soon after.
Thursday, May 10th, 2007
You may have heard about the Kenyan Airways flight that crashed last weekend. It has been big news here in Kenya of course, but two days ago we learned that this tragedy will be touching the Deaf community greatly. The one American aboard the flight, Dr. Al Hen, was the director of the Liverpool VCT which directly sponsors Kenya\’s three Deaf AIDS testing centers. He was a former Peace Corps volunteer and once complimented me on choosing a Peace Corps volunteer for a wife; he had done the same. Dr. Hen was a good man who strongly supported what we are doing here. We\’ll miss him and his contribution to educating the Deaf about HIV/AIDS.
In another sad peice of news, we have learned that our wonderful host father, Charles Kakumi has passed away unexpectedly. For those of you who don\’t recognize the name, the Kakumi family host Miranda and I for almost three months while we were trained to be volunteers in Kitui. The Kakumi family became our Kenyan family; we shared our ups and downs with them every evening over dinner. They were always supportive of us and our work. As I wrote months ago, I came to respect Charles Kakumi\’s wisdom. His comments on his own culture gave me new insights into what I was dealing with everyday in Kenya. He was the model of a strong Kenyan man: he sent all of his children to secondary school, he always welcomed guests and treated them like royalty, he was calm at all times, he supported his family and, when he spoke, the room would fall silent to here what he had to say. Miranda and I will attend Charles Kakumi\’s funeral on Saturday. It will be the first time we have seen the Kakumi family since we finished training.
Friday, April 20th, 2007
Today we drove inland to the Western Cape wine region. We have been to Cape wine country twice before and always enjoy the beautiful mountainscapes and peaceful countryside. An internet search yielded a place called Dombeya Farms in Stellenbosch. Not much info was given on the place–I knew they sell yarn, particularly mohair and that’s all–so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was thinking probably a high end shop with lots of lovely yarn that is way overpriced. But hey, why not check it out?
We stopped in Stellenbosch town to get a more detailed map of the area and wound up checking out an African arts and crafts market. After much negotiation, we decided on a very nice and very unique painting–Sam always drives a hard bargain, so we got “the friend price” to be sure.
Driving onward–did I mention we are renting a 76 Beetle??–we continued out of town and past Blauklippen, wine estate. After while we saw our turn and made our way back through a windy road flanked with grape vines waiting to be turned into wine. At last we reached Dombeya Farms, right next to one of the three wine estates tucked back along this little road. Wine and yarn–at this point I began to consider that I just may have stumbled into heaven.
Once inside we were greeted by a cheerful woman who showed us around. We started with the room where women spin raw cotton, wool, and mohair (all from within South Africa, though not the Western Cape). All the yarn in the shop (except the few selections that are imported from Italy) is spun and dyed on the premises (by this point I am drooling with excitement). There are also looms, upon which women weave brightly colored shawls, place mats, and more for sale in the shop. Also for sale are skeins upon skeins and balls upon balls of wool, cotton, and mohair yarn.
Sam kindly released me to the yarn room and settled at a table in the “tea garden” which overlooks a breathtaking view of Simonsberg Mountains and fields of grapes and tawny colored waves of grass.
After amassing a pile of gorgeous and incredibly well-priced hand spun hand dyed yarn, I too settled at the tea room and had a tasty glass of white wine. Ah, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect afternoon.
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
Miranda just talked about our visit to Robben Island, so I thought I would add one more photo just to highlight our tour guide: a former political prisoner. I must say that I feel lucky to have met this man. He spent more than six years on Robben Island as a prisoner under Apartheid rule. He was open about his experience and answered every question we asked. At one point, while following him down a dark hallway, I noticed that he was quietly whistling.
“Were you allowed to whistle when you were here?”
He looked back somewhat surprised that I had heard him, smiled and said “oh no, they’d never let us do that.”
At another point, we were lead through a room that use to serve as an office. Our guide mentioned that, as a prisoner, he was never allowed to enter this room. As he stepped through he doorway he admitted that it “makes me feel good every time he walks through here now.”
As the tour finished, we learned more and more about his experiences, both the horrible, graphic descriptions of prisoner abuse by guards and the lasting friendships that he made with other prisoners. To our surprise, our guide told us that he is one of 250 people who live on the island today as a member of the museum staff. It struck me, and likely many of my fellow tourists, as quite a mental accomplishment to return to the island that imprisoned him for so long.
I feel lucky to have met him. Below is a picture of our guide as the tour concluded. He walks on the outside of the prison walls to meet the next group waiting to hear his story.
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
Yesterday Sam and I visited Robben Island, the famous prison island that held dozens of political prisoners–among them Nelson Mandela–during apartheid era South Africa. I have long been fascinated with the stories of South African freedom fighters, especially Mandela, whose autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom is on my list of all time favorite books.
Though I have visited Cape Town twice before, I had never visited Robben Island, so I was glad that we finally made it out there. After a 40 minute boat ride to the island–a mere 12 kilometers around, we docked and were ushered into tour buses which took us on a tour of the island. It was interesting to see the island and the various buildings–many of which were built by prisoners–but we were most interested in seeing the prison and hearing the stories of the former political prisoners who now work as tour guides.
The last stop on the tour was the main prison where we met our prison tour guide, a former prisoner who was held for six years and two months. It was very powerful to have this man lead us through the same prison where he was unjustly held and repeatedly demoralized for six long years. He commented that he “feels happy” every time he leads tour groups through parts of the prison that he was once forbidden to enter. At one point, he whistled a tune as we walked through the prison corridor–something that he was once absolutely forbidden to do.
Eventually, we ended up in front of Nelson Mandela’s former cell–a tiny room that once held a great man.
Visiting a place such as Robben Island, I wonder what I can take away from seeing a place that once represented some of the greatest human injustices.
Our tour guide, who was once treated as a sub-human dissident for believing that he and other black Africans had the right to freedom in justice in their own land, is now free and has the opportunity every day to share his story and the story of South Africans overcoming apartheid with dozens of tourists from all over the world. How does he see Robben Island today? As a symbol of the strength and perseverance of the human spirit in the face of oppression.
Learn more about Robben Island.
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
The school year here in Kenya is divided into three terms with a month break in between each term. The month of April is our break between 1st and 2nd term. So, for now, the campus is a much less lively as almost all the students have gone home.
A few students have stayed to participate in the regional Deaf sports games. I attended yesterday’s events and took more than 400 photos. Those students who place high enough in their events will move on to Meru where the national Deaf games will be held. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend those games as Peace Corps will be holding our In Service Training (IST) in Nairobi for a week starting on Monday.
The printing of the poster should finish any day now. We will be distributing them at the beginning of next term. We’ll provide more details on how we will distribute them later (we are planning a pre and post survey to gauge the poster’s effectiveness and make changes before the second printing). A hospital-specific version of the poster is currently in the planning stages. If you have any suggestions of words commonly used in Kenyan hospitals, please let us know!
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
Hot on the heels of the easy to Learn Kenyan Sign Language poster is another project that I have started working on along with DeafAID and Mark and Bebeth Steudel.
The Learn KSL project will be a website/CD instructional tool to help teach better KSL at Universities and Teaching Colleges. The tool will include loads of video and interactive learning activities. I’ve completed the design for the project and Kevin Warneke, an RPCV living in Nairobi, is developing the content and overseeing the project. Mark and Bebeth will be building the backend (which includes a system that recognizes the user and adjusts the tool to better serve the user).
More on this project as we dive deeper into development!
Monday, March 26th, 2007
Wahoo!! The poster is at the printers! We will have more than 1600 copies within two weeks. We’ll even have 75 gigantic plastic copies to give to every single Deaf school or unit in Kenya! Here’s what it looks like:
When I visited the printer this morning, he greeted me in sign language. I guess that means the poster has done something! I left the printer with a large sample and happened to walk by a well-known area where the Deaf gather. “Why not?” I said to myself. Within a minute everyone there was gathered around the poster reviewing the signs and asking for a copy. Man, I hope this thing is half as successful as its been today!
By the way, this poster is the combined work of three people; Frank Lester, Mir and myself. We also worked with many Deaf Kenyans and other volunteers to make a useful list of signs and find their Kiswahili equivalents. I worked on the layout and the style of the poster, Frank and I did the icons for each entry and Frank and Mir took pictures of their students and traced the photographs in Illustrator. It was a group effort that has been a real blast. Certainly not the last thing to come from three of us!
What’s that? You want a copy for yourself? Geez, do you think I’m working for free here? Oh wait…Ok, here it is for you…you can choose either a GIF or a PDF and print it out at any size you want. Please don’t modify it without asking first…but please hang it up as soon as you print it!
Download the GIF file here.
Download the PDF file here.
Comments? Suggestions? Favorite sign? Let us know!
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