Touching Base

It's not been an overly eventful few days, but one of rest and reflection. This was to be my week to do a lot of updates to the curriculum, but it is turning out to be one of a lot of napping. I knew I was tired from the pace I was keeping, but have learned that I was bordering on exhaustion. I'm getting well rested and taking long naps in the afternoon and turning into bed by about 8PM each night.

It has been interesting to watch the student teachers from Indiana University. Some of the are embracing the experience and trying to learn as much about the culture as possible whereas others seem to be miserable. The schools are quite a bit different in many respects. For one thing, they don't have any sort of problem with whipping a child on the bottom with a piece of sugar cane. The classes are more structured and so "out of the box" activities or lessons aren't a strong suit. However, that doesn't mean you can't learn from the experience.

A number of the students managed to get fairly drunk on Friday night and stayed up partying until about 12:30 AM despite the talk that said that having a discrete drink was fine but getting drunk was not. The family is very religious and so they don't want the young kids to be around a lot of alcohol. Additionally, it sets a bad example to the locals when they see a bunch of American volunteers drunk. And, to top it off, it was the night before the funeral of Mama Betty's uncle. All in all, not an appropriate thing to do. The students claimed that they weren't aware of the rules about "quiet time." Common sense would dictate that when the generator and lights go off then it's probably quiet time. That and the orientation manual says its 11PM. Now reading back over this paragraph definitely makes me feel my age.

Next week I'll be spending down near Kisumu doing a class to a group of Luo's. It has meant doing some additional research on the culture as we spend part of a day discussing social/culural practices that affect HIV. The Luo's are the only tribe that don't practice circumsion. As such, their infection rates are the highest in the country. In talking with Reuben, I will still present the facts around the reduction of HIV in circumcised males and the science behind it. They also take a much stronger stance on wife inheritance. Wife inheritance is the practice of a male relative, typically a brother, getting married to the widow of a dead relative. This has a huge effect on HIV rates. Luo's are predominant Christian and quite religious, but have strong "hybrid" beliefs that tie Christianity to their tribal traditions.