I have been back to the US for about two weeks now, and I think it is about time to wrap up this series of blogs about my time in Kenya. It has been a life changing, perspective creating experience. I’m still processing exactly what spending three months in Kenya means for my life and career path. I know some things; it’s a new home, I’ll return in the next three years, and I have a deep love for the people of Kenya and East Africa.
Along with this blog I’m going to upload a large series of pictures to Facebook from the trip, so peruse those if you are interested.
Kenya by the Numbers
I thought of this blog idea early in the trip, so I have been keeping track of certain events specifically for use in this post. Let’s get started:
Teaching by the Numbers
45 hours a week*8 weeks= 360 hours spent volunteering at Friends Secondary school Lusui. (40 working days). Talk about practical experience that can be applied to Global ADE.
95 classes taught @ 40 minutes apiece = 63 hours of classroom time. Mostly business classes, but a good deal of math as well. Average class size? 50 students. Probably some of the most challenging 63 hours of my life.
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| Never appreciated a teacher's time spent grading when I was a student. But when you hand those papers back, it's great. . |
440 exams graded – Grading is one of the hardest part of teaching! I’m sure if you are a teacher you are nodding along to this, but I had no idea before I started teaching how time consuming grading can be. Even if I only spend 5 minutes grading per test, that’s about 40 hours of grading. Wow.
Food by the Numbers
80 meals featuring Ugali (2 made by myself!) That’s what happens when a country has a staple food. You eat it once or twice every day. Ninataka kupika Ugali leo. (I want to cook some Ugali today). And that’s true, I really miss my Kenyan comfort food.
220 cups of tea- I know, you might be doing the math and thinking, how many cups of tea did you drink a day? Well, at least two. No kidding. Most days three. It’s just such an integral part of the daily routine and culture in Kenya that I could not help but be swept up practice. So far now withdrawals, but I definitely miss by morning, mid-morning, and evening tea breaks.
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| Not sure how much salt is in this meal, but I'm sure it's a lot. |
3 Kg of salt used in cooking (a.k.a. 6.6 pounds of salt). No joke. My family used about 2 pounds of salt a month in cooking food. But because we were making it all from scratch with fresh ingredients, it was still much healthier than processed food in the US.
Travel by the Numbers
48 hours traveling by Bus. Yep. Most of this was night busses, so traveling to Nairobi or another big city overnight. And sleeping on a bus is definitely worse than sleeping on a plane.
58 hours traveling by Plane (or in airports). And only 9 flights! Not too bad really, my layovers were almost all short and sweet, and I didn’t have many unnecessary connections.
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| Took a 12 hour bus ride from this beach |
65 hours traveling by Matatu.. Remember those remarkably uncomfortable vans packed full of people I talked about in my blog on transportation? Ya, spent almost three days in them in trips to and from Nakuru, Naivasha, Mombassa, and the Massai Mara. This includes by weekly hour round trip to Kakamega.
7days spent traveling—yep, add up those hours and do the math, and I traveled for one whole week out of the 12 weeks I was in Kenya. And I don’t mean travel like went on a trip, I mean travel like sat or stood in a car/van/bus/plane. Can’t say this time was a highlight of my 12 weeks.
So that’s Kenya by the numbers, simplified edition. I counted more things, but these are the biggest and most interesting.
The Final Reflection
This title is certainly a misnomer. There will never be a final reflection about my time in Kenya. Each day I spend in the US I reflect on a different part of my experience. I do not plan to ever stop thinking about how the events in Kenya will affect the rest of my life. That’s why I will not end this blog with a final list on lessons learned, or by revisiting trip highlights. Because it’s just not that simple. I can’t say BAM!, Kenya is over, here is what I’ve learned, and I’m moving on. Some lessons may be apparent now, but others may reveal themselves over the course of my life. My time in Kenya has ended, but the ways in which that experience will shape the rest of my life is just beginning.
Much love from Kenya (in my heart&mind),
Kurt