Regular readers of this blog will have wondered as to why it's been so long since my last post. I apologise for the delay and I can only say that in this case no news is indeed good news. Things have simply gotten increasingly busy here as I juggle computer tuition for the older boys with the timetabled computer classes alongside football training in the afternoons followed by English tuition classes both before and after supper and somewhere finding time to relax and hang out with the boys when I can.
To make matters worse, two volunteers who were here from Slovakia have gone back to their original posting in South Sudan and so I'm likely to receive more teaching work to do in the coming weeks in order to pick up the slack.
Wish me luck!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Capital offence
One of the few games that is simple enough to work on all the computers simultaneously without causing any headaches is called Seterra, a fantastic little geography quiz game involving maps, capitals and flags of countries.
In our class today, one boy, Stanley, decided he would write down on a sheet of paper all the capital cities in Africa. He then tried to write the name of the country to which each capital belonged. He started off well, but then I think he began to guess:
Nairobi - Kenya
Cairo - Egypt
Algiers – Algeria
Tunis – Tunisia
Niger – Nigeria
Brazzaville – Brazil
Close, Stanley, but no cigar.
In our class today, one boy, Stanley, decided he would write down on a sheet of paper all the capital cities in Africa. He then tried to write the name of the country to which each capital belonged. He started off well, but then I think he began to guess:
Nairobi - Kenya
Cairo - Egypt
Algiers – Algeria
Tunis – Tunisia
Niger – Nigeria
Brazzaville – Brazil
Close, Stanley, but no cigar.
Questions, questions
Questions that I have been asked recently and tried (and often failed) to answer coherently:
'What's the richest country in the world?'
'What's the poorest country in the world?'
'Why is Kenya poor?'
'Why is your country rich?'
I assume these topics have come up in their social studies classes. Simple kid-friendly answers are welcome!
'Why is your hair like that and mine like this?'
'Why is your skin white and mine black?'
'If I go to your country, will my skin look like yours?'
'Why is your nose pointy and mine flat?'
And other genetics-related questions which I usually get in a muddle about when answering...
'Who's your President?' Then on explaining that we have a Prime Minister and a Queen,
'Who chooses the Queen?'
'What colours are on your country's flag?' Easy enough, you'd think, but then I was asked,
'What does blue mean?'
[Actually, to put this last question in context, the kids learn that on the Kenyan flag red represents the blood lost during the Mau Mau uprisings and struggles for independence, green signifies the fertile land of the country and black symbolises the people's skin colour. So naturally, our flag should represent something similar...]
'Which country colonised your country?' Ah, yes, well, you see, the thing is, we were the ones who went around the world colonising other countries.
'When was the last time your country was colonised?' No, you see...
'Which countries did your country colonise?' Well, where to begin?!
And finally... 'How do people dance in your country?' Badly!
'Who are the best actors that come from your country?'
Before I could answer, one boy shouted Jason Statham!
'What's the richest country in the world?'
'What's the poorest country in the world?'
'Why is Kenya poor?'
'Why is your country rich?'
I assume these topics have come up in their social studies classes. Simple kid-friendly answers are welcome!
'Why is your hair like that and mine like this?'
'Why is your skin white and mine black?'
'If I go to your country, will my skin look like yours?'
'Why is your nose pointy and mine flat?'
And other genetics-related questions which I usually get in a muddle about when answering...
'Who's your President?' Then on explaining that we have a Prime Minister and a Queen,
'Who chooses the Queen?'
'What colours are on your country's flag?' Easy enough, you'd think, but then I was asked,
'What does blue mean?'
[Actually, to put this last question in context, the kids learn that on the Kenyan flag red represents the blood lost during the Mau Mau uprisings and struggles for independence, green signifies the fertile land of the country and black symbolises the people's skin colour. So naturally, our flag should represent something similar...]
'Which country colonised your country?' Ah, yes, well, you see, the thing is, we were the ones who went around the world colonising other countries.
'When was the last time your country was colonised?' No, you see...
'Which countries did your country colonise?' Well, where to begin?!
And finally... 'How do people dance in your country?' Badly!
'Who are the best actors that come from your country?'
Before I could answer, one boy shouted Jason Statham!
What once was lost...
I lost my USB stick yesterday. I was really annoyed at myself because I'm normally so careful with it. At first I assumed that Gary must have it, but when I asked him he swore he gave it back to me. I remember using it before a class 7 lesson but since then we'd had two other classes and it was only later in the afternoon that I realised it had gone missing.
There was an instant temptation to say: someone's nicked it. It feels like it's every other day that the boys are given a lecture about stealing (or rather, not stealing) so it wasn't a huge leap of logic to think that a boy had slipped it into his pocket during class. However, I didn't want to begin accusing anyone before I was 100% sure that I hadn't just misplaced it.
By the evening I had looked everywhere for it and was by then pretty certain that someone had walked off with it during class. I didn't want to make a song or dance about it, but I thought I'd mention it to class 7 the following morning before their computer lesson.
Having made a brief announcement at the start of the lesson, a couple of names were given to me which turned out to be false leads. I tried my best not to make false accusations against anyone, but instead chose to go down the line of 'Someone mentioned that you might know where my USB stick is. Now, why might he be saying that?'
Since Monday I've been helping out one of the older boys with reading and writing in English (I suspect that he may be dislexic but that's a story for another time...). As we parted when we were heading for supper, I remembered that he was also in class 7 and asked if he'd heard anything about my USB stick. 'Oh, you still haven't got that back?' said another boy who was passing. 'So-and-so's got it.'
'Ah, so-and-so!' my tutee said. 'Don't worry. I'll get it back for you.' And ran off without listening to my pleas to not make a big deal of it.
Straight after supper, my tutee jogged up to me. 'Good news! Here you go,' as he handed me my USB. 'So-and-so had it. He didn't admit it at first, but I slapped him round and then he gave it to me...'
I did my best to explain that I hadn't wanted the guy beaten up, I just wanted my USB back. But still, I thanked him very much and was very happy to have it back in my pocket again.
To an extent, I couldn't really blame so-and-so for pinching it as it was partly my fault for leaving my USB around the students' computers and it was clearly just an act of opportunism.It makes me happy to think, though, that the majority (at least) of the boys here would, in the same position, not steal it like so-and-so did, but instead leave it, tell me or Gary or at worst fiddle around with it until the end of the class...
There was an instant temptation to say: someone's nicked it. It feels like it's every other day that the boys are given a lecture about stealing (or rather, not stealing) so it wasn't a huge leap of logic to think that a boy had slipped it into his pocket during class. However, I didn't want to begin accusing anyone before I was 100% sure that I hadn't just misplaced it.
By the evening I had looked everywhere for it and was by then pretty certain that someone had walked off with it during class. I didn't want to make a song or dance about it, but I thought I'd mention it to class 7 the following morning before their computer lesson.
Having made a brief announcement at the start of the lesson, a couple of names were given to me which turned out to be false leads. I tried my best not to make false accusations against anyone, but instead chose to go down the line of 'Someone mentioned that you might know where my USB stick is. Now, why might he be saying that?'
Since Monday I've been helping out one of the older boys with reading and writing in English (I suspect that he may be dislexic but that's a story for another time...). As we parted when we were heading for supper, I remembered that he was also in class 7 and asked if he'd heard anything about my USB stick. 'Oh, you still haven't got that back?' said another boy who was passing. 'So-and-so's got it.'
'Ah, so-and-so!' my tutee said. 'Don't worry. I'll get it back for you.' And ran off without listening to my pleas to not make a big deal of it.
Straight after supper, my tutee jogged up to me. 'Good news! Here you go,' as he handed me my USB. 'So-and-so had it. He didn't admit it at first, but I slapped him round and then he gave it to me...'
I did my best to explain that I hadn't wanted the guy beaten up, I just wanted my USB back. But still, I thanked him very much and was very happy to have it back in my pocket again.
To an extent, I couldn't really blame so-and-so for pinching it as it was partly my fault for leaving my USB around the students' computers and it was clearly just an act of opportunism.It makes me happy to think, though, that the majority (at least) of the boys here would, in the same position, not steal it like so-and-so did, but instead leave it, tell me or Gary or at worst fiddle around with it until the end of the class...
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The day I had my hair cut
I decided that I'd being putting it off long enough. On Sunday I resolved to go into the nearest town, i.e. to Kuwinda slum, and finally get my hair cut.
Now, some of you may have noticed from my photos http://picasaweb.google.com/simontreacy/KenyaSimonPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCJKc8525p8uFsQE# that there’s not much variation here among the males with regards to hair type. The hair styles here fall into two groups: the close shave and the let-it-grow afro. In fear of the former, I had asked around Bosco Boys if anyone knew of any place where I could get it cut instead of having it all shaved off. No one knew seemed to understand what I was on about.
Unperturbed (surely a reasonable hairdresser would dust off the scissors for a mzungu?) I set out in search of a barbers with a small posse of boys who had tagged along for a laugh.
Even at the point when I sat down in the barber’s chair I still naively thought I could get away with getting a neat trim and not a shearing. I went to lengths to explain what I wanted, to the extent of making scissor-cutting motions to the smiling barber.
‘No problem,’ he said, as he reached for his electric shaver... Resigned, I sighed and braced myself for my new life as a skinhead.
As piles of hair fell onto my lap, a nervous smile was etched onto my face. Robert, one of the accompanying Bosco Boys, gave me an encouraging thumbs up and the barber told me to relax: he’d make it look fine. Once he had finished, I examined the damage in the mirror. On the plus side, I wasn’t a skinhead, my scalp still being covered by a short carpet of hair. But, to be fair, that carpet was now pretty short.
'Very smart', was the general response from the admiring boys when I got back.
'Ah, now you look like an African,' suggested another.
I only got a truly honest appraisal this morning at breakfast when a small girl came up to me laughing: ‘You get your head cut. It looks baaaad!’
Thursday, February 10, 2011
It's our turn to eat sweets
The day before yesterday I ate supper in the dining hall on a table of some of the younger boys.
While we were cutting French beans (or mishiri as the boys call it) for the next day's meal, the boy sat next to me, went across to another on the table, berated him in swahili and slapped him over the head.
'What was that all about?' I asked when he came back to his seat.
'This boy,' he explained, 'is our captain of the table and they gave him money to buy sweets for all of us but he went and bought the sweets and ate them all himself.'
'Much like the President of Kenya, then,' I suggested.
While we were cutting French beans (or mishiri as the boys call it) for the next day's meal, the boy sat next to me, went across to another on the table, berated him in swahili and slapped him over the head.
'What was that all about?' I asked when he came back to his seat.
'This boy,' he explained, 'is our captain of the table and they gave him money to buy sweets for all of us but he went and bought the sweets and ate them all himself.'
'Much like the President of Kenya, then,' I suggested.
Monday, February 7, 2011
The day I fell out of a bus
Last Friday I took a day off and took the opportunity catch up on some sleep and on some washing. Then in the afternoon I went with Gary into Nairobi town centre: he wanted to collect his residency card for his one year working visa and I wanted to have a look around.
I stepped off the matatu minibus in downtown Nairobi to discover that in getting off I'd scrapped my foot against a jagged bit of metal and I now had a bleeding gash on my left toe. Gary wasn't having much luck either. He collected his residency card, which had already been delayed by 3 months due to various bureaucratic delays, only to find that it is due to expire in two weeks time, and not in August as it should have done. He was not best pleased.
Depsite this unauspicious start, I had an enjoyable afternoon in the centre of Nairobi. My first impression of the city is your average big bustling metropolis with loads of cars, buses and people jostling each other to make their way from a to b, but maybe it will grow on me with time. I bought some football socks for my first Jesus Cup game the following day and we met up with some of Gary's German volunteer pals.
To get home in the evening, I got on a matatu which was headed towards Karen. When it was my stop, the bus didn't actually stop but just slowed down enough for the two women ahead of me to hop off gently. When it came to my turn, I hesitated for a split second, thinking that the bus was really going a bit too fast for me just to 'hop off' onto the roadside. Then I decided that I'd better just go for it before the bus moved off any quicker and I missed my quote unquote stop.
Unfortunately for me, at that exact moment, the matatu driver decided that he wasn't going to bother waiting for this dithering mzungu and put his foot on the accelerator, hard. By a staggering coincidence, hard is also the word I'd used to describe how I hit the tarmac, along with other adjectives such as scraping and painful.
The bus drove off and I was left lying on the road, the headlights of the traffic shining into my eyes and the blazing of horns in my ears. I limped off to the side, assessed my condition (hurting) and then did the last thing in the world that I wanted to do at that moment: get on another matatu to get me back to Bosco Boys.
Fortunately, I had been wearing my rucksack when I fell which soften the blow and although I had various bruises and pains down the right side of my body I was left relatively unscathed from the incident. Even so, I'm going to be much more careful next time!
I stepped off the matatu minibus in downtown Nairobi to discover that in getting off I'd scrapped my foot against a jagged bit of metal and I now had a bleeding gash on my left toe. Gary wasn't having much luck either. He collected his residency card, which had already been delayed by 3 months due to various bureaucratic delays, only to find that it is due to expire in two weeks time, and not in August as it should have done. He was not best pleased.
Depsite this unauspicious start, I had an enjoyable afternoon in the centre of Nairobi. My first impression of the city is your average big bustling metropolis with loads of cars, buses and people jostling each other to make their way from a to b, but maybe it will grow on me with time. I bought some football socks for my first Jesus Cup game the following day and we met up with some of Gary's German volunteer pals.
To get home in the evening, I got on a matatu which was headed towards Karen. When it was my stop, the bus didn't actually stop but just slowed down enough for the two women ahead of me to hop off gently. When it came to my turn, I hesitated for a split second, thinking that the bus was really going a bit too fast for me just to 'hop off' onto the roadside. Then I decided that I'd better just go for it before the bus moved off any quicker and I missed my quote unquote stop.
Unfortunately for me, at that exact moment, the matatu driver decided that he wasn't going to bother waiting for this dithering mzungu and put his foot on the accelerator, hard. By a staggering coincidence, hard is also the word I'd used to describe how I hit the tarmac, along with other adjectives such as scraping and painful.
The bus drove off and I was left lying on the road, the headlights of the traffic shining into my eyes and the blazing of horns in my ears. I limped off to the side, assessed my condition (hurting) and then did the last thing in the world that I wanted to do at that moment: get on another matatu to get me back to Bosco Boys.
Fortunately, I had been wearing my rucksack when I fell which soften the blow and although I had various bruises and pains down the right side of my body I was left relatively unscathed from the incident. Even so, I'm going to be much more careful next time!
Question
Incidentally, the first person to satisfactorily explain to me why it is that sunrises and sunsets are quicker here at the equator than they are further north will win a Creme Egg.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Computer fever
Bosco Boys is very lucky to have such a well-equipped computer room. I have to keep telling myself this when computers are crashing and breaking and lessons are falling apart at the seams. Just to have a computer room at all sets it apart from most other public primary schools in Kenya. The director is very keen to have a fully-functioning computer room which the students can access regularly and has set aside two computer lessons a week for the forms 3-7 as a signal of his intent.
A typical lesson goes as follows.
Gary and I spend the half an hour before the class turning the computers on and loading up the program that the students will use. I then walk to the pupils' classroom, enter and wait for the kids to calm down. It's normally pandamonium when I get there, with kids walking around, shouting, hitting each other, still writing notes from the previous class, sleeping, walking in and out of the room etc. etc. and so it generally takes a good 5 or so minutes of commotion before I get anywhere near 'nyamaza' or silence. Fortunately I have the advantage of a. being relatively patient and b. being safe in the knowledge that on the whole they want to have their computer lesson and get a go in the computer room, so they know it's in their interest to shut up so that we can get there quicker.
Once I have something close to peace, I explain what we'll be doing in the lesson. For the first couple weeks, Gary and I just opened up Word on every computer and told them to write about their holiday one lesson, about their school the next and to write a letter another. Running out of things to set them to write about, and acknowledging that many students only managed to write 'mynameis soandso' in the half hour class, we change tack last week and got them practising using a keyboard using a touch-typing program.
Annoyingly this 'Rapidtyping' program is not as rapid as I would like and is unreliable on the computers we have, requiring Gary and I to spend the lessons dashing around the room restarting the game every time it crashes. On the plus side, some students have really taken to it and are whizzing through the levels. And we've almost managed to teach some of the older students to use Shift when writing a capital letter.
Apart from the typing program, there's also a German game called Moorhuhn that Gary downloaded which inovlves shooting flying ducks by moving and clicking the mouse. The kids love it and it's a fun way to get them used to controlling a mouse but sadly it only works on half a dozen computers at the moment, so we can't use it for a whole class yet.
Looking ahead, I'm thinking of giving the kids texts which they have to type up into Word and format correctly. I'd also love to do some kind of project or even a quiz to set them, but I think that may be a bit ambitious given the level of many of the students. One day I did try to teach copy and paste (using the mouse and the Edit menu as I thought that would be simplest) but I didn't get anywhere at all.
All suggestions for things to do in future classes are extremely welcome!
As I type this I'm doing Google searches to see if I can download some kind of sporcle style quiz game which could be used offline as a form of info-tainment...
Anyway, during the class, as I say, Gary and I patrol the room, restarting crashed computers, breaking up fights when the pupils refuse to share and somehow in between trying to pass on a few tips and tricks. At the very least, it's important just to let the kids have access to the computers, to get them used to using them and to remove any fear or mystery about them from an early age.
The end of every class is always the same and is always a fiasco.
The bell is rung. I open the door. Gary calls time on the lesson. Nobody moves. I remind everyone to not turn off the computers (as we'll need them for the next class). Gary asks everyone to leave. Nobody moves. Gary tells everybody to leave and switches off the server, thereby disabling half of the computers.
Panic ensues. The kids, realising their time is up, frantically start clicking buttons left right and centre, bashing away at keyboards, turning off screens, turning off computers and when finally they move away from the computer they were using they start doing the same at another computer closer to the door. Gary and I literally have to shepherd every boy and girl out of the room, cajoling, bribing and threatening as we go.
For the youngest class, I've started telling the kids to put their hands in the air and then on their heads as soon as the bell goes and tell them to leave like that. It's a tactic I might start using for the older students if they continue to not listen to our pleas to not fiddle with the computers as they leave the room. However, even with one hand on their head, the other invariably strays back towards the nearest mouse to squeeze out those extra last few clicks of desperation as they are dragged kicking and screaming from the room...
Obviously they like our lessons so much they don't want to leave!
A typical lesson goes as follows.
Gary and I spend the half an hour before the class turning the computers on and loading up the program that the students will use. I then walk to the pupils' classroom, enter and wait for the kids to calm down. It's normally pandamonium when I get there, with kids walking around, shouting, hitting each other, still writing notes from the previous class, sleeping, walking in and out of the room etc. etc. and so it generally takes a good 5 or so minutes of commotion before I get anywhere near 'nyamaza' or silence. Fortunately I have the advantage of a. being relatively patient and b. being safe in the knowledge that on the whole they want to have their computer lesson and get a go in the computer room, so they know it's in their interest to shut up so that we can get there quicker.
Once I have something close to peace, I explain what we'll be doing in the lesson. For the first couple weeks, Gary and I just opened up Word on every computer and told them to write about their holiday one lesson, about their school the next and to write a letter another. Running out of things to set them to write about, and acknowledging that many students only managed to write 'mynameis soandso' in the half hour class, we change tack last week and got them practising using a keyboard using a touch-typing program.
Annoyingly this 'Rapidtyping' program is not as rapid as I would like and is unreliable on the computers we have, requiring Gary and I to spend the lessons dashing around the room restarting the game every time it crashes. On the plus side, some students have really taken to it and are whizzing through the levels. And we've almost managed to teach some of the older students to use Shift when writing a capital letter.
Apart from the typing program, there's also a German game called Moorhuhn that Gary downloaded which inovlves shooting flying ducks by moving and clicking the mouse. The kids love it and it's a fun way to get them used to controlling a mouse but sadly it only works on half a dozen computers at the moment, so we can't use it for a whole class yet.
Looking ahead, I'm thinking of giving the kids texts which they have to type up into Word and format correctly. I'd also love to do some kind of project or even a quiz to set them, but I think that may be a bit ambitious given the level of many of the students. One day I did try to teach copy and paste (using the mouse and the Edit menu as I thought that would be simplest) but I didn't get anywhere at all.
All suggestions for things to do in future classes are extremely welcome!
As I type this I'm doing Google searches to see if I can download some kind of sporcle style quiz game which could be used offline as a form of info-tainment...
Anyway, during the class, as I say, Gary and I patrol the room, restarting crashed computers, breaking up fights when the pupils refuse to share and somehow in between trying to pass on a few tips and tricks. At the very least, it's important just to let the kids have access to the computers, to get them used to using them and to remove any fear or mystery about them from an early age.
The end of every class is always the same and is always a fiasco.
The bell is rung. I open the door. Gary calls time on the lesson. Nobody moves. I remind everyone to not turn off the computers (as we'll need them for the next class). Gary asks everyone to leave. Nobody moves. Gary tells everybody to leave and switches off the server, thereby disabling half of the computers.
Panic ensues. The kids, realising their time is up, frantically start clicking buttons left right and centre, bashing away at keyboards, turning off screens, turning off computers and when finally they move away from the computer they were using they start doing the same at another computer closer to the door. Gary and I literally have to shepherd every boy and girl out of the room, cajoling, bribing and threatening as we go.
For the youngest class, I've started telling the kids to put their hands in the air and then on their heads as soon as the bell goes and tell them to leave like that. It's a tactic I might start using for the older students if they continue to not listen to our pleas to not fiddle with the computers as they leave the room. However, even with one hand on their head, the other invariably strays back towards the nearest mouse to squeeze out those extra last few clicks of desperation as they are dragged kicking and screaming from the room...
Obviously they like our lessons so much they don't want to leave!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Glorious food
Food at Bosco Boys is a three-tier system. 1. The priests and actual brothers; 2. The pre-novices; 3. The boys (or boys/girls at the school Mon-Fri for breakfast and lunch).
Us volunteers are invited to eat with the pre-novice brothers, although recently I have gone to eat with the boys in the dining hall a few times.
For them, breakfast consists of tea (chai) with bread. I was pleasantly surprised to fiund that not all the bread was stale, as I had been warned that it would be, and it was also pleasing to see the boys apparently sharing the food around relatively equally, making sure that everyone gets their share. Having said that, as everything happens so fast, so noisily and so obstinately in Kiswahili, I have no idea as to the true nature of the dining hall politics...
A typical lunch or supper is ugali with cooked vegetables (generally French beans and/or carrots) with a suggestion of a sauce. The ugali is pure stodge and only really palatable when eaten in combination with the other food.
By way of contrast, in the relative peace and quiet of the pre-novice house, the brothers tuck into bread and butter in the mornings with tea (sugar is available if you like) or sometimes porridge. Lunch/supper (and sometimes breakfast too) always features rice and almost always kidney beans with some kind of veg. Yoghurt and mango are popular post-prandial treats. Only occasionally do we have meat.
The food might not sound too thrilling so I should add that I've never felt excessively hungry since I arrived and there's always more than enough bread or rice to keep one going until the next meal. Given my Salesian background, I can't help but think that we ought to be sharing our mealtimes with the boys and I'm often tempted by the idea of joining them for meals more often. Sadly, my stomach often wins out and I end up enjoying my rice and beans with the brothers instead... :)
Us volunteers are invited to eat with the pre-novice brothers, although recently I have gone to eat with the boys in the dining hall a few times.
For them, breakfast consists of tea (chai) with bread. I was pleasantly surprised to fiund that not all the bread was stale, as I had been warned that it would be, and it was also pleasing to see the boys apparently sharing the food around relatively equally, making sure that everyone gets their share. Having said that, as everything happens so fast, so noisily and so obstinately in Kiswahili, I have no idea as to the true nature of the dining hall politics...
A typical lunch or supper is ugali with cooked vegetables (generally French beans and/or carrots) with a suggestion of a sauce. The ugali is pure stodge and only really palatable when eaten in combination with the other food.
By way of contrast, in the relative peace and quiet of the pre-novice house, the brothers tuck into bread and butter in the mornings with tea (sugar is available if you like) or sometimes porridge. Lunch/supper (and sometimes breakfast too) always features rice and almost always kidney beans with some kind of veg. Yoghurt and mango are popular post-prandial treats. Only occasionally do we have meat.
The food might not sound too thrilling so I should add that I've never felt excessively hungry since I arrived and there's always more than enough bread or rice to keep one going until the next meal. Given my Salesian background, I can't help but think that we ought to be sharing our mealtimes with the boys and I'm often tempted by the idea of joining them for meals more often. Sadly, my stomach often wins out and I end up enjoying my rice and beans with the brothers instead... :)
Meeting and greeting
Tips for meeting and greeting in East Africa
When meeting a Kenyan, a handshake is the done thing for greeting both men and women. You will find it always last longer than you expected. In fact, whole conversations may be played out while standing or walking clasping one another's hands.
Also, remember to shake everybody's hand. When you enter a room of people, the first thing you must do is go around a greet them individually (if practical).
As well as the handshake, other commonplace gestures include the high-five, the fist bump and, most bewilderingly, a combination of the two which ends with the individuals' thumbs clicking together (directions: slap your hands together, curl round your fingers and then use your thumbs to click).
When greeting someone, always ask 'how are you?'. The answer will always be 'Fine.' Everyone is always fine in Kenya. Even if you've just fallen down a well, if someone asks how you are, the instinctive response would be 'fine' and it would take a bit more questioning to ascertain the person's actual condition.
And, of course, with the kids you can mix things up by saying 'mambo' as you fist bump, beat your chest once and then lift your hand up to the sky. 'Poa poa' is the requisite response.
'Yes' is also an often used greeting. Although it sounds a bit strange at first - when someone walks past you just saying 'yesss' - you'll find it's a nice alternative for saying a quick hello as you're crossing paths.
When meeting a Kenyan, a handshake is the done thing for greeting both men and women. You will find it always last longer than you expected. In fact, whole conversations may be played out while standing or walking clasping one another's hands.
Also, remember to shake everybody's hand. When you enter a room of people, the first thing you must do is go around a greet them individually (if practical).
As well as the handshake, other commonplace gestures include the high-five, the fist bump and, most bewilderingly, a combination of the two which ends with the individuals' thumbs clicking together (directions: slap your hands together, curl round your fingers and then use your thumbs to click).
When greeting someone, always ask 'how are you?'. The answer will always be 'Fine.' Everyone is always fine in Kenya. Even if you've just fallen down a well, if someone asks how you are, the instinctive response would be 'fine' and it would take a bit more questioning to ascertain the person's actual condition.
And, of course, with the kids you can mix things up by saying 'mambo' as you fist bump, beat your chest once and then lift your hand up to the sky. 'Poa poa' is the requisite response.
'Yes' is also an often used greeting. Although it sounds a bit strange at first - when someone walks past you just saying 'yesss' - you'll find it's a nice alternative for saying a quick hello as you're crossing paths.
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