Second Host Family

I spent the first 6 weeks of training with my first host family.

One weekend my host mama wasn’t feeling well and she asked me to help out a bit more with household chores so she could rest.  Then that Sunday night/Monday morning she woke me up at 4 am.

It took me a while to understand what she was saying.  Mind you she was signing in KSL, I didn’t have my glasses on, it was 4 am, and I was trying to read her signs through a mosquito net.  I finally figured out she was trying to tell me that she was going to the hospital and wanted me to watch her son (my little brother) who was still asleep.  She returned about an hour later after getting a shot at the hospital and said she felt better.

I left for training at around 7:30 am and then a couple of hours later I was told to go home and pack a backpack for a few days.  Turns out my host mama had to go to Nairobi to see a doctor and I was to stay at a hotel.

Turns out she had to have surgery the following Monday in Nairobi so I ended up staying at the hotel for a week.  The following week us Deaf Education group went to Loitokitok for HIV training with the Science and Math Education group.

After we got back to our training site I was told to go back to the hotel.  A couple of days later it was decided that my host mama still needed time to recover and that I would spend the last week and half with another host family.  I basically had to pack everything up in 20 minutes and move to my new host family.

It was nice finally having access to all of my stuff after a few weeks!

The second host family had hosted the PCT from our group who had to return to America since her dad’s battle with cancer wasn’t going well and they also hosted a PCT last year who was hard-of-hearing.

They were so welcoming and made sure I felt a part of the family.  They taught me how to make chapati and how to milk a cow.  They tried to learn some sign language and communicated with me through writing.