This past week was one of the crazy busiest of my internship, but very likely had the biggest impact on my life...although it remains to be seen what the actual results are.  Ok, enough vagueries. 

A team from Bethany Church in Minneapolis, which is partnered with the school I attend, came for a week with two purposes: to begin construction on a girls' school/church building for their partner church here in Kenya, and to experiment with adult literacy as an entry point into the community.  I heard a few weeks ago that they'd be doing something with literacy, so I asked to hang out with them to hopefully pick up a few things and see if this is really a direction I want to head.

Melissa and I drove out to the place the team was staying the first morning, not really knowing what to expect or even if we were coming at the right time and place!  We eventually found the group and they had already begun, although I still wasn't totally sure what was going on at that point.  Slowly I gathered that we'd be spending the first few hours of the day learning teaching skills and some Somali since we'd be teaching Somalis to read both English and Somali.  Then in the afternoons we'd head out and practice on people in the market and town.  

I learned more Somali in five days than I've learned in over a year living here!  How sad is that...I've stopped at points during my internship and realized that I had very limited contact with the majority population of Somalis here but I couldn't seem to find a way inside.  I've been so painfully aware of my 'foreigner' status but felt powerless to change that.  I don't regret doing the things that I've had access to so far, but it never was quite what I'd wanted from the beginning.  The Somalis intrigue me and I love how their strength and stubbornness is matched with their creativity in poetry and music.  I want to understand them at a deeper level, but that will never happen while I'm an outsider.  

All of that to say that I am so excited to finally, although it feels a bit too close to the end for comfort, have contacts and friends in the Somali community.  Every day we ventured out in small groups to find people willing to let us practice our teaching strategies, making new friends and strengthening them throughout the week.  I lead my group into the fabric sellers part of the market since I've noticed how friendly the women there are and that usually there are a few women sitting visiting each other that might be available to talk.  We connected with a few young women the first day we went out and we returned each day to go a little further in our lessons in reading, learn a little more Somali, and go a bit deeper in our friendships.  There are always the guardians who come with suspicion to defend the women against us crazy white folk, but we can confidently show what we're doing and through our transparency, hopefully communicate love and respect.  

I've discovered that I no longer feel defensive about people placing restrictions on me about when I can share what I believe or 'proselytize' (eww what a gross word, huh?).  If a community or workplace or individual is that uncomfortable with Christianity, they probably have never heard who Christ is.  Instead of becoming defensive to match their attitude, I think it would be better to let my life explain the truth of the gospel to them, to show that pure and undefiled religion is to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep yourself unstained by the world (James 1:27).  Most people don't need someone to preach the gospel to them, they need to see what difference it makes when it is lived out.  If I am no different than the world, why would anyone want to follow the one I claim to represent? 

So it feels good to be free from that expectation to preach or defend my right to do so.  Now I can relax and be a Christian. :)

The other opportunity we had was to visit existing adult literacy schools in the area, which was a surprise to me.  I wasn't aware that the government was already funding schools for adult education or that they were even aware of the need.  That's an encouraging realization!  So we visited some schools out in the bush and helped teach, which was extremely challenging but exciting anyway.  In one school, I taught the women while one of the men from the team taught the men.  The room was small and I soon discovered that the women spoke a little Swahili, but even my 3rd grade level Swahili was getting nothing but blank stares!  My partner didn't speak any Swahili, so of course he got a translator to explain things in Somali, but because I know Swahili they assumed I didn't need one.  Oh man, that was a challenge.  Afterwards, my teaching partner said "I think we were competing for attention there!  All the men kept watching you and listening to you teach!" To which I responded, "All the women were listening to you!  I couldn't keep them focused for the life of me!"  We joked that maybe if we had switched sides they would have paid better attention, although the distraction of an opposite gender person teaching might have been too much to overcome. 

I learned a lot about teaching and was definitely stretched in my knowledge of Swahili this week.  At this point, I'm planning to teach in another school or schools for about 2 weeks before I leave.  Nothing has been arranged yet, but I have some people who are going to help me out and hopefully it will actually happen.  I can see the huge open door through literacy training in this area...and I really hope I don't have to spend years in school before I can come back!  At this point, this is the direction God is sending me in, although I'm not how the details will pan out or if this is the exact place I'll end up.  

I've even gone as far as looking into what sort of a degree I should get to teach English and what schools offer those degrees, but all of that sort of freaked me out so I stopped. haha!  I still have time to come to terms with more school, so I'll let that go for now and make the most of the time I have left here.