And we're back...

The election in Kenya is finally, mostly over and Peace Corps Kenya finally released us to our sites at the beginning of the week.  My site is relatively far from Nairobi so I had to overnight in Webuye on Tuesday night before heading back to my site on Wednesday and then back to school on Thursday.  I'm still feeling a bit uneasy about the election results.  Raila has not conceded and his team has started their legal battle fighting the results, which you can read about here.  Yes, PC sent us back to our sites but I'm not going to unpack and really move into my house until this is all finalized.  I'm looking forward to the day when I can feel like I can settle in for the long haul.  Ever since I got to Kenya, and even before, I have held the possibility of an evacuation in the back of my mind and have not allowed myself to think too far into the future.  I feel a little more willing to accept the fact that I will be living and teaching here for two full years but am still hesitant to embrace that fully.  The Kenyan Supreme Court has two weeks to review the case that Raila's people have put before them so I'm hoping in April I can buy some furniture and paint my walls and really settle in.

Returning to site was lovely.  My students were really happy to see me and many of the teachers even hugged me, which threw me off.  Hugs from Kenyans just doesn't happen that often.  My house was still mostly intact and I only found 2 giant cockroach carcasses on the floor.  Fortunately, I don't see these beasts very often - the two I came home to were numbers 7 & 8 - but I've started thinking of them as big furry pets just to keep myself sane.  One of these days I'll post a photo of these nasties.

I realized that part of the reason I haven't been very good about updating my blog is that I didn't want to commit to it until I knew I would be here beyond the elections.  Now that it looks more likely that I'm staying, I will be posting updates on past events such as PST and swearing-in and moving to site.  Stay tuned for that.