A live chicken in a plastic bag - now that's what I call a welcome....

So, week one done. Already - I can't believe it...
It's possibly been the biggest learning curve for me in both (corny) life and work. I'm constantly adapting to the way things are done here, trying not to compare everything to the way it's done at home and hoping the local people here accept me.

The side of things I have found most incredible, is how welcoming everyone is - they greet me by shaking my hand and profusely welcoming me to wherever I am visiting, they're so grateful that I have come and want to work with them and they give me gifts that they really can't afford to give (hence the chicken!!).

I am based at the Education Assessment and Resource Centre (E.A.R.C.) in Vihiga, western Kenya. There is two assessment teachers there, they assess children with special needs and decide which school is best to place them in. There's a co-ordinator and a deputy co-ordinator who do everything from training, out reach programmes and hearing assessments. And then, there's me and David. David is a newly qualified Ugandan SLT and he's one of the first SLT's to qualify in East Africa, so it's a massive deal that he's come to work with the charity. David is a God send - he like me can't speak swahili, yet somehow we get by, and he's so open to learning new things and is driven like me to get things done. I don't think I'll ever get used to the phrase "this is Africa" in that EVERYTHING takes forever to get done!!

This week I have worked at a cerebral palsy clinic with a local O.T., been to a special needs school where they have kids from 4 - 16 with CP, Autism, Downs Syndrome and Epilepsy, I've also visited a local hospital to start discussing training options and visited a neighbouring E.A.R.C. in Kisumu (about 30kilometres away - almost an hour by mutatu - tiny van bus thing to travel in), as I will be based there one day a week until another volunteer arrives in September.
I knew before I came that people perceived people with disabilities as a negative thing, but didn't quite realise the extent. They think autism is curable, people with CP have it because of the mother, so the father and extended family leave her to look after the child, epilepsy is seen as witchcraft and there is absolutely NO intergration of kids with special needs in a mainstream school...

However, there are so many good people here who are working ridiculously hard to try and change this perception..