Talitha Kum and Thomson's Falls

We visited a special school on Saturday, May 25th, called Talitha Kum. The name comes from the words Jesus said to Jairus' daughter when he raised her from the dead. The children here have certainly been raised from the dead, as they are orphans as well as all being HIV-positive.
The grounds are very well kept, and it is the finest compound we have seen so far in Kenya, even better than the PACE school.
There are 74 children in residence, and there is no photography allowed on the grounds. A girl's school was touring there at the same time as we were. The director said they get a lot of support from the community, which sure is heartening to hear.
We started at the main building, which has an inner grassy courtyard and very well appointed dorms for the children. There are other dorms not attached to the main building, as well as gardens and sheds for raising chickens, sheep, goats, and rabbits. The children crowded around us as we toured and we held hands as we saw the sights.
We made balloon hats for them just as we did for the Kauka kids, and then they sang us a song of thanks. Our spokesman choked up as he expressed how touched we all were at their hospitality.
Just across the road from Talitha Kum is Nyahururu's major tourist attraction, Thomson's Falls. According to Wikipedia, the 74 metre falls are on the Ewaso Ng'iro river. The first white man to see them, Joseph Thomson, named them after his father in 1883 He was a Scottish geologist and naturalist who was also the first European. to walk from Mombasa to Lake Victoria in the early 1800's.

Visitors to the sight can view them from above or climb down to the bottom. I went on down with the rest of the group, but it was a long trip back up.
(Pant, gasp, wheeze!)
The sight certainly is worth it, but the steps on the way down have seen a lot of hard use, and peter out about a third of the way from the bottom. The rest of the way a person has to scramble over rocks made slimy by a combination of the dirt on the ground and the mist coming from the waterfall.
There was a woman training for the marathon (A Kenyan marathon runner? Imagine that! Heh.) who was actually running down and then up these stairs, not once, but a number of times.
Man, am I old.

Religion, Kenya Style

One of the first classes I observed here at PACE school was about Christian Religious Education. I think it was a Grade Three class, so their English was not strong, and there was a lot of listen and repeat style teaching. An ESL teacher could definitely be of use here. The kids at the school get a heavy dose of that old time religion here, but there are a few twists that make identify it as completely Kenyan.

On Thursday mornings, the staff gathers for a prayer meeting, and the school pastor, Mr. Mugo, gives the message. I think we were still jet-lagged when we were told of this meeting, because only a couple of us were ready to go, and I and a few others arrived late.
D'oh.
Pastor Mugo's message was about having vision, and how important it was to have one. Otherwise, how can you make things better for others? How do you want to be remembered? As someone who let others do it all, or as someone who knew where to go and took the lead.

At 16:30, the high school students invited us to their chapel meeting, which was entirely student led. The head girl invited those who wanted to give testimony to come forward. This usually turned out to be done in the form of song. There are some very talented singers at this school, and when the whole student body gets going all at once, it can send shivers up your spine.

This Thursday afternoon meeting was short, only about half an hour, but there is a much longer one on Sunday which starts about 8:30 and goes on for hours. Sometimes it is just one student, or a group, and sometimes it is the whole student body. As I said, very impressive, and something to see to believe.
That evening, we went to Glenda's brother-in-law's house for dinner. There was a short prayer meeting and message beforehand. The ministry that PACE grew out of is celebrating 30 years, and there is going to be a big celebration this weekend, which coincides with the Kenyan Independence Day, June 1st.
When we got back to the house, I think it was the first time we had been out after dark. The night sky was absolutely brilliant. I have not seen so many stars in I don't know how long.

  Oh Lord, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small.

A Tale of Two Kindies

Well, I said the Internet connection would be spotty, and it has more than lived up (or down) to its reputation. Oh well. The stories will come out soon enough. It's hard to believe we've been here almost two weeks already. There will be only one more week here upcoming, then the safari, and then that big bird home.
We have had some pretty amazing experiences here, and made connections with some special children. On Thursday and Friday (May 23rd and 24th) we visited two different kindergartens. The Kindi here at the school is the closest set of classes close to our house, and in fact the students sometimes play in the field directly to the north. We have had some good times with them. All of them are so cute, as any kindergartner is.

We got there about 9:30 in the morning, and the kids were so excited to see us there wasn't much that we could do except run around with them a bit until their teachers rounded them up. Then we got to serve their mid-morning snack to them, which consisted of a cup of thin porridge and a lemon wedge.
Then the students went to their classrooms. There were three: the top class of five year olds, then a class of four year olds, and then the baby class. There were kids there that were even younger, about two years old, I guess.
Their classrooms are wooden huts, and the boards that make up the walls have cracks in between them. The roofs are corrugated tin, which must sound horrendous during the rainy season. One teacher said that they can't do lessons at all during that time.Most of the classrooms that we have seen, regardless of the age, are the same.
I should say something about their school year while I am thinking about it. It starts in January and goes for three months. They take a break during the heaviest rain in April and are now in Term II (May - July). August is another month off, and the final term of the year goes from September to the end of November.
Anyway, after the kindi kids took their snack we did some crafts with them. We handed out a portion of modelling clay and had them make various shapes like letters, numbers, and so on. When the kids saw me make something, they would try to give me their clay to make it for them. I've run into this before, and I always try to get them to do it themselves.

It was the usual gong show, but I've been through it a million times in Korea, so I just rolled with it, and got them settled down so Ann could read them the story of Noah's Ark. After that it was time for more games which consisted of a lot of running around crazy-go-nuts. Well, they are toddlers, and not really up to professional soccer just quite yet.
We played some "What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?" and a Kenyan game where they all formed a line which spiralled inwards and then back out, which was called "Making A Basket."
And then it was time for their nap. I hope we tired them out, instead of winding them up.
The kindergarten we visited the following day was at a small church north of Nyahururu, called Kauka Nursery. These children were a lot less well off, and would have nothing if the people of this church had not set up this nursery. We were told that they might be shy of foreigners, but they turned out to be very open and accepting, and we had a grand old time with them.

There is a small forest next to the church, and we were told that there are elephants to be found if you go in deep enough. They come out at night and forage. The farmers in the area have to be careful about harvesting their crops before the big old pachyderms get to them first.
Nearby is a river in which there are hippos. So, a lot of wildlife in the area.
Once again, we arrived just in time for their snack. Their "kitchen" was a hut with a fire pit inside of it, and they drew their water from a well.

We brought them some school supplies, including posters of basic English words, pencils, sharpeners, and notebooks. We taught them a few basic lessons like counting, ABC's, and then Destiny did her thing, teaching them to wash their hands before giving them vitamins and de-worming medicine.
We did some colouring and then it was time for more running around games. We also blew them bubbles to chase, and blew up some of those long balloons and tied them into these sort of hats.

We took some photos and gave them a snack of bread and juice and then it was time to head back to the school. PACE school, which we are staying at, is involved in a lot of other charity and special schools like this, of which more later. It sure makes you think about the land of plenty that we are so blessed to live in, and how even though some of the Kenyans we have seen might not be so well off in comparison, they still have a sense of community and closeness that we could learn from.

The First Day

Wednesday, May 22nd, was our first day to get a chance to teach some of the students at the school. We were taken over there by Glenda about 0930, and we started at the classrooms for Grades 1 - 3. The teachers almost looked as if they weren't expecting us, and we learned for the first time that we would not be teaching any of the important core subjects: Math, Science, English or History. Apparently there is some government edict that precludes a foreigner from doing a job that a Kenyan should be doing. We are going to be limited to doing things like physical education, crafts, and other things of that nature.

So we took the students over to a field across the road from  the school and played running games like "Duck, Duck, Goose." We had a couple of small beach balls that we used to play a game of "Keep It Up In The Air," which lasted until the balls came into contact with the barbed wire fence.

We broke them up into groups and read stories to them, which they may or may not have understood. The lower classes don't have too much English, but once you start getting into Grade Three there's enough of an understanding to at least converse. People here have at least three languages: their native tribal dialect, Swahili, and English, which is the national language.

After that the students were gathered together for a health talk from the nurse in our group, Destiny. She is married to a fellow teacher (who graduated with me), Leighton. The third teacher in our group is Kelvin. Our professor, Dr. Bernie Potvin, was supposed to escort us here, but couldn't make it at the last minute and his wife is subbing for him. She brought her 17 year old daughter Clare with her, and Clare's cousin Luke, who has been acting as the group photographer.

The health talk consisted of reminding the students to wash their hands at the appropriate time, and Destiny told them to sing "Happy Birthday" while they were doing it. When the song was over, their hands would be clean. We actually heard them doing this when it was time for lunch.

Destiny also gave them a multi-vitamin and a pill to help de-worm their insides. She has been very busy here, helping out in the school's clinic. She had one girl presenting with what looked like epileptic siezures which turned out to be a hysterical reaction to being away from home. She has been sent back to her parents for a few days and may be back on Monday.

Today (Sunday) there was a student brought to our guest house with a severe asthma attack. Destiny put her on a machine to help her breathing and gave her some steroids to help open up her breathing passages.

After the health issues were taken care of, we all returned to school to observe a class before it was time for lunch. The class I observed was Christian Religious Education, and the teacher went over prayer and what it means. It seemed as if a lot of it was rote memorization of certain terms. I wasn't sure how much the students actually understood or were just repeating.
After lunch, we went to town (Nyahururu, remember?) and took some money out of the bank (my debit card worked okay) and visited the local supermarket. It's always interesting to see the difference and the similarities in the products.

We finished off the day by helping the students write letters to their sponsors, catching them up on their news and asking for their prayers and just a little bit more cash. Since this is a non-profit organization, they rely on donations quite a bit.
In the evening, it gets quite a bit colder than you would think (because of the elevation). I have to put on a hoodie to stay comfortable. There are blankets and a sleeping bag on our beds, and I am glad to use them, but I usually wake up in the middle of the night to find I've kicked them off.
On Thursday and Friday of the week just ended, we went to teach a coupla kindergartens. More on that next time.

Shake, Rattle & Roll

I had hoped to post daily about my time here in Kenya, but the Internet connection has been spotty to say the least. I think it's been repaired now, but if I were you I would be prepared to wait between them. I 'm going to continue on from where I last left off, leaving Amsterdam for Nairobi. We took off from Amsterdam at 2100 local time. I had been awake for most of the time since Saturday morning, and I was pretty tired. I never sleep on planes, but I actually managed to sleep most of the way from Amsterdam to Nairobi. I woke up about two hours before we landed. It was dark outside, and I could see the lights of a city below us. From the map shown on the TV screen, it looked as if we were flying over Khartoum, Sudan.

There weren't too many more lights before we got to Nairobi and landed at 6:15. Going through customs and picking up our bags went relatively painlessly. We were met by a driver and a couple of assistants, who loaded our bags onto the van for the five hour drive to Nyahururu, which is a small town to the northwest of the capital. The nearest big city is Nakuru. What with the two flights to get to Kenya and the drive to our final destination on top, I was not only getting pretty tired, but pretty tired of sitting in cramped places. But needs must...
It was interesting to see the sights of the city and countryside as it passed. We saw giraffes in the distance just as we were leaving the airport, and we saw baboons, gazelles, and zebras on the way. If that is a foretaste of the safari to come, it's going to be great.

The roads were not in the best condition, and sometimes they were almost non-existant. The van had seen some hard use, and rattled and shook as we attempted to slalom around the enourmous potholes. We saw donkeys tethered at various places along the way. I think they were there to carry tourists down to the bottom of the potholes, just like they do in the Grand Canyon.
: )
There was a stop at a vantage point overlooking the Rift Valley, and the view would have been spectacular if it hadn't been so hazy.
We got to the school where we are going to teach about 12:30, and got oursleves settled in. There was an orientation meeting at 3:00, and I am embarrassed to say I fell asleep, not once, but twice before it was over. I had a nap before dinner, and then a proper night's sleep last night, so I should be good to go.
It gets quite cool at night, and I was glad to have lots of warm blankets on my bed. We are fairly high up, about 7700 feet, and there aren't too many bugs to worry about. The sun rises about 5:30 AM and sets about 6:30 PM. No daylight savings here on the equator.
There's a sign near the school that marks the equator, and I got my picture taken next to it.

Tuesday was spent touring the school. It runs from kindergarten to grade 12. There are 340 students in all, with about 180 of them boarding at the school. It's a different situation here than our original destination, the Mully Children's Family. Where MCF was all about rescuing street kids and giving them an education, this place is more of a regular school, albeit with an emphasis on Christian values.
The students wear uniforms, and most of them come from the surrounding area. The school was started by a man named Wachiru and his American wife Glenda. It is a non-profit school, depending on a lot of donations and sponsors for the children. Wachiru has a Pan-African vision, so there are more and more students coming from neighbouring countries such as the Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, and so on.
Wednesday and Thursday have been times when we take more of an active role, and we have slowly been integrating ourselves into the life of the school. More about that next time.

Layover In Amsterdam

As I type this, I am at my destination in central Kenya, but it was an odyssey getting here.
I started off by forgetting some stuff that I wanted to take with me, like some granola bars, a power bar for my 'puter, and my binder where I write stuff down.
D'oh!
Our flight from Calgary was delayed an hour, because there was fear of a lightning strike. We waited all that time, and then it was a matter of five minutes for the ground crew to finish what they were doing when they were interrupted.
The flight to Amsterdam was long and boring. I wish that I could sleep on planes, but nothing I have tried so far has made that possible. I read and watched some video. I saw an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "The Layover," which dealt with his stop in Amsterdam. So I was able to get an idea of what to see while I was there.

 

 

We were stopping about twelve hours, and it was about midnight Alberta time when we got there, but it was early Sunday morning when we took the train into the city to do some sightseeing.

I and a couple others in our party started by taking a canal boat from the central train station to the Rijksmuseum.

 

Amsterdam Harbour

 

On the way, we passed Anne Frank's House, which has been turned into a museum. We decided not to try and get in because of the long lines waiting. It was still early in the morning Amsterdam time, but there were a lot of tourists already lining up to see what the city had to offer.

 

 

Central Station

 

Riding down the canals was interesting. There a many houseboats tied up to the water's edge, and a lot of smaller boats of the self-propelled kind with tourists paddling away to watch out for.

 

Canal Boats

 

The museum had some interesting thingsto see, such as old ship models, arms and ammunition, dollhouses (such intricate detail!), clothing, jewellry, dishes, and on and on and on.

 

The Rijksmuseum

 

From the museum, we walked back towards the central station. It got more and more touristy the closer we go to our destination. The crowds were incredible. The city does have some interesting sights to see, but there are many people elbowing their way into see them.

We passed by the flower market, which had a lot of bulbs on display. It was past the time of tulips blooming, so I guess the roots were the best they could do.

 

Metal lizards everywhere!

 

And, of course, there are the notorious coffee bars, where people can freely smoke marijuana (but not for free). Bourdain dealt with these very humourously on his show, and if you ever get a chance to see it, it's hilarious.

If I hadn't been so tired, I might have appreciated what I was seeing a little better, but eventually it was time to head back to the airport and board our flight to Kenya, which would take about eight hours. I was so tired, I would actually sleep on the plane for a good bit, but there was still a lot of travelling to do once we got there.

More about that next time.

Note: I had planned to add more photos, but it's not happening. I'll try later, maybe when I get back to Canada.

May Update

Well.
My two year course of study has been successfully completed. I now have a Bachelor of Education to go with my Bachelor of Arts. I enjoyed studying at the school. The professors were smart and friendly, and because there were only 24 students in the entire class, there was a lot of access to them. I think there are sumpn like 250 students in the University of Calgary's class. Talk about the school as a factory!
So now I have an interim certificate which lets me teach in Alberta, which means I'm starting the tricky part - finding a job. The government has been cutting a lot of funds for education lately, and a lot of teachers who were employed are now looking for work. A newbie like me has to overcome a lot of obstacles before finding work.
Sigh.
But before I do that, I'm going to Africa to do a one month internship at a school set up to help out disadvantaged and at risk youth. Originally, the place I was going to was the Mully Children's Family, set up and run by a man named Charles Mulli.
His story is quite something. He was an abused child himself. His father was a drunk who beat him and his mother. Charles was sent out to relatives to make his way in the world, and he did quite well for himself. He became fairly wealthy, with a big family of his own. He had many businesses and was ... comfortable. But he did what the rich man couldn't do - he gave it all up to help those less fortunate.
I say that I was going there. Unfortunately, there was a lot of rain there which caused flooding at the school, so now I and the other members of the team are going to another school. It is at a place called Nyahururu, and it looks to be as close to the centre of Kenya as makes no never mind. I will be reporting more on what we will do there, and put up some photos as well. We plan to take in a safari at a game park called the Masai Mara. It is going to be very exciting.