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.