Potatoes, Reading Competitions, and Headdresses.

For the past couple of weeks I've been fighting against the schools closing for their tri-annual break. My proposed deadline for the baseline data for education is May 16th, so together with my Kenyan colleague Francis, we've been data collecting machines. We have been to all 9 schools in the Nyametaburo/Nyangiti area, which include: Nyametaburo primary and secondary, Nyangiti Primary, Siore Simba primary, Taragwiti primary, Gukipimi community primary, St.Joseph's private primary, St.Paul's private primary, and Imani (Faith) private pre-school. The data collection includes meeting with the whole staff of teachers from each school, meeting with the headmasters individually to collect enrollment and exam records, and meeting with the students to ask them about their home-life, school-life and various obstacles involved in going to school.

I really enjoyed sitting with the students to ask them about their experiences. As the children, Francis, and I sat in a circle, it reminded me of being a guidance counselor again. In those days, as prescribed by my Guru of Guidance, Jan, I would have a group of students over in the office for "lunch bunch" in which they would spend the opening part of lunch sharing on who lives at their home, what's their favorite sport, etc. I also felt like that popular female journalist from the 80's, who every now and then, would have a show on Nickelodeon in which she would sit in a circle with some kids and talk about current world issues.
Anyway, all that said, not only did it allow me to know what factors are involved in their learning (or lack there of), but it gave each student a chance to be heard-- possibly for the first time. Let me take a minute to set the stage for you folks: I didn't choose all the students in the school, but instead selected the top and bottom 3 students from each class. I also kicked out all the teachers and staff so that the students would feel as free as possible to share everything.

Here are some answers from the students:
In response to "Do you enjoy learning," almost all the students in each school said yes. Here is why: because education is the key to success, to make my future life better, to have knowledge on how to lead my future life, learning enhances good adult behavior, and education allows us to later help our community (one little 1st grader raised her baby hand and said "so we can learn to read!").
"What is life like at home?" Not enough time to study because of fetching water, cooking, washing, taking care of the younger siblings, working in the farms,etc. One girl, by the time she finishes all of her household chores, begins studying at 9pm and continues until 12am (but that's only if the kerosene in her lamp lasts long enough). She also shared that she wished she had her own room so that she could concentrate on her studies. Almost all of the children raised their hands in saying that they'd come to school in the evening hours if the school had electricity so that they could study their notes at night.
One thing that surprised the high schoolers when I told them was that when I tell American kids that there are African students who would love to go to school in America, and the American student's response is "give em my seat." The students here just cannot imagine, with all that the American students are provided with at school (i.e.- electricity, breakfast and lunch, textbooks, notebooks, pens, etc) that they would turn down the opportunity.
Out of 32 total students surveyed at Nyametaburo Primary school, 19 students eat dinner every night and 10 eat breakfast because there isn't enough food to go around. And when I say "ate" it's a relative term because some of the little ones said that they eat a small potato for dinner-- not a stuffed baked potato from Outback Steakhouse, but a plain potato, possibly uncooked. Some of the children just have a cup of chai (boiled milk mixed with water and some tea and sugar).
Another notable moment from the survey is that all of the students push themselves to go to school. Most of them, their parents sort of care if they go or not, but for the children of farmers, their parents would prefer if they'd stay home and help with the farming, which is an enormous pressure on the students-- if your parents says to stay home and weed today, you stay home and weed-- no refuting.
From all the schools surveyed, every student loves reading and if given a library and enough kerosene for their lamp, would read all the time. (that one's for you Celeste, if you're reading this).

On Thursday, I went to a reading competition held at St. Paul's Primary, which consists of grades nursery to 5. I loved witnessing even the babiest of students reading letters in English. The first up to bat was the nursery kids, who read their vowels in front of the whole school + 2 visitors. One of my fav little ones, Mary Robi, who is the tiniest thing with the biggest smile, and always carries around a little black purse across her chest, steps up to the front, and with her loudest voice unashamedly reads her vowels and and then the entire alphabet, and comes back to sit down next to me. The whole school claps for each student as they walk back to their seats. From grades 1-5, students would come up and read an excerpt from an early reader book in English, and then another book in Kiswahili. When the competition was finished the teams (Red House and Blue House) were tallied to see the winner (points are deducted for each word not read from each student on a team).
Afterwards, Brahmwell, the headmaster, asked if any of the students wanted to recite any poems for us; and so some of them did so. It was cute because they would get up in front of the school and while reciting, they had full body motions to go with it!
One had to do with a squiggly worm in the earth under a tree. My little Mary Robi got up with 4 other classmates to recite her poem with motions. Some of the students also recited Bible verses, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles Creed (Pastor Gann would LOVE that one). When they were through, I couldn't help but teach them the hippopotamus song that I learned (of all places) when I used to volunteer at H.S. church retreats in college. We sang, danced, and sang and danced again to the lyrics and motions of the hippo song that was loved by all.


I'm sorry that I didn't get any pictures of these events. I don't bring my camera along very often-- for one, because I carry the smallest backpack ever for convenience; and for two, because my charger for the camera's battery is gone and so I need to possibly find a new one in Nairobi or worse- buy a new camera with my non-monies. HOWEVER, I did manage to get some snaps of yesterday's lunch at our Chairman, Philip Mahochi's house. I picked up my outfits that I had made at the tailors in TZ for a total of <$30; and wore one of them to lunch-- headdress and all. The ladies were all over it, ha!

Seriously though, if you want to make a donation to the Education program or hold a fundraiser for it, I wouldn't mind. If you want to do it for anything specific, just let me know, otherwise it'll go into the general Education Program account, which keeps this program going-- not to sound like a PBS special or anything.

Prayer Requests:
~to collect all the information for the baseline evaluation
~to not be overwhelmed while doing it.
~to be given wisdom in how to go about analyzing the info, as it is not my strong-suit
~for health of the team, including the CDC staff. (I've been feeling really tired and nauseous lately)
~for funding for all the programs
~for a successful Bh2o+ event coming up in a week across American campuses.

Pictures are mostly from the lunch at the Mahochi's. Mama ChaCha (Philip's wife) and their son Gilbert came into town from Nairobi for a long weekend and so Mama Chacha's mom and sister came in from the surrounding area too. Mama Chacha's mom is the one with the long ear lobes, which is a dying practice. Philip's mom is the other grandma-type. Mama Chacha is the extremely light one. The woman to the right of me in the top picture is Clara, whom I befriended last Thursday. Her and her husband own a successful hotel in town. She invited me to her house on Thursday, which is a HUGE western-style house across the valley from ours, chock-full of banana trees, pumpkins, a large chicken coup, an exercise bike in her sunroom, and a victorian-like red velvet lounger couch in the living room. <== This random grandpa was at a wedding we went to a couple weeks ago. I've never seen a man carry a baby like this before. The men here seem to generally be very loving with their children, which is something that didn't happen in Sudan-- or most of Africa, from what I know. *oh and you can click on the pictures to view them at full size. Also, to view more pics, go to www.nuruinternational.org