Safari

A team from America came to work in Kisumu this week and build a tabernacle. They did an awesome job building and had a lot of fun playing with the children of the community. I really enjoyed working with the team even though I was sick most of the time, as some of you know. Thankfully, I am getting better.

This weekend the team, Dave, Damaris and I all went on safari. It was an incredible experience, to say the least. The view was breathtaking and the animals were wonderful. We were able to see two kills, which was pretty exciting, and plenty of animals. We stayed in luxury tents at the camp Kichwa Tembo. It wasn't really like staying in tents, more like hotel rooms with canvas sides. It was extremely nice, as long as you don't mind monkeys playing on the top of your tent.  I enjoyed every minute of it and hope to repeat the experience again some day.

Another exciting part of the weekend was visiting the Masi village. The area where the camp was located and where we did all of the driving on the safari is called the Masi Mara. This is after the tribes of Masi people that live scattered all over the area. The camp is run by many Masi people and offers a trip to the nearby Masi village. We were able to visit the village on the last day to see how the people really live. Also, the night before, some of the Masi warriors came to the camp and performed one of their dances. It was all very interesting.

    Masi women singing. 

The Terrible Two

I affectionately call them The Terrible Two. Mr. Thompson calls them Rolly and Hodney with the same sentiments. Rodney and Holly are the seven-year-old adopted Kenyan kids of the missionaries next-door. I have been helping them with their school work two days a week and I love it.

I call them The Terrible Two, but they are really great kids - they just have too much energy and not enough discipline. Holly especially likes to push the limits. The one day she had picked up a toy and was playing with it. I told her, "Holly if I see you playing with that again you're not going to get to play the game later." About a minute later I see her playing with another toy. "Holly what did I say?" I asked her. She throws back, "You said that if you caught me playing with that yellow toy again, I wouldn't get to play the game later." Catch me on a technicality. You've got to love kids!

As many of you know, I want to be a middle school teacher. I am not training to be an elementary teacher and have no desire to be an elementary teacher, but God seems to like putting me in with elementary children. When I first got here and found myself surrounded by kids mainly between the ages of 2 and 9 I started to panic. I don't know what to teach them or how to teach them at that age! But, as I have started to settle in, I'm learning to enjoy this challenge. It is especially a challenge with Rodney and Holly because I am basically their sole teacher at the moment. I have really enjoyed finding out where they are in their learning process and helping them to go farther. Math has certainly been the most fun! Today we learned about the value of dimes and pennies using purple crayons and red crayons since we didn't have any actual dimes or pennies.

It's exciting work and I'm glad that God has presented me with a challenge. All I have to do is roll up my sleeves and dive in.

The Children of Africa II

 I just love the children here, but the more I hear about their stories, the more my heart breaks for them. Unfortunately many of their stories are not ones of love and happiness. Even so, these kids have so much joy. I have had the chance to visit three different churches and two different schools so far. Everywhere I go, the kids seem happy and everywhere I go, the kids are starving for love and attention. They just want someone to give them a hug, to play a game with them. 

Because of the language barrier, I've had a little trouble playing games with them, but they don't care. They are happy if I just give them tons of crazy actions to copy. They are happy if I give them a hug or let them hold my hand. They are even happy if I let them pet my hair. Yes, I said pet my hair. They are not used to my long blond hair and they just love the feel of it. 

On Friday, I tried to teach one group of kids some new games, but it didn't work out very well. They kind of got the idea behind Duck, Duck Goose and they sort of understood "I said a boom, chika boom" (those of you who went to El Salvador or Nicaragua know what I'm talking about), but not as well I as I would have hoped. If anyone has any ideas for really easy games that don't need much explanation, or even better no explanation, I would love suggestions.

The Children of Africa

Well, I've been here a little over a week now and I love it. So far I've just been getting my feet wet in the different ministries I will be involved in, and next week I will officially start. I'm really excited about my work because it is precisely what I want to do once I finish college.

One thing I will be doing is working at two schools for kids that would not get an education otherwise. The first school was started by a church in the part of Kisumu called the Siany Slum. It is a very poor neighborhood with many orphans. In Kenya, primary school (1st - 8th) is free, but students must attend baby class and nursery class (our preschool/kindergarten) before they can begin primary school. The problem is that only primary school is free. So if children don't have anyone to pay for them to go to baby class and nursery class then they cannot go to primary.

The Siany Slum church is providing free baby class and nursery class to orphans so that they will be ready to go to primary school. I was able to visit the school on Friday to see what it was like. The school is pretty much a shed with benches and two chalk boards in it. The kids were all dressed in uniforms, a requirement in all Kenyan schools, but the uniforms were barely more than rags.

When I walked in, the baby class was repeating the numbers one through twenty out loud. A little girl was standing at the front of the class pointing to the numbers which had been painted on an old feed sack and hung at the front of the room. As she pointed to each number, she called it off and all of the other students repeated it.

On the other side of the room, separated by a divider, were the middle and final (or nursery) students. These students were doing math work. The teacher had filled the chalkboard with math problems and had each of the students come up in turn to complete one. If they completed the problem correctly the teacher would tell the students to tell him/her good job. This meant they recited a little cheer for the student. If the student completed the problem incorrectly, the teacher had another student come up and try the same problem over until someone got it correct.

Around 10:30 the baby class students went outside for recess. I went out with them and played some games with them. It was so funny. Even though they all speak or at least understand English, they didn't really listen to what I was saying and only copied my motions. They were just so entranced by me, I think because I was white that all they did was stare and copy motions. I said, "Get in a circle" and motioned with my hands where they needed to stand. Instead of moving into a circle, they just waved their hands like I did.

Once I figured out that they were just going to copy everything I did, I just made up tons of different motions so they could follow along. They loved it. I had them hoping like rabbits, flapping their arms like chickens, and zooming around like airplanes. We had lots of fun together.

Then it was time for midmorning snack. The students who brought something were told to come in and eat and the rest were left to keep playing. I was told by the teacher that some of the students do not have food at all. Some of them are lucky to get one meal a day. They have actually had two students die of malnutrition already. Sometimes the school is able to provide everyone with a lunch, but that happens very rarely. They barely have enough money to keep the school going let alone to feed the students every day. So they do the best they can and hope that some day someone will provide the money to feed the students every day.