Back at School

So now we are back at school, back to being a teacher again...

This week was quite stressful, I will give you a brief summary;

Monday: I go to school at 8am, only to find about 50 students and 0 teachers. By 9am this number has gone up to 60 students and 2 teachers. By 11am this number remains at 60 out of 400 students and 3 out of 10 teachers. I then decide that the 60 students who have turned up should at least be given food for their first day, since they were all half starving after a 1month Easter Holiday of no school meals. This involves HUGE drama, as the cook isn't there, the person who kept the keys to the kitchen wasn't there, there were no bowls to eat from, and no cooking pots. Eventually we borrowed a huge cooking pot and I set to work cooking with a group of Standard 8 boys, and everyone ate out of plastic cups that I found leftover in our room. It was actually a lot of fun.

Tuesday: We find out our classes - I am taking Standard 6 English and Standard 6 Science, continued from last term, and Standard 8 Maths which is new. David is taking Standard 5 Mathematics as from last term. We give about half a day of lessons once all the dramas of assigning lessons are over. There are now about 5/10 teachers and 100/400 students. I have a huge fight with one of my friends after I see them being so rude to a younger small girl. This is one of the biggest instances of culture clash that I have experienced here, that it seems acceptable for bigger girls and boys to pick on and be rude to the younger smaller ones. I completely overreacted and grabbed the small girl and shouted for about 15 minutes.

Wednesday: A difficult day. I decide that the girls should have a chance to play football in the field, since it is usually dominated by the boys football team and the girls had a tournament and were not being allowed to practise by the boys. So this lead to huge anger by the boys who started a silent protest in the field and refused to move. Gender equality is not so rife here.

Thursday: The number of students has gone up to 200/400 but the number of teachers remains at 6/10. I'm actually quite enjoying teaching Standard 8 Maths.

Friday: After school, I went to Samburu with Maggie and another friend, which was such a long journey. I was so exhausted but it was actually a fun trip.

This week has been an exhausting one. People say that when you are in a foreign country you go through stages of adjustment to the culture, firstly shock, then excitement and joy at the new situation you are in, then frustration at the differences, then finally acceptance. This week I underwent the stage of frustration.

Because the drought is not over yet, we still only have a half filled school. Some children are with their parents animals somewhere in Ngong or Kibiko. The so called "March to May" rains have not arrived and now we are approaching June - so people are concerned with exactly when their rains will come. We expect our food that we bought to run out in maybe 1 week or 2 weeks, so we are going to buy one last amount of food which will hopefully last until this place has rain and people can afford food again.

A few people have been asking if they can send donations to buy food - if you would like to, I suggest the best way is to contact either one of our parents or to contact me. Any small amount would be greatly appreciated.

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