June 26th - Goodbye to the Children of Bumala :-(

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I was up early this morning. Another wash in the public bathroom and down to check out of my room, leave my bags at the front desk, and have a little breakfast. I set out to the school. One brave little boy, about 3 years old, spied me no the way to the school and ran right up to, grabbed onto my pant leg, and yelled "Wuzungu, wuzungu!" (white man, white man!). He had also corned me the other day and seems to have a naive fascination with my appearance and presence.His mother is always about 30 seconds behind him to gather him up and take him back to their house. A short time later, a young boy from our school came running up from behind me, having obviously spotted me from a distance. Out of breath, he synchronized his steps with mine and escorted me triumphantly the rest of the way.

I arrived to the school about 7:45 am (the kids have already arrived and been there since 7:00 am). I found the kids engaged in morning chores. This is a daily ritual for them to provide responsibilities in maintaining the school. Godliver was cleaning windows, Eric was picking up litter from the ground, and others were focused on various other tasks. It was a leisurely morning and I discussed many things with the teachers. The air was clear, the sun was warm, birds were singing, and one could hardly imagine a better place to grow up.

At 8:00 am "assembly" began. The children were brought together in a large circle, which was outlined on the ground in stones. They stood in order with alternating groups of boys and girls, for each class in succession from baby class to class 3. The older kids were called upon to randomly to enter the center of the circle and expound upon one of the school rules for the children.

"All students must come to school clean. Cleanliness is important."

"All students must speak English from Monday to Thursday, and Swahili on Fridays."

And on it went....

Several teachers entered the circle, in order of lowest to highest seniority, to make evermore important announcements as well. The last to speak was Josephine, the school's Head Matron, and she ed the class in a rousing farewell to me. Then it was my turn to enter the circle where I told them how proud I was of their hard work and progress, and that they were the best students I had ever seen (that is true!).

I filmed the children at play during morning recess, and it is easy to see just how happy they are. Charles and I worked in the garden for awhile and the cook brought us some grilled corn, picked fresh from the garden we were standing in on minutes before. Later, close to noon, I assembled everyone together once more for pictures and videos in front of the school.

At 1:00 pm I said my final goodbyes to the kids of the Bumala school and a taxi came to pick us up. Charles, Pius and I went to Kisumu where I purchased a bike for the school (actually, it is for Josephine to use. She lives about 2-3 miles away and must hike the distance early in the morning and late at night). It is also very useful for transporting supplies to the school. We also filled one gas container for the cook stove, and plan to fill the other one next week after my arrival home. The final purchase was some pesticide for the termites, who have made it their manifest destiny to chew off each corn plant at ground level.

I made it to the airport at 4-5 pm and headed back to Nairobi. The flight was quick and uneventful. Upon landing, I received my luggage quickly and headed out tot he clutch of cabs out front. I scanned the row and went over to an honest looking fellow and asked him his price to the Parkland Sports Club. He named his price as 1200 Ksh, which was much better than the 1700 Ksh that my "good friend" the first cabbie gave me. The "catch" was that I had to listen to a little evangelizing on the way to Nairobi by my new born-again friend. But it really wasn't that painful and we ended up arriving at my accommodations quite quickly.

I checked into my room, called Moraa, and made arrangements for the next day to meet her here. Time to sleep. I have a wicked sinus infection developing and am working desperately to keep it at bay. Puffy eyes, runny nose, occasional sneezing fits, and a very gentle pounding sensation behind my eyes that I try to imagine are the drums of Africa......

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