Just Another School Day, with a couple Mazungas (white people)

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Today we spent at the school. Heather and I slept in a bit, but got there by about 10ish. It was already getting warm by this time. We’d planned to assemble all the bunkbeds, but we didn’t buy any, so we were kind of lost at what to do in the morning. Then the kids started having their breaks, and the fun started. Some volunteers that came in July-August had taught the kids a bunch of North American songs and games, so the kids wanted to know what Heather and I had come to teach them. Well, those previous volunteers were all teachers, so they had a big advantage over us. Heather’s a librarian, so she knew a few new things for them, but we just asked them to show us what they knew, and it all started pouring out. The ability of these kids to pick up new songs and dances is uncanny. They know Skinny-ma-rinky-dinky-do, the Makerena, the chicken dance, the Hokey Pokey, and many more that I didn’t even know. Then the Phys Ed classes started. So we’re running around, in the heat, playing the Swahili version of Duck Duck Goose, What Time is it Mr. Lion?, tag, had a tug-of-war with no rope - the activities were unending. My body just couldn’t take all the hard work, in the heat. I had to stop twice for a 5 minute water/cool down break and those kids just kept going. AND, as most of them don’t get breakfast, or even supper at night, this was all done on an empty stomach. I don’t know how they do it.

Finally, it was lunch time, so the kids were distracted and we were able to escape to the cool volunteer center. Todd and Charles talked to the carpenter, ordered all of our beds. Hopefully he’ll have a couple done before we leave so we can try them out, show them off for the massive celebration we’re having on Saturday.

The afternoon was a lot more mellow. I tried to find a quiet shady spot for a little nap, but it wasn’t very comfortable. I found Heather with a couple of the teachers in the library. Their library is growing quite quickly, which is really nice to see. But they don’t have any system set up to let the children borrow the books yet, so that’s where we came in. Heather, the ever-ready prepared librarian, had brought over huge stocks of paper, index cards, cardstock, labels, so we started making pockets and cards to glue in all the books. I think I was in high school when they started using electronic scanning for checking books in and out, so it was hard to remember how everything was set up. We worked on it for the rest of thee day, different teachers popping in to help and visit and learn the new system whenever they had a free moment. It was a good chance to get to know them all, learn some Swahili (not that I actually remember any of it), learn some of their customs and ways of doing things. Heather was really impressed how much we got done, but they have a lot more work to do after we leave. If only we had a photocopier!!

The children arrive for school at 7am, and go home around 5pm. I figure that’s an extremely long day, but it was even longer today. At around 4:30, it started to pour rain. We worked in the library until it was too dark to see (we neglected to buy lightbulbs yesterday). A lot of the time the rain on the tin roof was too loud for us to chat, we just kept labelling, cutting and taping. I think it was around 6 ish before the rain stopped enough for the kids to try to make it home before dark. We packed up a couple computers, and hoofed it out of there, in prime-time malaria mosquito conditions - freshly rained, humid, warm, dusk. But we made pretty good time, and no bites as far as we could tell.

I was ready to go to bed right after our long supper, but Heather and Todd strong-armed me to join them for a couple of games of crib and some wine. I think our first game was the longest I’ve ever played, we had to adjourn for a few things, we had to figure out after every hand who was to deal next. A lot laughing and overall a very enjoyable evening. Got to bed around midnight with a plan for another shopping trip to Kisumu in the morning. Yeehaw!!

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