Blogs from Western Province, Kenya, Africa - page 7

Hello again from Kenya, It’s now Day 23 here and time is flying by! I am beginning to feel more at home here at Kakamega. Getting to know the area better, the people better etc. I feel more comfortable in my surroundings. I guess this is normal over time. I am even able to go running outside now, even though people stare at me and think I'm weird! People have been asking about how the town of Kakamega is like where we are living, so maybe I will try to explain. It’s a town with a plenty of people and plenty to see. The town is not very developed and looks pretty dirty. It has a main open market where you can go buy your fresh fruit and vegetables which is about a 5 minute walk ... read more

Charles met us at our hotel at 8 (well actually it was 8:15 - it’s African time you know) so we could take a matatu to the nearest town, Busia, for a few things. I was excited to ride in one of these wild minivans. They squish you in, usually drive with the side door open and people hanging out, but it’s super cheap and pretty quick to get things. We ended up negotiating a deal with a taxi driver. Okay, so we won’t be squished at least. We got our bus tickets back to Nairobi on Sunday, stopped at the bookstore for some minor office supplies, the market to get some DVD movies for the kids to watch, found a couple CDs of some local musicians that Heather and I wanted to try out. Things ... read more

Todd had the help of 2 porters and their wagons to haul up the suitcases to the school first thing in the morning. Heather and I elected to sleep in. We had our first solo trip thru Bumala and by the time we made it up to the school, he had most of the work done - we had 8 laptops donated to the school, around 100 t-shirts from a misprint done for Folk Festival, some medical supplies, computer software, pencil crayons, pens, rulers, etc, all in our suitcases for the journey here. It was a relief to finally get rid of everything (we’ve kept back one laptop for the week to do blogging, etc). The looks on Josephine (the headmistress) and Charles’ faces made the 30 hour trip well worth it. Then we got down ... read more

**NOTE: I've posted several entries today, don't start with this one, start with "Another Travel Day" and work towards this one ** We got to spend a couple hours with the kids before we headed on our shopping expedition. We’re trying to set up an art program in the school (most don’t do any drawing, painting or sculpting after nursery classs), and a project that we can do as a fundraiser. So this was our pilot testing opportunity. Heather’s an artist as well, so she held the reins on this one. She decided that oil pastels on cloth would give the best results that can be easily transported back to Canada. So we started with the nursery class. We didn’t buy enough material in Kisumu, but we had some good quality paper too, so we had ... read more

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 ... read more