Latest Update from Maasailand

---

Hello,

So this is the latest update from Maasailand, and a lot has happened. We have 4 new volunteers who arrived 2 weeks ago and are staying for another week - there are 2 teachers and 2 nurses, so there are now 7 volunteers in total including me and David and a Kenyan girl called Carol who has been volunteering there for almost 5 months.

The classes are continuing fine, I seem to almost have acquired another class (Standard 6 Mathematics) because they seem to quite often just not have a teacher and have begged me to teach them on a few occasions - I am happy that they want me to teach them, but it has meant that I have been very busy and sometimes leave home at 8am and don't return back until 4pm because I am teaching all day! And then there is lots of marking and planning and general stuff to do, which must all be done before 7pm when it gets dark and you can't see anymore.

David is continuing with his Standard 5 Mathematics and is giving them extra classes to try and get them up to standard for the exams in 2 weeks time. He is also helping Carol with a project to try and grow some sukumawiki (cabbage like thing) in the village, so that the people have something sustainable to eat.

I had an interesting day last Friday when I took a boy called John to the hospital for his infected knee - I hope to never set foot in a hospital again. We waited for hours and hours in small rooms crammed full with 100s of really really sick people, I am so surprised I haven't caught anything! People are openingly coughing and being sick and all the time I was thinking about my tuberculosis vaccine which never worked properly! There is one image of a woman who was so ill she was nearly dying with AIDs which I will never forget - her face literally resembled a skeleton and I won't go on because I don't want this update to be upsetting like the last one!

I was also the only mzungu in the whole hospital, so everyone stared at me the whole time. I was also with 2 Maasai men in full Maasai clothes, so they stared at me even more then! John's father could not speak a word of English so it was interesting trying to communicate with him. Next weekend they are going to slaughter a goat for me at their home so I will write about that in my next post!

Today we have just spent more money than I ever thought I would spend in Africa - because the children are starving and haven't eaten in months, me and another volunteer have just bought 12 bags of maize, 2 bags of rice, 4 bags of beans, cooking fat, and salt, to feed the children for the next 2 weeks until their exams are over. We were lucky that the families of all the volunteers contributed and we ourselves contributed so there should be a big increase in the quality of the children's work next week. On Friday about 8 children in my standard 6 class went home because they were so weak that if they stayed at school they would not have energy to walk home later. So we are really happy about that right now.

Some of my friends have also been teaching me some kimaasai so I have been having some conversations in Maasai which usually means that everyone laughs at me and my mzungu accent! But I think they are appreciating that I am trying. David is still trying to master saying "thankyou" and "goodbye" . I will be really happy when I can understand what the other Maasai people are saying. It is quite common to hear my name followed by a string of Maasai, which means that I know they are talking about me, and I have to get a friend to translate what they are saying. Usually it is something like "This Senewa (me) is so small. She is so short."

I must go and deliver the maize we have bought to the store cupboard. I hope everyone is well😊

---

Comments

[Michael futebol]

Lol, this blog made me smile. Are you volunteering with the peace corps? I don't know of any KENYAN volunteering agencies but I would love to up north in the open frontier and volunteer in the remote tribes.