Our first day at Musa

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Today we shoved into a dala dala to drive 30 minutes into the hills of Masai land. Musa school has proven itself a worthy cause. Although the school is physically not in the best shape, the head master is an extremely understanding man, and the students seem to have a thirst for knowledge that wasn't present at the other school. He actually cares about equality and education, and says that if we won't teach all his classes then we can't teach any of them. Challenge accepted! We are teaching in all of the classrooms, and I have been assigned to teach in a higher level class with my best friend Katie (another UCLA student) and again with Frank as our translator. We have a class of about 80 students, ages 11-21. Each classroom is its own separate cement-block building. Many of the window frames are present, but there are no glass panes, either missing or broken. Therefore, when it is windy, a dust storm blows through the room. The desks are more like tables and benches, and many students squish together to fit. A few students love to pass notes, and it is useless to try to stop them, because it is very common there to eat the paper. (Strange, I know). But they also love to learn, and have many questions about our lessons, which Frank is more than willing to answer. At lunch the students take turns cooking for each other, and the head master insisted he feed us, as well. We had macande- a bean and hominy dish. I love macande! Overall, our incoming assumptions were right about Musa- many of the children in the younger classes only knew their tribal language. Therefore, they could not speak Swahili, write their names, or even know the alphabet. It seemed like the stereotypical "pass the child onto the next class" that we see a lot in America. The volunteers working with those classes have decided to definitely take a step back and have a few Swahili and writing lessons. Monday night after dinner I had a bad stomach ache and all that comes along with it. But thankfully after one round it was done.

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