Bill

I was expecting a visit from the three Lisori kids today, so I didn’t make any other plans. Unfortunately, they never called, and the number they'd used yesterday was out of service. I’m a little disappointed but not upset at them—I don’t really know anything about the dynamics of that family, and for all I know they could be mistreated. I really hope they were studying for their exams tomorrow though.

Instead, I worked on my blog entries all day, ate a lot, and went to look at Joy’s phoenix mural in the computer lab. It is absolutely stunning. I’m actually jealous. I have not painted for so long, I don’t think I could do it anymore!

At a little after 3p.m., two of the WISER girls, Faith and Florence, came into the dining room where I was working. I spent the rest of the afternoon talking with them, showing them my photos, and teaching them to use e-mail and Facebook. Faith is from Lwanda. She asked me to greet them when I go to see them at the WISERBridge exams. I’m looking forward to going in the next three days—I want to see the kids again, and cheer them on. It’s the least I can do to let them know I’m still thinking of them. Also, it feels quite awesome to go to an exam when I’m not the one who needs to sit the papers. :D

I went down to the market at Tagache at five to get some vegetables and fruits. When I got back to WISER, Joy was just leaving with Bill and Caston, the two Shining Star kids she is close to, to “go see the German musungu girls” who were teaching at Shining Star. They'd just arrived a week ago and were staying with the director of the school. Of course, once I heard that I felt compelled to go as well—gotta check out the new blood and all that, you know. We walked down and turned off the main road by Shining Star to go to the compound where the girls were living. The director was building a new house for himself right by the school building, and as we walked past Bill excused himself and said he needed to speak quickly with his uncle. It turned out that his uncle is the director himself. I don’t know Bill very well, and I’ve become so accustomed to hearing about these extended family relationships that I wasn’t really surprised at the news, but Joy seemed shocked. The director came out to greet us and invited us to tour his unfinished house, quite a grand one too. He is currently still living at his mother’s compound, which is why Bill is with them too.

The walk to Bill’s compound was very scenic and cool, because the path was bordered on both sides by some of the tallest trees I’d seen here in Muhuru Bay. The compound itself was very comfortable too, with a large, open space surrounded by trees and several mud huts—I don’t know if they were well-off, but it was clearly a large family. Bill introduced us to his aunts but there were just too many children running around. The German girls were somewhat of a disappointment—they didn’t seem very eager to become acquainted, and only one of them came to talk to us. They are only here for one more week, and then they leave for safari in Nairobi and fly back from Mombasa. I was surprised that she had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her how they felt about being called musungu; it makes me think that they haven't been out in the community much by themselves.

It was only when we were back at WISER that Joy told me about Bill’s family. His mother left when he was younger, and his father has too many other wives and children to look after him. He lives with his uncle, who is also polygamous, and is treated like the Cinderella of the family—made to do the dishes, clean up, finish manual jobs. Joy said that he had so much work to do that often by the time he is done in the morning, school is half over, and it is a wonder that Bill manages to stay at the top of the class with the amount of school that he misses. I realised that this was why Joy had seemed so surprised to hear that Bill’s uncle is the director; it means that he knows how often Bill is absent from class.

Bill wants to be an accountant. His favourite subject is Mathematics, which is also his best friend Caston’s favourite subject, and the two of them help each other in classes. He is also very, very humble. He wouldn’t admit himself that he was the top student in Shining Star and told us to ask Castor instead. When Joy asked him how he managed to do so well in the exams, he said, “God helps me, I think.” But Bill won’t be able to go to secondary school if he has to pay anything for it. His uncle won’t give him the money, and he would have to find some measly-paying manual work around Muhuru Bay, and probably be chained here for the rest of his life. And those wonderful qualities of his—they would all go to waste.

There are only three WISERBridge boys’ scholarships, and it’s pretty certain that Derek from Winjo is going to get one of them. As much as she hopes that Bill can get one, we know that there are many more than three needy, intelligent boys in Muhuru Bay, all of whom could do so much with a full-ride scholarship. I completely agree that as a whole the girls here are far more in need of financial incentive than the boys are, but kids are kids—they deserve an education, regardless of what their genders are, regardless of how wealthy their family is. Why must so many conditions be met, so many things be considered, before a child is allowed to go to school?

Strangely Returning Home

I went back to see my Lisori kids today. I took a piki, because George went to Migori and Kennedy was out waiting for the other WISERBridge people, and I wanted to leave at 9:30a.m. Samson was the driver who took me, and we went by the back way through the fields. When I arrived, the gates were pulled close and there was nobody in sight except a small girl, not in school uniform. But I spotted a figure near the building, thanked Samson and weaved my way into the campus.

It all seemed so familiar, so strangely habitual for me to walk in the yard. A few steps in, I heard a voice call: “Lisa!” It was Eunice Akoth. I called back, and gave her her photograph. Cheryl Faith came out as well, and we walked together to the Class 5 classroom where the others were.

They were almost all there—seventeen of them, out of twenty. I was so happy, and they seemed very excited to see me as well. I gave them my phone numbers and email address, and gave them another pep talk about their KCPE. I told them to study hard, visit me in WISER, and go to Margaret for more books to read. And I warned them again that if they didn’t do well in the exams, I would hear from Margaret.

They were there for the WISERBridge Kiswahili lesson, so I left them to Teacher Joan whilst I waited for Teacher Owiti to come. I needed to get a signature for Sadhna, to obtain permission for the research she’d already conducted. We talked for a while about education and culture. I called Samson again at about 10:45, and he drove me back to WISER.

I went to Lwanda in the afternoon, after preparing extensively (and rather nervously) for a second lesson on The Reproductive System. For an hour I attempted to talk about fetal development and they looked asleep until it came to the time for questions. I reiterate my thought from last week: teaching Sex Ed to a bunch of adolescents is an experience every person should try. To put it in perspective, I came back and read an article entitled “Everything you need to know about sex during pregnancy”—I kid you not. Then I taught Impromptu English, attempting to make them come up with “Not only…but also…” sentences till Kennedy showed up at 4p.m. I was quite amazed that he had managed to drive his vehicle, a hefty SUV-type, all the way to Lwanda through that gulley. He told me that he used to go this route when he was a matatu driver. I was so, so glad that we were still able to carry on a conversation without awkwardness; I don’t know how the others talk to the drivers now, having gone through what they did. Maybe they’re just used to it, maybe they have no problem reconciling the Friday-night face with the daylight one, but I can’t do it. I need to keep my relationships pure.

A Day of Many Beans and Kuku

Sadhna made a very apt remark just now, as a few of us were standing outside discussing tonight’s plans: “Everybody looks so unhappy!”

Blunt, but at least partly true. I think all of us (apart from Leonard) are ready to go home. It isn’t that we’re unhappy necessarily, but it has been a long time to live in a place which—whilst not unpleasant—isn’t exactly supremely comfortable either. The last couple of days and nights were also quite rough, and several people have fallen ill again. I think it fair to say that we’re all tired.

We went to Kennedy’s home for lunch today. He lives about half an hour’s walk away in the direction of Tagache, very close to Baraka’s compound, so a group of us set off a little after noon and the others arrived about 40 minutes later. He introduced us to his daughters, Viola and Ivone, who are six and seven respectively. Ivone is in Class Two at Lwanda; she was the one George pointed out to me last Thursday from the car. They were wearing matching skirts and blouses and are absolutely, absolutely precious. Kennedy’s wife, George’s sister, also came to greet us. She is very pretty, which explains why her girls are too, and very young.

Of course, lunch didn’t start until 2:30. But it was worth the wait: the womenfolk had been preparing since 8a.m., and it was a feast! We had tea and rice and beans and (very beautifully presented) chapatti and kuku and hard-boiled eggs and avocadoes and tomatoes and onions and orange-limes. It was clearly quite an extortionate meal, by Muhuru Bay standards. It was also delicious. We ate ourselves into a stupor, and still there was plenty left over.

Kennedy ate with us, but none of the rest of his family did. That made me slightly uncomfortable (although the room was pretty crowded already), that the women and children might have had to wait until we were finished to eat themselves, especially since they were the ones who had made the food. The conversation also turned pretty exclusionary. Abigail was great at asking Kennedy questions so he had an opportunity to speak, but apart from that the topics were rather restricted to American life (and food). I was just as bad as anyone else. We all miss home, and it is just so easy to slip into a what-I-wish-I-could-have-now or I-remember-that-time-when discussion.

Kennedy apparently coaches an under-15 football team, the Pathfinders. After lunch they performed a marching-and-saluting routine for us. I wish I’d brought a camera, although I’d have felt very uncomfortable taking pictures with them so close, and with it clearly being a show for our sakes. There were 13 Pathfinders, but there must have been several dozen children in Kennedy’s compound. Probably somebody had told them that the wasungu were here. We’d brought Jolly Ranchers and Kennedy gave them out to the kids. Most of them were very young and didn’t know how to untwist the wrapper.

Nupur, Eneka, Reese and Sadhna then walked back to WISER. The rest of us diverged from the road to visit Kennedy’s father’s house and then his grandparents’ house. We didn’t stay long at either. His grandfather was probably the oldest man I’d seen here in Muhuru Bay. He was sitting outside one of the huts in their compound, and shook our hands one by one. I think Kennedy just wanted to have all of us wasungu visit his family. He said that nobody in this community had ever managed to invite so many white people as guests before, and everyone asked him how he had done it. The local people seem to consider it an honour to have guests visit them at home, especially, it seems, guests with a different skin colour.

The real highlight of my day, though, was when we were on the way back to WISER. We took a detour and ended up on the main road again, and as we were walking I happened to look up into one of the compounds on the left that led down to the road. There was a small, rather familiar figure walking towards us, and as he came closer I realised with great joy that it was, indeed, Justus! I told Abigail to continue walking and strode over quickly to greet him, because I really was very, very happy to see him. Mark came out as well, and my first impulse was to hug the two of them, but I settled for a hearty double-hand shake instead. Our conversation didn’t last long—something along the lines of “Is this your house? (Yes, obviously) Where is Madam Esther? (In Mombasa, curiously enough) Oh, so who are you living with now? (Justus’ father) Now I can come and visit you! I’ll see you on Monday, right? Okay, gotta go, ciao!”—but boy oh boy did it boost my spirits. Two of Kennedy’s cousins/brothers had waited for me, and I was a very lively talker for the rest of the walk back.

The older boy was called Peter, and he was one of Leonard’s students at Obolo. He told me that he wanted to go to Migori Boys’ High School, the one next to St. Joseph’s Hospital. He wants to be a doctor so he could come back to Muhuru Bay and help people. I was glad for his company, and even more so that he did not ask for any favours. He walked me back to the junction and I came back to WISER, and spent the rest of the afternoon asleep.

Billy was supposed to have his birthday party at the caves tonight, but because everyone was so exhausted and stuffed from Kennedy’s lunch, he decided to bring the food back to WISER instead. It was really good food—a bucket of beans, one of kuku and one of chapatti—and on any other day I would have been delighted to eat it, but it was just a little much after that lunch. Billy was sick and so he seemed a little depressed as well, but then after dinner he, Sadhna and Leonard went on a boat ride to see lanterns in the lake and apparently he cheered up. His Facebook status update at 2:14am the next morning was: “Just turned 20 on a boat in the middle of Lake Victoria surrounded by floating lanterns beneath more stars than I've ever seen. I've already been in 3 countries today.” Now that’s the way to go! I wish that my 20^th birthday will be every bit as memorable!

The Games, a Reunion and a Storm

They’d planned to watch the sunrise this morning from the water tower, so I woke Sadhna up at 6:30 and she woke up the rest of the dorm. A few got up and headed towards the water tower. By the time I finished breakfast, though, they were all back in bed. It turned out that not only was the water tower wet, and also the sun had already risen quite a bit by 6:40.

I came back after my run to work on the Games. It was just the Maths Relay which still needed to be finished, and the other WISERBridge people were working as well. The morning flew by. The kids started arriving at 1:30, and Sadhna let them in. At first I was a little worried, because there weren’t very many schools and I didn’t recognise any of the students; but I was still running up and down trying to photocopy questions for the relay. Just before 2 p.m. I ran down to the dining hall, as Frank gave the opening speeches and explained the instructions for the first round of activities.

Team Lwanda had arrived by then, and that made me happy, because I had at least one team to root for. I couldn't see Mark, Cheryl or Justus though, and I really did feel quite disappointed, since I’d been so looking forward to seeing them again. Senye wasn’t there either, but I didn’t feel anywhere near the same disappointment at that. Yes, so I totally play favourites.

The teams were split up into individuals for these activities. There was a Maths scavenger hunt, a Science Jeopardy game, and a Spelling Bee, which I was in charge of. As we started I could tell that not all the teams were there, but that was to be expected. A few players in, I sensed someone walking into the dining hall. I looked up – and standing there were none other than Mark, Justus and Cheryl! I was delighted— I guess I hadn’t realised until then just how much I’d missed them.  I stood up to greet them and they quickly settled in, with Mark staying for the Bee and Margaret leading the other two to their respective sites.

I really should have prepared more for the Bee; we had to make up the rules on the spot, since I hadn’t thought it through properly. Thank goodness for Joy and Abigail! Joy read out the words, timed and checked their spellings, whilst I looked up the definitions for the words and read those. Sometimes not in time. It was so impromptu it was embarrassing, but it was too late to change anything. It also didn’t take long for us to realise that the words we’d selected were far, far too difficult for the students’ abilities. Out of three rounds, the 13 students got a total of 4 questions correct (I was very proud of Mark for being one of them). The boy from Memorial—I think his name was Phelix—was very, very good, scoring 2 out of 3. Muhuru Junior and Shining Star each answered one correctly as well.

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INTERMISSION: It’s 9:25 p.m. As I am typing this, it is absolutely raging outside. I think this is the heaviest storm we have had since being here yet. It is raining so hard, there are drops of water spraying down on me through the tin roof, and the racket is so deafening that I can’t hear the music from my laptop even though it is at full volume. At least we’ll have water, though it won’t help if the pump doesn’t get fixed. I don’t dare step outside even though I kind of would like to brush my teeth and go to the choo. Joy is in the bunk room; all the others have just gone out to the pub. I don’t know how they’re faring, as George’s car left just before it started to thunder. I hope they’re safe. Though I’m pretty sure the drivers know what they’re doing, I can’t imagine what the dirt roads will be like in this kind of weather. At least they’re on their way to get drunk, not on the way back.

Sitting here, with the storm crashing down around me, I feel so isolated from the rest of the world. I have just realised that this is probably the most alone I have been in months; it is even a little strange, not unpleasant, though I am rather scared by the awful din that is going on outside. It doesn’t seem to be subsiding, unfortunately, and I can’t go to bed until it does. I am glad that it has finally rained though; it has been hanging in the atmosphere for several days now, with that cloudy, windy sky, and in the mornings the air smells like rain and humidity. It is cooler when it rains, though that has only ever been at night, and of course the rainwater tanks are also refilled, which is always good. I will keep writing for a little while longer and hope that I will be able to step out soon.

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The second round of activities was the stations. There were seven, lasting 15 minutes each, with (supposedly) two teams at each station at a time. Banagrams, Unjumble, Maths Flashcards, the Science Crossword, and Word Unscramble were all in the dining hall, whilst the Social Studies ‘fly-swatting quiz’ (I can’t remember the proper name!) was in the chalkboard (wall-less) “room” and Science XXX was in the library. Luckily Elizabeth had already worked out the schedule and prepared a list for each one of the schools, so they knew which game they were supposed to be at for each set.

I was monitoring Unjumble, along with Joy again. The phrase was “The man sold me a jar of oil, which makes a very bright paint.” Their job was to make as many new words as they could in the time limit, using the letters available from the sentence. It took a little time to explain and I found it prudent to keep an eye on them so they didn’t restrict themselves too much (some thought that the letter limits were for all the words they made, not each individual word), but for the most it went well. Better than I’d anticipated, to be honest. We did manage to mess up the order when Lwanda came for a round ahead of schedule and Leonard’s Maths Flashcards couldn’t host all three teams for the next round, but somehow it worked out fine.

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It is finally not raining as hard, so I think I will head off to brush my teeth.  I am very tired!

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We only got through the first three questions of the Maths Relay, and it didn’t help that the answer we’d used for the second question was wrong (it was the only one I hadn’t worked through multiple times. Frank had too much on his mind when he gave me the numbers and I was too lazy to think them through! He got a telling-off). We were running late, as expected, really, so at 5:15p.m. we quickly hustled them off to have their sodas and biscuits. Everybody gathered in the map-room-cum-reception and Frank announced the top three teams: Shining Star, followed by Memorial and Muhuru Junior. Lisori came fifth, and I walked around like a proud parent for the rest of the afternoon. Before they left I gave the three Lisori kids my numbers and email address, and promised to visit them on Monday in the school.

I don’t know where it will go from here. I have two weeks left in Muhuru Bay; after that, I don’t think I will ever be back. Yet for some reason I can’t imagine never seeing these kids again. Even though it was only for two weeks that I taught them, they are so dear to me now, and I will say this even though I don’t know if the sentiments are returned. I rarely admit to this much affection lest it is unrequited; but this time, for these kids, I do admit it. Even though I don’t know why I feel so attached. Will I ever see them again, after I leave Muhuru Bay? Will we be able to keep in touch? Will they even mean as much as they do now to me, a month, two months, a year from now, when I’m back in my First World environment with all of my First World problems?

Will they remember me when they grow up in ten years’ time, and I, them?

Another Depressing Post

We drove in to Senye this morning to discover that Class Eight was in the middle of their Maths exam. It turned out that they would be taking exams for the next two days as well, so we wouldn’t be needed until Friday. So we sat around planning for Friday’s lessons until the first exam was over, and then helped to mark the answer sheets. We were working out the problems (some of which were very badly written indeed) when we heard the noise of a piki—and the unmistakable voice of Margaret herself, sitting astride behind Baracka, as bustling and energetic as ever!

She was not pleased to find out that the Class Eights were in an exam, and she made that very clear to the teachers. Margaret is quite a character, and a force to reckon with when irritated. She has a lot of qualities which make her a really, really good person for her job. The male teachers didn’t seem to know how to react to an older white woman telling them off. It ended up fine, though, because it was arranged for us to teach Class Seven instead.

Senye is very different from Lisori. I’ve said this before, but I think it deserves to be reiterated. The Class Seven we taught (I think it was only one class of the two they have, because there were only 37 or so kids) is extremely spirited, much more so than my Class Eight at Lisori, maybe even to the point of sauciness. Many of them asked for our phone numbers within two hours of meeting us. My Lisori kids never asked for my number, not even after two weeks, not even James, who was the sassiest of them, or Justus, who I think was very fond of me. I prefer it that way; I feel that the Lisorians respected and liked me as a teacher, and didn’t try to exploit our relationship by trying to get me to give them money. Call me hostile, but I felt immediately resentful that the Senye kids wanted my number so soon. I didn’t even know their names, much less anything else about them; I can’t help but think that they see me as a source of wealth, a means to an end. I can’t pull the friendly-smiling-super-duper-nice-teacher act here—these kids need more discipline, a hard look when they aren’t serious in class. There is an arrogance to the sharper ones in the group which I do not like. Bluntly put, I just don’t find the (Class 7) kids at Senye as endearing.

I realise that I am being rather prejudiced in my comparisons. I do not mean to put Lisori on a pedestal or condemn Senye; I will admit that many factors are influencing my perception of the two schools, most of which are personal and selfish. Senye isn’t as detestable as I’m making it sound, and Lisori has plentiful faults of its own. But maybe because Lisori was much smaller, maybe because I was the only Duke student there, maybe because I liked the teachers better, maybe because it was my first school—probably, really, because they really liked me—I just feel a lot more attached to—even possessive about—that class and those kids. Like: they’re mine. Don’t touch. I think I really made some sort of positive impact on them; whereas here at Senye, I don’t think that will be so much the case. It’s my own fault. The prospect of pouring myself into teaching the kids at Senye the way I did the kids at Lisori is just too overwhelming. And since we’ll only be spending a few days with Class Eight (they have divisional exams next week for another two days), I don’t feel like I’ll get to know them well enough to care as much.

Which is very, very unfortunate, because these kids really need somebody to care. My impression is that the general level of education here isn’t quite adequate—the quality of the Class Eight compositions we marked was, honestly, awful, with of course the exception of one or two. The students in the lower grades simply are not able to build a foundation strong enough to work with in the upper grades, when they are told to write full-length compositions. The Class Sevens we taught were severely lacking in fundamental grammar skills: none of them could use speech marks accurately, and things like capital letters, full stops and commas were commonly problematic as well. I don’t know if the two streams in Senye are ability-grouped and if so, if we were leading the less proficient class, but I found it quite disheartening.

The kids are not to blame. There are just far too many students in each class. Some of the lower grades have over one hundred students in the same classroom, squashed together on the bare floor, with only one teacher—fewer, even, because I suspect that the lower-primary teachers show up to class even less often than the upper-primary ones do. There is no way that the pupils are able to ask questions or spend more time going over material they do not understand with the teacher, so they are pretty much left to their own. And how do you learn a foreign language on your own, as a ten-year-old, with no guidance, hardly any resources to speak of, and countless chores to perform every day?

Yet it is not entirely the teachers’ fault either. During our WISERBridge meeting this afternoon, Margaret told us that the public primary school teachers here earn between sh2000 and sh4000 per month—that’s less than US$50—and the ones in the private schools earn even less. Put this way, it isn’t difficult to see why they are so unmotivated. Most of the teachers will look for any opportunity to earn more income, which is why they make the students bring in soda bottles from home for them to sell, and cut firewood for them to use. So the students don’t do well enough to move out of Muhuru Bay, and when they become the next generation of teachers, they act in exactly the same way. It is such an exasperating system. And all really because there is no money.

Such a quandary. How do we possibly get to the root of this?

Senye, First Impressions

New week, new school. For the next two weeks I will be at Senye Primary School with Elizabeth, teaching a class of 53 pupils. It is a very different dynamic from Lisori, and not just because there are so many more students (although that is probably one of the major differences). I am only just beginning to see the pros and cons of Senye, and I do not want to be too hasty to jump to conclusions. I guess I will have to wait and see how much I like it.

Senye is located just beyond Customs, directly opposite Muhuru Junior. It is a large public school of over 1500 students from Classes 1 to 8, split into two streams per grade: Yellow and Green. The timetable is structured identically to Lisori’s, with eight classes and lunch from 12:40p.m. to 2:00p.m. Unlike in Lisori, however, the teachers would leave at the end of their lesson, even if the other teacher had not arrived (and they usually never did). I assume it is because Senye is such a large school and the teachers are required to teach both streams, which means that they must go to both classes—or at least in theory. How much time they spend lounging in the staff room, I have yet to determine.

Senye seemed more prepared for our visit than Lisori was, at least in terms of directing us. When we arrived, we were told by the deputy headteacher, Okich (whom Margaret warned us was a piece of work—always out to get something from us) that they had arranged a reformed schedule for us, with extended periods for the subjects in which they needed the most help. I had pretty much made up my own schedule at Lisori, depending on how well-prepared I was that day. We also did not teach today, apart from a makeshift Maths lesson which we took over when the teacher did not show up twenty minutes into the class (tardiness still appears to be the norm—although it was the second period of the session, so I suppose it is laudable that he showed up at all). Instead, we sat in on all the lessons, at the back, and observed the teachers.

There are a few very quick, enthusiastic ones in the class. I picked up a few names: Olala, the tall boy who sat at the back next to Elizabeth’s chair; Onyango, the tiny boy sandwiched between two others in the middle of the left column; Jane, one of the more active of the girls, in the right column. I do not think I will get as close to the kids at Senye as I did with the ones at Lisori; there are just so many of them, and it will be impossible to learn all their names in two weeks. The classroom is so much more crowded than the one at Lisori, with three columns of desks, three to each desk, pushed so close that the students can lean on the desks behind them. Lisori’s Standard Eight classroom was probably almost the same size, but with more than half the desks empty.

I had actually only observed one class at Lisori, having either taken the lessons alone or left them to the regular teacher’s digression. It was an interesting experience to watch the Senye teachers at work. What I find quite queer and frustrating is the amount of repetition in the class—I had known it was the practice for students to repeat the last word of practically every sentence the teacher uttered, but to see it happening, for several hours with one teacher after another, was something else. It would be funny if it weren’t so depressing. I felt that the teachers also took far too long repeating themselves in paraphrases. The Social Studies lesson went something like this:

TEACHER: Today we are going to learn about urbanization. What are we going to learn about today?

ALL: Urbanization.

TEACHER: Yes, urbanization. Now let me refer to a dictionary for the meaning of “urban”, because the word “urbanization” comes from the word “urban”. Looks through dictionary and reads out the entire entry. Urbanization is when towns grow and develop. The growth and development of towns. Now, somebody tell me the meaning of “urbanization”…

 By the time they got to the main content of the lesson, there would only be ten minutes left. Sometimes I feel that it is a small wonder these kids learn anything at all.

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Senye’s proximity to Customs makes it very suitable for lunchtime shopping. We ran into Katy on Kennedy’s car during lunch break and she commented: “This is very convenient for your avocado habit.” Oh my. Am I that easy to see through? ;)

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Reese and Tara went to Lisori today and brought me back a note from one of my students. I knew before I opened it that it was from Justus. I love that kid so much. His handwriting was so meticulous, and I could tell that he’d taken a lot of care with writing the letter. It made me go all teary again—in fact I’m going teary just thinking about it—I wish I could spend more time with him. He is probably the one who loves me the most, and though I hate to admit to playing favourites it is hard to deny that he is one of mine. I sincerely hope I can see him again. I may ask Margaret for permission to go to Madam Esther’s, because the three students that I wanted to take to the academic competition in WISER all live with her.

So Long, Lisori, Yet Not So Long

 

Today was my last day at Lisori. It was hectic and didn’t quite go as planned—but then again hardly anything ever does. We started off with a game of Jeopardy, and note to self: never try that again without preparation. The kids got so competitive and I couldn’t come up with enough 500-point questions. It didn’t help that I was so sleep-deprived that I couldn’t work out half the answers to the problems myself.

Margaret showed up with the sodas and biscuits about mid-day, but I couldn’t distribute them until the very end of school because they had a Kiswahili exam that I hadn’t known about. The ending ceremony was thus very rushed, as George and Eneka arrived at 3:10 and were in a hurry to get back in order to take some of the others Winjo. We did get back late, but by the time we got back they had already taken pikis to the debate.

I have such mixed feelings about my experience here. On the one hand, I love the kids, and teaching gives me a sense of accomplishment unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. And they love me too, I think, judging from the compositions I asked them to write for me (nothing like teaching a bunch of eager young Kenyan kids to boost the morale). They are so sweet, so hardworking, and so happy for kids who have seen too many hardships and too little comfort. School starts at 8 a.m., but most of them are in by 6 for WISERxBridge classes and do not leave until 5 or 6 in the evening. Some even sleep in the classroom—they stack their rolls of ragged blankets in the closets at the back—because it takes them too long to travel to and fro from home every day. I've always considered myself a diligent worker, but I dare not even compare myself to these kids.

On the other hand, I wish I didn’t have to do this anymore. Not least because it’s ridiculously exhausting (for me, at least)—which is one hundred per cent selfish but truly taking a toll on me. It reminds me a little of high school: leaving at eight in the morning, then pretty much completely occupied until they break for lunch, then another hour and ten minutes until the end of the day. By the time I get back to WISER I am too tired to do anything except eat avocados and idly browse the Internet, or, in the frequent event of the loss of connection, some other brainless activity (such as walking down to Tagache to buy more avocados to eat). I wish I had the energy to play football or interact with the WISER girls, but—honestly, I don’t. I’m lucky if I’m able to go over the lesson plans for the next day. I suppose it would not be such a strain if I haven’t been getting up at 6 a.m. every weekday to sneak in a quick run, but I am reluctant to give this up because it is the closest I come to being away from any people.

I am not a people person; I need time to be alone, or I start to lose my patience with the company I am in. For which I wish I could apologise to the people I meet on my runs who try to converse and the children who try to run with me—I don’t want to be rude, but I’ll ignore you because I really want to be by myself! Solitariness doesn’t seem to be a concept that is favoured around here; and running for the sake of exercise, too, is probably quite confounding in a community where by necessity people lead such physically over-active lives.

Two weeks is a rather awkward length of time. It is just long enough for me to get to know my students and colleagues a little better, but not long enough for solid relationships to form or for any long-lasting change to be done. At the end of my stay at Lisori I can pretty much name all the kids in my class, by their English names at least, and there are a couple I have grown quite fond of. But will I remember their faces in a few weeks, a few months, a year or two, after I graduate? I feel so guilty when I tell them I will not forget them, because I don’t think this is true. But I have been lying so often –out of kindness and politeness, certainly, but still lying nevertheless—that I cannot keep up with what I think the truth actually is anymore. When people ask questions, they want a simple answer: “yes” or “no,” and it is usually obvious which one of the two they wish to hear. And how do you tell them that yes, I actually do think that your life here is dismal and impoverished and backward compared to how I grew up? How do you look a child in the eye and tell him that no, I don’t really think your dream of going to the States and becoming a doctor instead of spending your entire life in or around Muhuru Bay, living a life very similar to the one that your parents lived, are very high at all?

I hate the position I find myself in. So much power, and yet so little. To these kids, we are the world; we come from America, that perfect society, and we bring with us presents, games and cameras. We don’t cane, we tell jokes, we have stories and knowledge and ultimate authority by virtue of our musungu status alone. We encourage them; we say, yes, you can make it if you study hard enough!—so that if they don’t make it they think that maybe they hadn’t studied hard enough. Which in most cases isn’t true, and in all cases isn’t their fault. In these two weeks I can give these kids a glimmer of hope, show them what the education that they deserve could be like, fill their heads with visions and ambitions and dreams—but at the end of it all, what does it come to? All I have really done is show them what they don’t have, how unfair life is, and now they know what they are missing out on. Have I really done any good? Are they happier because of the brief respite my visit has brought, or will they go back and feel cheated and dissatisfied with their own lives, now that I have opened up this world to them?

I don’t think any of them will be bitter, at least not now, because they are still young and they still have hope. And I have to believe that some of them will make it, because I feel like they will. They are a new generation and connections are becoming increasingly tighter now, between Muhuru Bay and Migori, Migori and Nairobi, Kenya and the world. There are those who have made it out there from backgrounds very similar to these kids’, and I want to believe that if they want it badly enough, they too will find a way. Or rather, that the way will find them—it is not really perseverance and hard work that they lack, but opportunities. Opportunities to learn, opportunities to ask questions, opportunities to travel out of Muhuru Bay and most importantly opportunities to gain the money to do any of these things. And this is why I feel so powerless, because I can’t give them the money, because I can only tell them about the fascinating things that they could see for themselves if they had money and hope that the money will come to them somehow. And hope that someday I’ll be able to do more, more than just give them dreams, kind lies, and empty promises.

First Thursday

Some of the others are playing football with the girls, but I wanted to write this up as soon as possible, whilst the thoughts are still in my mind.

The last few days at Lisori have really been very, very powerful. It is amazing how much you can learn just by being here, just by observing people of this other culture. Of course I’ve seen pictures of rural Africa before, in all those fundraising posters and pamphlets—haven't we all?—but actually being here, being here in person and seeing it with my own eyes—this is something else entirely. Their torn, ragged uniforms; the decrepit room with its ugly, unpainted walls; the dirt floor, the glassless windows, the metal door with its scratched turquoise paint, that doesn’t close properly. Most of the kids wear filthy, tattered flip-flops the likes of which I have only ever seen tramps wear. They carry bags of exercise books with the covers wrapped in whatever paper they can find, the pages so frayed that they are soft and furry.

Lisori is split into two sections, the Lower Primary (Classes 1 to 3) and the Upper Primary (Classes 4 to 8—Class 4 is actually more of a Lower Primary class, they only follow the Upper schedule). I think most of the female teachers, like Teacher Faith and Teacher Grace, only teach the Lower Primary, whereas Class Eight is taught most by male teachers. They are housed in separate buildings. The Upper Primary is built of painted concrete with a tin roof, but the Lower Primary is unpainted and ramshackle. I have not been into one of the classrooms there (or, indeed, any other classroom apart from Class Eight’s), but I suspect there is no furniture inside: seats and desks are a luxury here. In fact, the children don’t seem to spend much time indoors at all; I always see them running around outside. The teachers, too, never seem to be in the classrooms. They are all really nice people— from the sound of it I got very lucky with the teachers at my school, because some of the other WISERBridge people have met positively ghastly staff—but if they are in school, they are either in the staff lounge or sitting outside under the shade of the two trees. I have often seen the students bring them books to mark, so I hope that they are actually doing some teaching!

The teachers' lounge, a separate hut with solar-powered electricity outlets

It makes me uncomfortable to see how much non-academic work the students are made to do. They fetch water for the teachers, cook their lunch, run to buy them food from the nearby vendor, chop firewood…anything they are bid to do. They seem almost more like servants than students.

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Today was also the first of what I shall call the Thursday Night Dinners. These are the weekly dinner/discussions that Abigail suggested for us, where we get together to eat and talk to each other about the goings-on in the different groups. I think the consensus is that three people will be in charge of cooking every week, and another three people will be responsible for washing up.

Elizabeth, Eneka and Tara cooked today. They asked Matron to teach them to make chapatti, which we ate with guacamole and fruit. The guacamole was a stroke of genius. So simple, the ingredients so readily available, and yet so delicious! Definitely a crowd-pleaser, so much that we were all just spooning it into our mouths during the making. Dinner was later than usual but well worth the wait!

After dinner Abigail led us in a reflection session about our week. First she went over the logistics (food, housekeeping, etc.) and then she asked us to talk about our experiences in this first week. I’m glad that we had this session, even though I started crying when it was my turn to speak. I just wonder how much good we are doing here, coming in and giving these kids such a different time for two weeks, making sure they have something to do every lesson, and then disappearing again. Are we really changing anything for the better? Are we making them happier?

We had a long discussion about this together. I think everyone is starting to feel the hopelessness of the situation, but Joy brought up a good point: the kids have dreams, and bleak as we think their hopes are, it is not our place to destroy them. So even if we feel like we are lying to them when we tell them to keep working hard for their dreams, maybe that is for the best.

Sherryl came and gave me a hug afterwards, which was very appreciated. :) I think she knows what I am feeling very well.

Because It Seems So Unfair

These kids break my heart. Some are almost as old as I am, but our lives have been so different that it makes me want to cry. I do not know for certain why, and I hate that I feel this way—I should not—I have no right—it isn’t appropriate. I will admit that at least part of the reason why I tear up is out of pity, and pity is not something I should be feeling for these people who are so much stronger than I am.

Yet pity I do feel—and oh! Such a pity!—for these kids. Not to receive the education they deserve, not to be given the chances they need not to be able to become what they can be! They have dreams and hopes and ambitions just like any other children in the world, and the only reason why most of them cannot achieve these dreams is because they were born here, in this abysmal poverty, instead of in a Global North country or a well-off family. The kids in Muhuru Bay—or, indeed, in any destitute corner of the world— are no less intelligent than the kids anywhere else. They are, for the most part, simply less educated. For no fault of their own.

Sherryl said that she started WISER because of moral outrage. She was so angry at the unfairness of the situation here that she had to do something about it, and so she found the money to build WISER. But she also said that there is a difference between building a building and building a school, and seeing the education system here has made me realise how very, very true this is. These kids are all enrolled in school, yes, but are they really learning? How often do they actually attend, and when they do, for how long are they actually in class, with a teacher? Do they have books to look at, people to turn to if there is something they don’t understand? And the teachers—how qualified are they? Most are severely underpaid, and many of the ones at private schools are Form 4 graduates who have not gone to teacher training college. Some of the English that they use is improper, or at least awkward to my Westernised ears. I hesitate before I underline some of the clumsy phrases in their compositions, because if this is the way that the adults speak, then how are the kids supposed to know any better?

No, it is not the buildings which make the school, it is the people. Sherryl has put together a very dedicated team at WISER, albeit at a cost. None of the teachers are from around Muhuru Bay, all were educated beyond university, and several hail from Nairobi or other sizeable cities. Most of them are truly lovely, lovely people (like Teacher Violet, who just seems really nice, for lack of a more suitable word).They also receive considerable salaries for agreeing to come and live here. Unfortunately, the primary school teachers do not have the same incentive.

The money, the money! It is not a problem that can be solved solely with money, but more of that stuff would certainly help!

Why a Pencil Matters

This evening there was a storm. We walked out into the pouring rain and got absolutely soaked, and then I decided to shower out in the open—when it was still raining! It was an interesting experience, but probably not one I would want to repeat very often. It is so cold here when it rains! I am not complaining though; it is a nice relief from the persistent heat of Hong Kong.
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I took for them today pencils and erasers from the supplies we’d picked up at Nairobi. They were so excited, you’d have thought that they had received new laptops instead of simple pencils (I can’t imagine what their reaction would be if they do get computers—sadly, I don’t think I have very much need to).  Just pencils and erasers, worth less than fifty shillings—sixty cents—but new, unused, and theirs alone. I think back to the fancy pens and stationery sets I have at home, the dozens of pencils and erasers lost and never found, never finished. They use theirs to a stub.

Teaching does not get much easier, although I was slightly more prepared today. I also brought in my camera and took photographs of the class. I had all the best intentions, of course—I thought it would be a treat for them, and it clearly was. But when they ran outside to pose in front of the school crest (that surprised me—I hadn’t known it was there, out of sight, painted at the side of the building), I had second thoughts. Not all the kids were in today, and they wanted all sorts of arrangements, and they all wanted to take turns at using the camera. And it was break-time, so half of the entire school was outside, and I felt terrible that I couldn’t take photos for them too. I have the files now, and I have to figure out a way of getting them printed for the kids. I’m still not so sure it was a good idea. But now I know, and next time I will be more careful.

Day One of Teaching and a Birthday, Muhuru Style!

It has been an incredibly busy day, and I feel exhausted even though I have not actually done very much. I woke up this morning at 5:45a.m. when my alarm went off in order to go for a run, but ended up lying in bed for twenty minutes as the sun was not yet up and even I am not crazy enough to run outside in the dark. Sunrise appears to be at about 6:30a.m. here—I will keep that in mind for next time. By the time I returned I barely had enough time to shower and get dressed for the WISER assembly at 7:30, in honour of the principal Madam Dorcas. She had been scheduled to arrive back from her son’s Master’s Graduation in Nairobi in time for our arrival, but had been delayed due to the death of a relative.

After the assembly we were immediately whisked off by Margaret into the car to head to our respectively schools. She accompanied us to each school and introduced us to the head teacher. Elizabeth was right around the corner at Shining Star; then Leonard at Memorial right in Customs; then Adria at Muhuru Junior; Frank all the way down the point of the peninsula at Nyangwayo; then finally me, at Lisori.

It was a long, long trip to Lisori. In terms of distance, Nyangwayo is the furthest away, but in terms of travelling time Lisori definitely takes the cake. We actually had to double back past Customs and go off the main road, into a swampy area which, as Margaret put it, gives “a whole new meaning to potholes.” There was no “road,” just tracks amongst the grass which the car fought to follow. I could not tell where we were going—it looked the same to me no matter which direction I looked—but somehow Kenneth, our driver, maneouvered his way around. Lisori is but a stone’s throw away from the Tanzanian border, so close that I could see buildings which belonged to Tanzania from the car.

Margaret took me to see Madam Esther, the school principal. She was a very well-groomed lady, but then again most Kenyan ladies I have met are well-groomed. Margaret openly admitted to me that she and Esther do not get along, because Esther is often absent from school. True to Margaret’s words, an hour or two after I arrived, Esther left for Mgori.

But that was not the only surprise.

There were 18 students today in my class of Standard Eight. I introduced myself, telling them I was from Hong Kong, that I now go to Duke, that I had a brother who was younger and taller. They laughed at that. One of the girls sitting in the front put her hand up and asked me if both my parents were alive. I should have realized then, but it still didn’t fully strike me how very different the lives of these students were from ours. I asked them then to take turns telling me about their families—and so many of them had only one parent left. Usually it was the father who had passed away, and the mother would be left to look after a family with five or six children. Probably why many of the students in the class were the youngest of their families—they need to rely on their older siblings to support their school fees.

I hadn’t expected to be teaching today—it was meant for observation and orientation—so it was a bit of a shock to find out that I would be in charge of several classes. Caught by surprise and completely unprepared, I flailed about (mentally) in desperation and ended up asking them to write a story on the board. Each person was supposed write a sentence and pass it on to the next. I started first: “This morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise…” A nice, safe sentence, or so I thought. I did not foresee the way it would turn out: the mother ended up dying of malaria.

I had lunch with the teachers—it was steamed corn and tea with cocoa. I had some of the corn (it was much like home) but did not like the tea much as it was far too sweet. I actually had brought my own lunch, but did not like to refuse their food as it means so much to them when visitors share a meal. Several local people have told me that offering food to guests is the pillar of Kenyan hospitality.

It makes me uncomfortable to see how much non-academic work the students are made to do. They fetch water for the teachers, cook their lunch, run to buy them food from the nearby vendor, chop firewood…anything they are bid to do. They seem almost more like servants than students.

I have also begun to experience the effects of the so-called “Kenyan time”. The school day at Lisori is divided into eight 35-minute classes, or four sessions of two classes each, with a break between every session and lunch from 12:40 to 2:00. Often, though, the teacher for the second class in a session would not bother showing up, as the first class would start only ten or fifteen minutes after schedule. To my great surprise it also seems the norm for teachers simply not to show up to class. The students seem very used to it. Ten minutes after class was supposed to start, when I asked them where their teacher was, they answered: “He’s not coming.”At first I was confused—what do you mean, not coming?—but by the end of the day I’d realised that it was exactly what they meant. The teachers do not come. Simply, they do not show up. It seems to be quite a regular occurrence here.

Usually, whenever the teachers go AWOL, the students would just sit in the classroom and occupy themselves. But now that I was there, of course I couldn’t just let them sit without a teacher. So I had to take the lessons which were unsupervised. With absolutely zero preparation, however, I was needless to say in a very tricky situation. I simply did not have enough material to spin out over the four hours and twenty minutes during which I was in charge of the class (the kids told me it was okay for them to skip the breaks—that would never happen back home!). I had no idea what they had already covered, what the book taught, or what would be required of them for the exam. When I tried to teach Energy, the kids looked bored out of their minds, especially as I quickly ran out of examples to tell them: these kids have never been in an elevator, never even had electricity before. How do I teach Physics without any props? There had always been so many demonstrations during the science classes I had taken. They have none of that. They have very little of anything, except a desire to make it out of this dismal poverty.
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It was Leonard’s birthday today, so we sang Happy Birthday during dinner and Frank tried (unsuccessfully) to pour a bottle of water over Leonard’s head. The girls loved it. I think it is good for them to see girls and boys as equals, and to see that we can laugh together and make fun of each other without causing any harm. Leonard is a darling amongst the students. They lured him on a walk after dinner, so that the rest of us could prepare something for him. Some of the Duke girls made a cake, using a kerosene stove they borrowed from Abigail, cake mix, and whatever ingredients were handy (think licorice sticks, chocolate peanut butter, and crumbled Chips Ahoy). It turned out to be a very interesting cake, but Leonard loved it (I’m sure he had to; it was so full of WISER love!)