Interior Shots of Classroom + My House

All of the classrooms at my school say 'silent' above the door. As far as I can tell, it is meant to deter students from talking during their prep time. It certainly doesn't accomplish its intended purpose.




The other picture shows my sitting room. My house contains three rooms that are this size. To the rigt is my bedroom and to the left is my kitchen. On the floor I am displaying my collection of bottle tops. The class one students at the next door primary school collected these for me and I spent 4 days with the nursery class teaching them about cleaning and playing with water. We had a good time together. I don't think that there is any way that I will be able to use all of these bottle tops as Go pieces, so I will return one day and make shaker instruments with them.

Wedding of James and Winnie Mutia

This is one of the teachers at my school on his wedding day. I volunteered to be his wedding photographer, which was a new experience and kind of fun. His wedding was very colorful, and I have been told that it was a "Nairobi wedding." Almost all weddings in Kenya are Christian weddings, but the difference with a Nairobi wedding is just the size and the grandeur.

He teaches agriculture and biology, and is a very understanding man.

Oven Picture

Here I am with a few of the students that dedicated the most time to helping me with the oven.

I have received requests for more information about my oven project. In response I will include a few pictures that look at the structural aspects of the oven, and an updated edition of the article.


Thomas Mosier
28 May 09
Not long after I arrived at site, I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I build a 'cavern' from this gravel and that cement, and then light a fire inside, do you think that it will explode?” After receiving enough looks of doubt, I instead began to ask if the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks. It was clear that the Kenyans working with me on the project had gaps in their conceptualizations of what I was doing, but they answered all of my questions as best they could and together we succeeded in builing a bread oven.

By the time I pulled the first batch of pizza and bread out of the oven, I had become confident that most of the holes in the understanding had been filled. Seeing the oven made it easy to grasp the concepts involved, especially when explaining thermal physics to my form 2 class. Now that the class has smelled the fresh bread, they perk right up at the mention of heat transfer or applications of the topic we are learning. They have even begun telling me that they are going to build their own ovens, at which point I perk right up and we talk about how to turn this interest into a science congress project.

The teachers have also been watching to understand how the oven works. Following a recent parents' day, I invited the teachers to a pizza party outside of my house. In preparation, Matt Palma and I cooked 8 pizzas and 5 loaves of bread. What pleased me about this party was that it marked one of the first times since I have come to the school that the teachers and staff were all together, enjoying each others company outside of the staff room. The male teachers even asked me to teach them to cook, which made all of the women smile with a mixture of approval and skepticism. In response to which, one male teacher said, “By the way, it is good to gain knowledge about all topics.” His words did more to spread my gospel than my words ever could.

The project is not finished - I am learning as much about building wood ovens and community as my students are. There are changes that the students and I will make to the design, and by the time science congress roles around, maybe the we will have even more ideas. Maybe by then, there will even be some male teachers who are artisan bakers. Matt Palma is hoping that we can invent a pizza delivery system so that I can put a pizza on a matatu and get it to him while it is still hot. I don't think there is any way that it could make it that far without an armed guard, but we all have a right to dream. Even if we can't send you a pizza, you are always still welcome to come to the source and bake it yourself.

Moles

The scouts at my school have planted kale. It is a very sizable plot, at about 15 ft by 80, with still more sprouts to be planted. Of course, the nice soft soil attracted some moles and the scouts had to figure out what to do about it. From my chair in front of my house I could hear them arguing about whether or not they could flush it out with water. One said, "it is close to this place" and then another jumped over the ditch and foliage separating me from them and informed me of the state of the situation, asking for my opinion as to whether or not they would be able to route him out. I told them that I didn't think so, and went back to reading the newspaper only to hear one of them squeal with excitement 5 minutes later. One of them jumped back over to ditch to tell me to come look.

There it was, the first real-live mole that I have ever seen. I remember my father borrowing a trap from the neighbor as a kid, but I didn't really like the idea of killing animals and never stuck around to help discard of the mole. This one was ugly, and they made sure to point out its teeth and then let it run a round a bit. If it wasn't so ugly, its activities would have seemed rather cute. It found a banana leaf laying on the ground and ran underneath, beginning to dig another hole.

Finally the students started playing with it a little too much for my taste and I brought them the panga to finish 'er off. Much to my surprise they did not chop it in two, but instead used the broad side to club it to death - what experienced scouts.

Mid-Term Week: A Break From Routine

This week we have been having mid-term examinations, which is a nice break from the usual routine, at least until it comes time to grading. I had a very nice day yesterday visiting with my newly wed teacher and his wife. They have a very nice apartment in Maua town, complete with electricity and running water. I didn't peek inside of the bathroom, but I suspect that they even have a shower.

That day their new furniture was being delivered, and when I arrived they had only one sofa and a computer. The furniture did not draw my attention, but what was unavoidable was listening to, and subsequentally watching, the video playing on the computer. It was some sort of pop band made up of singing boys with bleached hair. I guess they are called, “West Life,” but they might as well have been the Backstreet Boys or New Kids On the Block. These videos are so popular here. Well correction, there are like three of these videos that are popular here. They are played in the nice matatus, in the restaurants, and the privacy of peoples own homes it seems. Each of these videos features music that is unchanging from song to song and they are only an hour long, unless played on repeat, which always happens. For me, all I can think about while listening to them is the rate of brain decay during the experience, but for the people who play them, they must represent something more. I haven't brought up the subject yet, but I imagine it has something to due with the rapid changes that are taking place in Kenya. I certainly cannot imagine what it must be like for the 60 year olds who have lived through the Mau Mau revolution, through the years of Moi, and now walk around in villages that still do not have electricity, but where each person has their own cell phone. The experience of growing up with dirt floors and an economy with a daily event horizon contrasted with now having running water and a microwave must implant some values that differ from my own. I find it helpful to remember this when I don't understand someone's decision. It is not that they are Kenyan and I am American. It is not that Kenyans are unable to learn or appreciate mathematics, or that Americans are unable to relax and enjoy the moment. It is just that we have grown up so differently.

Then again, some things are the same. Later that day, I returned to school and found very many teachers still around a few hours after all of the teachers have usually departed. They told me that the form 4's had gone out on a field trip to watch a traveling play, but that they hadn't returned on time. When they did return, a few of the students were so drunk that when told to enter their classroom, they ran into the wall instead of making it through the door. There were even a few girls that were drunk, which is totally unacceptable in the culture here. Thankfully our BOG teachers (remember, they just finished secondary school and get hired by the schools directly to act as assistant teachers) had all decided to help control and monitor the students until the principal arrived. The principal was thoroughly upset for being called to school at 7:30pm, and upon arrival gave the two drunkest students a thorough slapping before leading them to the local police station.

I haven't figured out what to make of this situation yet. This is the sort of situation that happens in America also. What is maybe different are the techniques used for mitigating it. I think that power is less overtly forceful in America. The cops are ready to tackle someone, but they prefer to cuff you, put you in the drunk tank, and give you a fine in the morning. I think that the fate of these students was to get beaten a little while they were drunk, put in a cell at the police post, and then caned again in the morning.

In addition, I think that they will both be kicked out of school. I don't know exactly how I feel about this. On the one hand, that behavior is unacceptable and in conjunction with their previous offenses, they have shown that they have not fully reformed. Whether or not our school is capable of helping them reform I am not sure. Furthermore, what I want to think about a little bit is whether Kenya is better off to have them loitering outside of school, or causing trouble in school. They will disrupt people both places, but I tend to think that I will fear these boys more now that they are not trying to work towards a goal. I fear that their lives will involve more drinking and other deviant behaviors. At the same time, it is not fair for them to pull others down.

What makes the situation more regrettable is that one of the two was generally nice to me, and was one of 7 students in my form 3 physics class. He had shown me that he was capable of performing in physics and I wish that he had shown that he was also capable of making better choices.

Real. Live. Able to Shock You and Kill You. It's Electricity!

Yesterday power came to our school. Well, so far power lines have come to our school. I have heard that there was some sort of mix up in the office, we paid for 3-phase power but they only brought the lines for 1-phase. The presence of the electrical company brought a great energy to the school. The workers on these civic improvement projects must be some of the most warmly greeted workers in all of Africa.

As 8 workers drug the poles over the ground, from the truck to their resting place, they sang and even seemed to have a bounce in their step that is not usually present with construction workers. 8 men, working in unison, being watched and admired by villages day after day. I think that the singing and the bounce is proof of the power of indirect positive reinforcement.

Concurrently, another man dug a hole by hand about 6 feet deep in preparation for the pole's arrival. After all of the poles were erected, a man with spiked boots and a hand auger climbed each one to install guide wires and supports for the lines.

The sun was bright, but the day was not too hot. Even if they didn't turn on the lights, their presence was definitely felt. Teachers stopped complaining about the lack of staples and the school not paying for their daily lunch. Instead, they talked about the changes that electricity would bring. Students forgot about their mid-term exams during their breaks in order to consult each other and me about how electricity works. I quit worrying about the strength of the debate club and got really excited telling the students about how much voltage it takes for electricty to conduct through air and about how a ground (or "Earth-wire") works.

Birthday in Kenya

Birthdays aren't celebrated in Kenya. When you tell people about the concept, they tell you that birthdays are for the rich. It is easy to understand why, if you think about birthdays most people think of cakes and presents. If you see someone in a movie receiving a computer or a car for their birthday, you might say to yourself that a birthday is a luxury of the rich. More problematic though is that the movie depiction is often not far off from the truth. As a child I would become excited about what presents I thought I might get. Of course it is not necessary to see birthdays this way and instead they can be a nice excuse to remember friends. Should we need an excuse to visit friends though? No, not really. I would prefer it if we all agreed to remember our interrelatedness for its own sake, without excuses. So let's just do that instead. If someone forgets your birthday, but invites you to dinner two weeks later just to be with you, let's be more honored than if they had used our birthday as a crutch.

Instead of celebrating that I was one year closer to death, on my birthday I was more excited that I obtained a cow's stomach from the butcher. I celebrated as I hung it from the rafter, and I even gave the local stray dog some bits since I appreciate having him around. I celebrated the presence of the stomach because I am hoping to be able to use the naturally occurring rennet inside of it to make mozzarella cheese.

As a debut, I am inviting the teachers over this weekend. In addition to mozarella they will also learn what pizza is. They don't know it is my birthday, although admittedly me being one year closer to death was the reason that I chose this weekend to have them over.

Locally grown rosemary will one of the guests of honor at this party, as we kick off my mission to make food in our village that is currently only available in ritzy parts of Nairobi.

Striking Season

Today in the staff room a teacher mentioned that two well established secondary schools in the area went on strike over the weekend. At one school a student pastor was suspended and the other students struck out of solidarity. The result was that the entire student body was suspended. I am not sure of the cause at the other school, but the school's next door neighbor happens to be the police station and they were kept in school under the station's watchful eye.

This was kind of funny to me since my own school had an averted strike of its own just about two weeks ago, and upon asking the teacher it seems that June is striking month in the Kenyan school calendar. He was not able to explain this phenomenon to me, except that once one school strikes over an issue it inspires the others to follow suit.

My personal experience took place on a Friday, and as far as I know, it was the first in the area. Maybe it inspired the others, what leaders we are. It was about 6pm when I heard that the students were refusing to eat the githeri. They were claiming that it had been laced with lamp oil in order to dull their sexual excitability. I of course jumped right up for a bowl, and the githeri was as good as it ever is inside of the school. There were not any rocks in this bowl, which is my biggest criteria for grading. I absolutely do not think that the school intentionally put lamp oil in it, but there are always slight off flavors in the githeri from bugs that have been feasting on the corn only to find themselves part of the feast or from dirt. Who knows why they thought that this githeri was any different than normal. After refusing to eat, the principal was called, and at about the time that he arrived I was at the shop next door buying milk. When I was returning by the back way I heard shouting and rocks, which caused me to back track and go to the front gate to see what was happening. By the point that I reached the front gate the principal was standing next to the flag pole shouting and all of the students were silenced. From talking to the neighbors it seems that a few students started throwing rocks as he drove up in his car. There was even a girl studying in class that got hit and began to bleed as a rock broke through a classroom window. The rest of the rocks seem to have been thrown at the iron roofing. Who knows what they were trying to accomplish. They were then quieted down. I think that the principal handled the situation well. He told them about the proper channels for voicing concerns and about the struggles of the school. He also told them about the privileges that they had just sacrificed by committing this act. It was decided that really there were only a few instigators that were very dangerous. They were dealt with by the police and we all went to sleep. Since then we haven't had a problem.

Bread Oven - Article for the Kenya Peace Corps Newsletter

My supervisor with Peace Corps approached me about a month ago to write an article for the Peace Corps Newsletter about the bread oven that I have constructed. Below is a preliminary piece, which I will edit and repost as it evolves. I haven't decided if the scope is too wide or if it is appropriate for the newsletter, but I thought that I would post it here. You can read it and give me feedback.



Thomas Mosier
Newsletter Article – Bread Oven

22 June 09 - v. 4

Not long after I arrived at site I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I light a fire inside of a cavern made from this gravel and that cement, do you think it will explode?” Eventually this evolved into, “do the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks?” It wasn't much later that I had drawn up a design for the cavern and gotten one of the teachers at my school to help me source bricks from Nairobi. I had only been at site for a couple weeks and already we were beginning to build a bread oven.

The idea of building a bread oven arose from a friend in college who had built a portable pizza oven. On weekends he would wheel it around campus and invite students to join him to make pizza from scratch. I think that for him, he was teaching those American students about the processes that go into food production, from plant to pizza. It seemed to me that Kenyans already know where their food comes from and that this type of instruction would not be needed. What seemed more applicable to my situation was that he was also socializing and sharing his interests with others. In addition, as a physics teacher my oven would be a tool for teaching the students about heat transfer and thermal expansion.

In physics I have been able to use it as an example during lessons on thermal physics. We have also used the design process as a template for a competition that I held in class where I formed groups and asked the groups to design tools or components of a house that would make use of our knowledge of thermal physics. Many of the groups responded to the assignment by giving me detailed descriptions of how they would design their dream house, with an emphasis on the aspects that pertain to the physics we are learning. A few groups even came up with original methods for heating water, including placing a network of pipes inside of the schools concrete jiko or designing a roof so that the mabauti focus the light on a container of water.

The students who have had these ideas have seen that I have been able to build an oven and have begun to ask me if we can try building their ideas to see how they work and possibly submit them for the science congress. They have even told me that they want to build their own ovens now, at which point I get even more excited and tell them that I would like to build more test ovens to see how changing the shape and building materials affects the usability of the oven.

In this way, the oven has helped me bond with not only the students who helped build it, but also with students who see me baking foreign foods such as pizza or sourdough bread. The teachers have also been watching to understand how it works and following a recent parents' day I invited them all to a pizza party outside of my house. At the party they talked, ate, and asked questions. Even the more conservative male teachers said that they wanted to learn how to bake, which made all of the women smile and laugh with a mixture of approval and skepticism.

A frequent question is whether or not the oven can be used to make money, and I honestly do not know. I have heard that there is an orphanage group baking fried bread balls nearby, and if they can make a profit on those it seems feasible that we could make a profit also. One prohibitive aspect was the cost of the bricks. If my students try building ovens with local materials and are successful, their is a greater likelihood that similar ovens can be profitable. Regardless of the answer, as a teacher and someone who wants to share my interests and my culture with my community, the bread oven was a good investment.





10 June 2009 - v. 3

Not long after I arrived at site I began asking the teachers at my school questions such as, “if I light a fire inside of a cavern made from this gravel and that cement, do you think it will explode?” Eventually this evolved into, “do the hardware stores in town sell clay bricks?” It wasn't much later that I had drawn up a design for the cavern and gotten one of the teachers at my school to help me source bricks from Nairobi. I had only been at site for a couple weeks and already we were beginning to build a bread oven.

The idea of building a bread oven arose from a friend in college who had built a portable pizza oven. On weekends he would wheel it around campus and invite students to join him to make pizza from scratch. I think that for him, he was teaching those American students about the processes that go into food production, from plant to pizza. It seemed to me that Kenyans already know where their food comes from and that this type of instruction would not be needed. What seemed more applicable to my situation was that he was also socializing and sharing his interests with others. In addition, as a physics teacher I could justify the oven as a demonstration in thermal physics and a practical experience in thinking about the thought process of turning a concept into a reality.

A while after the oven was completed, a Kenyan friend complained to me that the children these days are growing up without knowing calabashes or cooking pots, the traditional tools for cooking and eating. The friend from college and his oven came back to me, and I realized that our situations have similarities. Both groups are evolving, and in the process appear to be losing knowledge of the past. My oven, I realized, could be a vehicle for showing that luxury can be synthesized from within one's own region. In addition to pizza and bread, for instance, our communities in Kenya can create mozzarella cheese from a cow's stomach and milk. They can also grow spices such as oregano, dill, lemon grass, sage, and rosemary, right here and use them to make dill pickles or “very sweet” soups.

If they become excited about my synthesis of tradition and locally available resources and I begin to ask them about their traditions, maybe they will begin to willingly ask their parents. Maybe a few will learn more about calabashes and cooking pots. Even if they do not catch this enthusiasm, it still makes me smile when people ask me for my bread recipe in addition to a watch from America.