Samburu National Park

The principal and I organized a trip for some of the students to visit Samburu National Park. The trip cost about $17, for a one night and full second day trip, yet the majority of the students' parents could not afford it. Most of these students have not ever traveled more than 50km from their homes, so for those that did go it was a great experience.

The park is about 150km from the school and in order to see the most animals we spent Friday night at a 30 child foster home that is close to the park. Seeing our students play with the orphans, share stories about their challenges, and sing together was very moving to me. What made it so nice is that the students really enjoyed getting to know and helping nurture the children.


Then, on Saturday morning, we got up at 4:15am and headed out to the park, which contained all other sorts of unexpected highlights.

For example, the students got to get their picture taken with the wildlife ranger's gun. I have about 50 pictures on my computer, more than one picture of each student, of each student taking their turn holding the gun.


Another total surprise was the spring that we came across. This area was totally dry until WWII, when an Italian soldier bombed the desert in the middle of nowhere, and, like some figure from the Bible, striking this vast rock-land produced water! No joke, he happened to hit an underground river.




More expected, we saw many animals, including these zebras.


The last new experience for the students on the trip was getting to see an airplane. This was such a big deal for them that we sat waiting for it to arrive for almost an hour.


Trips like this was are more common place at more established schools, but this was the first one of its kind for our school. It goes without saying how nice it was to be with the students on this trip and to see their excitement.

My Dog Friend

It might be a bad sign that I decorated the neighbors dog...

The dog belongs to a man that lives about 0.8km away from me in the village. I have never fed the dog, but he comes over to my house sometimes. In fact, he even follows me to the market, and one time he tried to follow me all the way to Maua (5km away). The only reason that he likes me is because I pet him and no one else does.

I really like having him around. He can fight with other dogs and people don't care much. He can pee on the neighbors fence without a second glance from the fence's owner. When he goes with me to the market there is never talk of a leash. His life seems so natural and free. Even though he has made me really want a dog I don't think that I could get a dog in the States, in part because no dog there could ever have as nice an existence as this dog.

Campout: Building Our Scout Troop

Scouting in Kenya is typically very different from America. For one, there is no parent involvement in Kenya, two girls and boys are together in the same troops, and the troops focus heavily on marching and do not know that there is anything else to scouts - like merit badges.

I attained the rank of Eagle Scout in America, without being very good at marching, so I am inclined to think that the scouts will benefit from a little re-direction, which I am trying to provide them by organizing more activities for them to participate in


This last weekend the principal, who was also a scout, and I organized a 3 day hike and camping trip to the Nyambene forest.

In Kenya, the forest is a place that people usually do not go unless they have some shady businesses, such as cutting down trees illegally or poaching animals. Therefore, most of our students had never been to the forest even though it is only 12km from our school. It was great to see how excited they were to be out in nature. While we were there we went on a hike, I taught them about first aid, we talked with them about environmental conservation, and yes, they even practiced marching a little bit.

Additionally, they had never been organized into patrols and had never elected leaders, so we took advantage of this time together to explain the organization to them and help them elect their first set of leaders.


Another difference between American scouts and Kenyan ones is the gear. In America, we are used to having rain jackets, pre-fabricated tents, gas stoves, thermarests, sleeping bags, etc. In Kenya, they use whatever clothes they can kind to keep warm, they usually make their own tents (often out of tarps or left over grain storage sacks), they cook everything over a wood fire, they carry their mattresses and blankets from school, and often times they only carry one set for each pair of students.


Another difference is that they have rotating watchmen throughout the night, so that at every hour of the night there are 3-4 scouts huddled around the camp fire watching the darkness.

Camping alongside of their plastic tarp tent I felt over-privileged in my REI 2-person backpacking tent. All of them love seeing my camping gear, and I know that they envy it. Even though I have been here for over a year and a half, living with this group of people, I cannot really reconcile the feelings that these thoughts evoke. On the one hand, this is the life that I am used to, so it seems kind of natural, but on the other hand, I see that it is not natural or accessible for very many of the worlds people. I do not ever want to become comfortable with this discrepancy. When we are comfortable or not cognizant of this discrepancy we live like we are the only people on this earth, which is not true. The answer is not just to throw money at the problem either though. Foreign countries are doing that currently, and the result is that the Kenyan MPs can free up money from other places to give themselves a 50% pay increase, or just outright steal the money without being prosecuted by the attorney general.

All of that is a digression, but the corruption aspect of it is relative to scouting, because the first point of the Scout's Law is to be trustworthy, and how do you really teach the youth to be trustworthy and honest when they are bombarded daily with examples of extremely rich Kenyans lying and stealing their money. They see my tent, they know that I am rich, they probably think that I must also be corrupt by virtue of our status. The only way that I know how to combat this is to try to be as forthcoming, honest, and transparent as I can be, and also to have discussions with them about the scout oath and laws, which we did.

On a completely different note, check out this cool grass. The principal said that it is actually part of the moss family.

Volleyball Girls Placed 2nd!

Here's a group photo of this years volleyball team.

The district tournament was last Friday and, out of the more than 20 schools in our district, our school placed 2nd!

I think that the volleyball team is really my biggest success story. I have kept this a secret from everyone in Kenya, but as you all know, boys don't really play volleyball in America - at least not in high school. I don't have any volleyball experience, but I was still able to take my school's team from being an average team for the district to being 2nd. The only reason is that there is almost no other coach in the district that shows up to his own team's practice. Doesn't this sound absurd? It does to me, but unfortunately it is true. Typically what happens is that a teacher will be assigned the duty of coaching a particular team, they may even volunteer for it, but then the coach doesn't really do much until it comes time to go to a tournament.

As a result, the students are very lackadaisical about practicing. My biggest role has been to give their training structure and let them flourish within it. -And they did!