The new term is well under way. A highlight has been the presence of a new assistant teacher (helping me and the math teacher) and a new full time teacher. The new full time teacher is a "sportsman," not a "Sportsman," which is a popular cigarette. In one day he was able to help us revitalize the enthusiasm for sports at our school. His secret: intramural competitions. For the next week we are putting clubs on hold to give all attention to rehydrating the program.
As soon as clubs return I hope to give more time to the solid establishment of our debate club. Last semester it lacked continuity. Another project of mine is the introduction of the board game Go into the students consciousness. If you haven't heard of it, wikipedia has a nice article. A few of my house mates at Reed were really into it. It is considered to be about as strategically complex as chess, but there are fewer pieces required. All you need are stones of two different colors. You need a couple hundred just for one set, so with the help of my local kiosk mama I recruited the local primary school students to collect bottle tops for me. Glass bottles are the dominant means of soda transportation and the caps have made the roads here look like they are made out of skittles. I asked about 150 students, and much to my surprise received at least 2 thousand. Now they have to be cleaned, but thankfully labor is cheap. The nursery class will be completely happy to help if I give them a big smile and a few pieces of candy in exchange for their support.
The first day that I introduced Go to the teachers was just so pleasant. The smiles on their faces as they placed and captured stones dissolved all of my stress. That is, until I challenged the best of them to a match. I could tell that he really got the game. My heart started pounding and I became anxious thinking to myself, "come on, you have to beat this guy, you introduced the game." It was a little bit of a let down when I won though, since it meant that although I can teach the game, I probably wont be challenged right away.
The sad news around our school right now is the departure of Mr. Toinya, our deputy principal. He was called up for a government training in Embu and never returned. He called to say that he had been promoted to be the principal at another school about 25 km away. It is funny how the government deals with these issues. I don't think that he knew about the transfer before he left to Embu. Then a day or two after he left the training he was expected to begin his responsibilities at the new school. The students were very sad to hear that he was leaving as they thought that he was very fair with his discipline and was helping to move the school in the right direction. He was also my best friend around the school, so I feel a bit of a personal loss. Without him though, I have noticed some of the other teachers really stepping up when they are on duty. I definitely think we are starting off this semester in the right way.
In an effort to further my relationship with the other teachers I made fresh bread and served it to them on a platter with avocado during tea time two days ago. After I ran out of avocado I began serving it with peanut butter, which they preferred. It is still a little funny to me how common avocados are here, it is hard for me to imagine someone at home asking for peanut butter instead of fresh, buttery, perfectly ripe avocado. The landscape and climate in Kenya is so varied, and for me, coming from America, it reminds me of paradise.
Whenever I ask a local how to grow a particular plant the answer it always, "put it in the ground and it will grow." It keeps blowing my mind; instead of trying to do a science experiment in the kitchen window sprouting an avocado, I can actually grow an avocado tree. Just by putting it in the ground. Amazing! Passion fruit trees, papaya trees, avocado trees, here I come!
The other exciting news is that the teacher in charge of guidance and counseling at my school is getting married. I told him that I would help him by taking wedding photos for him since I brought my digital SLR with me. He is one of the more bubbly Kenyans I know, and I am very excited for him. It will also be a good opportunity for all of the teachers at my school to come together outside of school.
26 May 2009
09 May 2009
Back to School
Proffesor Griffiths is retiring from Reed this year. I think that his retirement party is today and I wanted to acknowledge it because of the impact that he has had on so many students world wide - his electricity and magnetism book has been translated into at least 5 languages. He has an ability to make elementary particle physics seem easy and I appreciated having seeing his teaching so that I can think about how to replicate it for my students.
Since I haven't written on the blog much recently, this entry will be mostly a recap of events that have happened in my life over the past month. I did at last upload a few pictures while I was borrowing a friends computer in Nairobi. As you can see from the pictures, the bread oven has been completed. I was able to use it once before leaving Athiru to attend my Peace Corps in-service training (IST). I have not perfected my bread baking technique by any stretch of the imagination. The loaves that came out all seemed to be too big because the bottom-middle of each loaf wasn't cooked thoroughly enough, while the outside was. I experienced the same problem with a chicken that I cooked with friends after training (see WORandPeace.blogspot.com article from Friday May 1st). The outside of the chicken was delicious, but the inside wasn't done well enough to alleviate our fear that we might get sick from eating it (my bet is that the germs were all dead, but others tend to appreciate having more than a hunch about these things). I really want to be able to roast a turkey for thanksgiving or Christmas, so hopefully I can develop my technique.
The best parts of IST were those where the volunteers directed the discussions. It was fun and insightful to learn from each others experiences with coping, disciplining students, and integrating into our students. The Peace Corps invited a lot of qualified speakers to talk to us about topics we had asked for, but with a lot of these speakers their presentations weren't directed towards our interests. Maybe they did not get briefed well enough about what we had already learned, but then it would be impossible to brief them sufficiently. I think what I took away from some of these talks is that a really good speaker needs to be highly dynamic. They need to be able to take input, find how that input relates to their topic, hear questions, and continually hone their presentation to the needs of the group. This awareness was a valuable lesson for me to learn, and it was good for me to be in a place mentally where I could both be thinking about myself as a teacher and thinking critically about the teaching styles I was witnessing.
We also elected volunteer advisory committee (VAC) representatives and I was elected to represent the teachers from my training group. I am honored and will do my best to be a voice for my electorate. A day later I participated in my first meeting with the Peace Corps Kenya country director and I feel comfortable with his reaction to volunteer concerns. The program has made changes on various issues where it is able, such as volunteer out of community policy, but there will always be some areas where they are less able to budge (for instance, now adays volunteers are prohibited from riding motorcycles).
I was very happy to come back to Maua and Athiru after being in Nairobi. Nairobi is big, loud, and scary; there are at least three volunteers from my training group that have been robbed in Nairobi already. In my absence the rains had come and made the landscape even more green than before. The grass around my school had grown a foot and a half, which really made the place feel empty since there were no students around when I returned. Luckily though, I returned with 4 of my friends and we spent our time hiking, baking, and even went to the 27th birthday of a Danish woman named Ea. The highlight might have been the Viking Game that we learned at the party, also called Cubb (or is it cuub?). You throw throwing sticks at blocks that are a little bit larger than 4x4's back home. They stand about 1 ft high, and you have to knock them over. It is more complicated than that, and I think that when I return to the States it will be my number one barbecue game. Maybe I can even find a carpenter here to make a set for me and my students to play together. The students are required to play games 3 days a week, but with only a 2 balls and 250 students most of them end up sitting around. I also may want to introduce Ultimate Frisbee, and I definitely want to introduce Go. There are tons of bottle caps that get ground into the dirt here, so maybe I can sort them by color and draw some boards on old plastic grain sacks. I think that they would be into it. The difficulty will be trying to juggle debate, frisbee, and go, but I think that students will be excited enough that once they get going we can elect student leaders for the various activities.
Before the term started I also went to a Peace Corps sponsored perma-culture workshop (paid for care of PEPFAR - Predisdent Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, started by President Bush the 2nd. I have been told that they have an annual budget in Kenya of around 500million usd, which is larger than the annual Peace Corps budget worldwide. They do lots of good, like buying anti-retro viral drugs for AIDS victims and paying for us to attend a permaculture workshop). One of the highlights of this workshop for me was finding out that dill, sage, lemon grass, parsley, and basil all grow in Kenya. I was trying to find the plants locally so that I wouldn't have to transport them from the workshop to my site, but I have been unable. There is a volunteer that lives next to the permaculture site so over a long weekend I may have to pay him a visit.
The arrow roots that I planted with my students have grown quite a bit. I didn't mention this before, but on one of the days that we were working three of us were trying to remove a very large rock and it pinched one of my fingers between itself and another rock. I didn't swear, but I sure did pace for a couple of hours. It hurt a lot and the majority of the nail instantly turned black. Now the new nail is growing back and the old nail is about to fall off. It reminds me a lot of when my adult teeth were coming in. The baby nail is so close to coming off, but it is attached just enough to cause a very large surge of pain when it gets caught on something. It doesn't cause me too many problems though, and it gives the students a conversation point to bring up since they just returned to school on Wednesday.
Classes have kind of begun, but three quarters of the students were sent home yesterday to bring their parents and explain why they didn't pay school fees. We have a staff meeting on Monday, which means that no teaching will get done by anyone, but hopefully on Tuesday we will begin the normal routine. I know that the students (especially the form 4's) are anxious to move ahead in the syllabus. Last term we moved at a normal pace, but when I arrived they were two years behind and I feel obligated to them to help them catch up a bit before their big Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) test at the end of the year. Whether or not I believe in the content of the syllabus (read "WORandPeace" especially Wednesday, April 22 for his thoughts on the content), I believe that I can teach the content in a way that will give them skills to improve their lives. We can gloss over some comentary on god in the books and can ask critical questions about how to extrappolate on the information in the book, or how to apply the basic principles to their lives.
That is what I will be spending my time thinking about this afternoon and tomorrow in preperation for Tuesday.
Since I haven't written on the blog much recently, this entry will be mostly a recap of events that have happened in my life over the past month. I did at last upload a few pictures while I was borrowing a friends computer in Nairobi. As you can see from the pictures, the bread oven has been completed. I was able to use it once before leaving Athiru to attend my Peace Corps in-service training (IST). I have not perfected my bread baking technique by any stretch of the imagination. The loaves that came out all seemed to be too big because the bottom-middle of each loaf wasn't cooked thoroughly enough, while the outside was. I experienced the same problem with a chicken that I cooked with friends after training (see WORandPeace.blogspot.com article from Friday May 1st). The outside of the chicken was delicious, but the inside wasn't done well enough to alleviate our fear that we might get sick from eating it (my bet is that the germs were all dead, but others tend to appreciate having more than a hunch about these things). I really want to be able to roast a turkey for thanksgiving or Christmas, so hopefully I can develop my technique.
The best parts of IST were those where the volunteers directed the discussions. It was fun and insightful to learn from each others experiences with coping, disciplining students, and integrating into our students. The Peace Corps invited a lot of qualified speakers to talk to us about topics we had asked for, but with a lot of these speakers their presentations weren't directed towards our interests. Maybe they did not get briefed well enough about what we had already learned, but then it would be impossible to brief them sufficiently. I think what I took away from some of these talks is that a really good speaker needs to be highly dynamic. They need to be able to take input, find how that input relates to their topic, hear questions, and continually hone their presentation to the needs of the group. This awareness was a valuable lesson for me to learn, and it was good for me to be in a place mentally where I could both be thinking about myself as a teacher and thinking critically about the teaching styles I was witnessing.
We also elected volunteer advisory committee (VAC) representatives and I was elected to represent the teachers from my training group. I am honored and will do my best to be a voice for my electorate. A day later I participated in my first meeting with the Peace Corps Kenya country director and I feel comfortable with his reaction to volunteer concerns. The program has made changes on various issues where it is able, such as volunteer out of community policy, but there will always be some areas where they are less able to budge (for instance, now adays volunteers are prohibited from riding motorcycles).
I was very happy to come back to Maua and Athiru after being in Nairobi. Nairobi is big, loud, and scary; there are at least three volunteers from my training group that have been robbed in Nairobi already. In my absence the rains had come and made the landscape even more green than before. The grass around my school had grown a foot and a half, which really made the place feel empty since there were no students around when I returned. Luckily though, I returned with 4 of my friends and we spent our time hiking, baking, and even went to the 27th birthday of a Danish woman named Ea. The highlight might have been the Viking Game that we learned at the party, also called Cubb (or is it cuub?). You throw throwing sticks at blocks that are a little bit larger than 4x4's back home. They stand about 1 ft high, and you have to knock them over. It is more complicated than that, and I think that when I return to the States it will be my number one barbecue game. Maybe I can even find a carpenter here to make a set for me and my students to play together. The students are required to play games 3 days a week, but with only a 2 balls and 250 students most of them end up sitting around. I also may want to introduce Ultimate Frisbee, and I definitely want to introduce Go. There are tons of bottle caps that get ground into the dirt here, so maybe I can sort them by color and draw some boards on old plastic grain sacks. I think that they would be into it. The difficulty will be trying to juggle debate, frisbee, and go, but I think that students will be excited enough that once they get going we can elect student leaders for the various activities.
Before the term started I also went to a Peace Corps sponsored perma-culture workshop (paid for care of PEPFAR - Predisdent Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, started by President Bush the 2nd. I have been told that they have an annual budget in Kenya of around 500million usd, which is larger than the annual Peace Corps budget worldwide. They do lots of good, like buying anti-retro viral drugs for AIDS victims and paying for us to attend a permaculture workshop). One of the highlights of this workshop for me was finding out that dill, sage, lemon grass, parsley, and basil all grow in Kenya. I was trying to find the plants locally so that I wouldn't have to transport them from the workshop to my site, but I have been unable. There is a volunteer that lives next to the permaculture site so over a long weekend I may have to pay him a visit.
The arrow roots that I planted with my students have grown quite a bit. I didn't mention this before, but on one of the days that we were working three of us were trying to remove a very large rock and it pinched one of my fingers between itself and another rock. I didn't swear, but I sure did pace for a couple of hours. It hurt a lot and the majority of the nail instantly turned black. Now the new nail is growing back and the old nail is about to fall off. It reminds me a lot of when my adult teeth were coming in. The baby nail is so close to coming off, but it is attached just enough to cause a very large surge of pain when it gets caught on something. It doesn't cause me too many problems though, and it gives the students a conversation point to bring up since they just returned to school on Wednesday.
Classes have kind of begun, but three quarters of the students were sent home yesterday to bring their parents and explain why they didn't pay school fees. We have a staff meeting on Monday, which means that no teaching will get done by anyone, but hopefully on Tuesday we will begin the normal routine. I know that the students (especially the form 4's) are anxious to move ahead in the syllabus. Last term we moved at a normal pace, but when I arrived they were two years behind and I feel obligated to them to help them catch up a bit before their big Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) test at the end of the year. Whether or not I believe in the content of the syllabus (read "WORandPeace" especially Wednesday, April 22 for his thoughts on the content), I believe that I can teach the content in a way that will give them skills to improve their lives. We can gloss over some comentary on god in the books and can ask critical questions about how to extrappolate on the information in the book, or how to apply the basic principles to their lives.
That is what I will be spending my time thinking about this afternoon and tomorrow in preperation for Tuesday.
19 April 2009
Pictures
Currently I am at in-service training with my fellow volunteers in Nairobi. I'll write more about that later, but for now enjoy a few pictures.
The top is the bread oven that I have been talking about. The next component will be an outdoor table so that the students can bake bread at their leisure and I don't have to worry about cleaning my house.
The Peace Corps volunteer in the picture is Matt Palma. He is a teacher at a deaf school about an hour and a half from my site. Him and another volunteer came to help me celebrate the completion of the oven. Together we made pizza with panier cheese and fresh tomatoes. Now that we have had this first success it is time to experiment. When the students return to school they are going to bring ingredients and together we will learn to make delicious bread.
This is the arrowroot that we planted, with our school in the background. You are also able to see an almost finished classroom - maybe it will be completely finished by the time I return to site.
The school year ends at the end of November and by then the students will have 40 or 50 giant arrow roots to eat. The students are very excited to see all of changes and energy around their school.
Arrowroot is purple and white in color and is cooked by boiling it whole. It is similar to potato, but a little gummier tasting.
This is from a day when the teachers and board of governors for my school went to Meru National Park. I have a lot of pictures of the animals, including a herd of about 200 elephants, but those can wait. The man with the hat is our school cook Mr. Mirathi. He cooked us a goat and ugali for lunch. It was a very nice day, we even saw hippos.
I am trying to find a way to be able to share more with you. Currently the tension is between using the internet and remaining with my students on the weekends. There are some options that I am exploring to minimize this conflict, but we will see. Thanks for your patience and remember that if you are not hearing from me it means that life is good.
The top is the bread oven that I have been talking about. The next component will be an outdoor table so that the students can bake bread at their leisure and I don't have to worry about cleaning my house.
The Peace Corps volunteer in the picture is Matt Palma. He is a teacher at a deaf school about an hour and a half from my site. Him and another volunteer came to help me celebrate the completion of the oven. Together we made pizza with panier cheese and fresh tomatoes. Now that we have had this first success it is time to experiment. When the students return to school they are going to bring ingredients and together we will learn to make delicious bread.
This is the arrowroot that we planted, with our school in the background. You are also able to see an almost finished classroom - maybe it will be completely finished by the time I return to site.
The school year ends at the end of November and by then the students will have 40 or 50 giant arrow roots to eat. The students are very excited to see all of changes and energy around their school.
Arrowroot is purple and white in color and is cooked by boiling it whole. It is similar to potato, but a little gummier tasting.
This is from a day when the teachers and board of governors for my school went to Meru National Park. I have a lot of pictures of the animals, including a herd of about 200 elephants, but those can wait. The man with the hat is our school cook Mr. Mirathi. He cooked us a goat and ugali for lunch. It was a very nice day, we even saw hippos.
I am trying to find a way to be able to share more with you. Currently the tension is between using the internet and remaining with my students on the weekends. There are some options that I am exploring to minimize this conflict, but we will see. Thanks for your patience and remember that if you are not hearing from me it means that life is good.
13 March 2009
Rock Gang
I have been teaching physics and attending all the events; we had a district decathlon, heptathlon, and cross country meet last weekend. There were some highlights like when I stood around with a group of about 50 secondary school students and they were asking all the standard questions about America. Normally it is only the primary school students that gather around me so it was nice to talk see what students from other secondary schools are like. What I took away from the event (and from comparing our test results to other schools) is that I am a teacher at a typical Kenya day school.
Today we had a district "prize giving day." The assistant minister of education (for the whole country) was there, the local member of parliament, and all of the school students. School was cancelled in all of the schools so that we could receive prizes for how our schools performed last year. The primary school students had songs and skits that they had rehearsed so that they could show off to their member of Parliament - most of the money for school improvements comes directly from the mp's constituency development fund, so the politicking is important. Remember though, that this is a school system that is mostly without buses, so imagine walking with 250 high school students on an hour long walk through small villages and outposts, hoping that none of them sneaks off to disobey the rules. The muzungu is still an attraction and without fail every time during the day that I passed through the field my path became clogged by 100's of primary school children. They always look up at me wearing their cute knitted caps, their checkered shirts, and their big eyes. It is always just as adorable as the time before. The Kenyan adults that are walking with me don't seem to understand my interest with the children and always try to swat them away.
The Kenyan scouts were also at the event. It turns out that Baden Paul (I don't know the spelling, but he is considered the "founder" of Boy Scouts) lived in Kenya and scouts is popular but here it seems to mostly involve marching. The scouts marched for us, and their scout matter marched along with them, smiling and waving at the politicians. It really is exactly like the military parades that I have seen on TV. I get to see this at my school twice a week when the scouts raise the Kenyan flag at the assemblies. They always come up with a new set of commands and a new dance routine to show off to the school, but they never learn skills to earn merit badges. - Scouts at ease, atten-tion, scouts at ease, atten-tion, scouts count off one through 2, *scouts count*, all ones one full step to the left, one step back, about face, backwards march, scouts: do the polka, now scout on duty raise the flag. The polka part in the middle always gives the student body a good laugh. Actually, I can't hear what some of the commands are, their accent is much different than mine, but the student body does always have a good time watching whatever dance steps they are doing.
The times these past two weeks when I have been most happy are the times when I have been moving rocks with the dudes. Okay, dudes is going a little too far, they are my students, granted some of them are twenty five. All of the teachers refer to them as their boys and girls. My wavulana and wasichana. It feels good to work along side them though. I know they are becoming impressed by the improvement in the toughness of my hands. The current project is planting arrow root in order to utilize the otherwise waste water. It seemed simple enough the first day that I proposed the project, but since then it has proven difficult due to the very large rocks that make up our ground. None of them has been impossible to remove, but some of them have taken 3 or 4 of us around 4 hours to remove.
Sometimes they take a little nudging, but I make sure that they have a vested interest in these projects. I think labor is a good way to form bonds with people, but also I think that it is good for the students to know that this school is theirs. They are able to make it a positive place both academically and otherwise. When we are working it is not the A students or the F students, but the students of Athiru Gaiti. I want to get to the point where the students will come to me with their projects because they are the ones who know what improves their lives. Maybe I could form some sort of "good Samaritan" club where the students improve their lives and the look out for the well being of the community. Maybe they could become artisan bred makers and use the profits to build a covered bus stop, or maybe they could create a scholarship for students who are unable to pay school fees but are otherwise bright. We will see if there is much of a market for artisan bread around here, but the Methodist hospital in town would be a good place to start looking for our core market. It is only an hours walk from the school and there is a steady stream of Europeans and Americans coming through their for a few months at a time. Even if we cannot make a profit, we can still help to feed each other.
Next weekend I am going to Meru National Park. The board of governors for the school is helping to pay for all of the teachers to go. Sounds like someone is even donating a goat that we will slaughter and roast together. Nyama choma ya mbozi - roasted goat meat. They roast it and then cut it up into bite sized pieces. From there you take a piece, pick up some onions, tomatoes, and peppers and enjoy. Delicious. As my deputy principal tells people, "it is [ my ] best food."
Today we had a district "prize giving day." The assistant minister of education (for the whole country) was there, the local member of parliament, and all of the school students. School was cancelled in all of the schools so that we could receive prizes for how our schools performed last year. The primary school students had songs and skits that they had rehearsed so that they could show off to their member of Parliament - most of the money for school improvements comes directly from the mp's constituency development fund, so the politicking is important. Remember though, that this is a school system that is mostly without buses, so imagine walking with 250 high school students on an hour long walk through small villages and outposts, hoping that none of them sneaks off to disobey the rules. The muzungu is still an attraction and without fail every time during the day that I passed through the field my path became clogged by 100's of primary school children. They always look up at me wearing their cute knitted caps, their checkered shirts, and their big eyes. It is always just as adorable as the time before. The Kenyan adults that are walking with me don't seem to understand my interest with the children and always try to swat them away.
The Kenyan scouts were also at the event. It turns out that Baden Paul (I don't know the spelling, but he is considered the "founder" of Boy Scouts) lived in Kenya and scouts is popular but here it seems to mostly involve marching. The scouts marched for us, and their scout matter marched along with them, smiling and waving at the politicians. It really is exactly like the military parades that I have seen on TV. I get to see this at my school twice a week when the scouts raise the Kenyan flag at the assemblies. They always come up with a new set of commands and a new dance routine to show off to the school, but they never learn skills to earn merit badges. - Scouts at ease, atten-tion, scouts at ease, atten-tion, scouts count off one through 2, *scouts count*, all ones one full step to the left, one step back, about face, backwards march, scouts: do the polka, now scout on duty raise the flag. The polka part in the middle always gives the student body a good laugh. Actually, I can't hear what some of the commands are, their accent is much different than mine, but the student body does always have a good time watching whatever dance steps they are doing.
The times these past two weeks when I have been most happy are the times when I have been moving rocks with the dudes. Okay, dudes is going a little too far, they are my students, granted some of them are twenty five. All of the teachers refer to them as their boys and girls. My wavulana and wasichana. It feels good to work along side them though. I know they are becoming impressed by the improvement in the toughness of my hands. The current project is planting arrow root in order to utilize the otherwise waste water. It seemed simple enough the first day that I proposed the project, but since then it has proven difficult due to the very large rocks that make up our ground. None of them has been impossible to remove, but some of them have taken 3 or 4 of us around 4 hours to remove.
Sometimes they take a little nudging, but I make sure that they have a vested interest in these projects. I think labor is a good way to form bonds with people, but also I think that it is good for the students to know that this school is theirs. They are able to make it a positive place both academically and otherwise. When we are working it is not the A students or the F students, but the students of Athiru Gaiti. I want to get to the point where the students will come to me with their projects because they are the ones who know what improves their lives. Maybe I could form some sort of "good Samaritan" club where the students improve their lives and the look out for the well being of the community. Maybe they could become artisan bred makers and use the profits to build a covered bus stop, or maybe they could create a scholarship for students who are unable to pay school fees but are otherwise bright. We will see if there is much of a market for artisan bread around here, but the Methodist hospital in town would be a good place to start looking for our core market. It is only an hours walk from the school and there is a steady stream of Europeans and Americans coming through their for a few months at a time. Even if we cannot make a profit, we can still help to feed each other.
Next weekend I am going to Meru National Park. The board of governors for the school is helping to pay for all of the teachers to go. Sounds like someone is even donating a goat that we will slaughter and roast together. Nyama choma ya mbozi - roasted goat meat. They roast it and then cut it up into bite sized pieces. From there you take a piece, pick up some onions, tomatoes, and peppers and enjoy. Delicious. As my deputy principal tells people, "it is [ my ] best food."
21 February 2009
Bread Oven
This past week were mid-term exams. The students took a one hour exam in each subject and then they went home on Thursday afternoon. I ran with them before I left, and boy am I sore. How could I not go for a run though, because it gave the villagers such amusement. "Muzungu" and then words that I didn't understand. A lot of laughing though, and general merriment. And then my boys appreciated it too. It's happening, they are becoming my boys. Some of them (many actually) are older than I am, but here they are still called boys and girls until the graduate. Four of my boys are remaining at the school over the break. Thursday night we hunkered about a kerosene lamp and talked about cultural differences between schools in Kenya and America. In Kenya students are expected to fetch their teachers water, relay messages, and clean the teachers' office. In Kenya things come up and some teachers don't make it to class. I gave one of those Obama speeches, "yes we can" grow into effective adults and make a difference.
I also told them about my hope to build a wood fire bread oven. They got super excited. This is my first "project" here and it feels good to have the jimbe in my hand, to dig up dirt, place stones, and be working towards a common goal with the people around me. A fundi (worker, this was was a mason by trade) came on Friday since I don't know much about masonry. With my vision, his knowledge, and the students muscles we completed the first stage, a 2 1/2 ft tall base. I want to show you pictures, and some day I will but not today. You will have to wait. I am unable to upload them at these Internet cafes.
I introduced the project to the students by saying that I wanted to build an oven because when I lived in America I would bake bread about once a week. After they got the message they came up with their own plans, "maybe we will be able to bake bread for the school, maybe we will be able to sell bread to the community." Yes, that would be good. Maybe you will be able to build a covered matatu shelter so that people don't have to stand in the rain. Maybe you will be able to use the money to help children more needy than yourselves pay school fees. I hope that they will be able to tell me what the community needs. They are the ones who know, not me. We will see how this pans out. Even if there is not a sufficient demand, I will still be able to teach the students my favorite bread recipes. They will still have gotten practice working with their hands, skills that will help them after school. They will have learned a little bit about thermal expansion (hopefully the oven will not crack under the force). Most importantly, my boys and I will have grown closer through working together.
I found a coconut on a journey to Meru last weekend. I am hoping to reward them this evening for there help by cooking a peanut - coconut curry for them. Spices are not used here because they are expensive and they do not add nutrition. If I wasn't cooking for them they would be eating rice seasoned with salt. In Kenya boarding students eat githeri (beans and corn) for two meals a day. I wish that the American school system was a little closer to this. Instead of fake nacho cheese and corn dogs we could given them githeri with a little sakuma wiki (kale). They could get excited for Ugali (kind of like polenta) day instead of square pizza day. Could you imagine sending your kid to school with a cold lunch of beans and corn? He would hate himself, and no one would trade them their shoe-glue go-gurt for your kids organic proteins.
I also told them about my hope to build a wood fire bread oven. They got super excited. This is my first "project" here and it feels good to have the jimbe in my hand, to dig up dirt, place stones, and be working towards a common goal with the people around me. A fundi (worker, this was was a mason by trade) came on Friday since I don't know much about masonry. With my vision, his knowledge, and the students muscles we completed the first stage, a 2 1/2 ft tall base. I want to show you pictures, and some day I will but not today. You will have to wait. I am unable to upload them at these Internet cafes.
I introduced the project to the students by saying that I wanted to build an oven because when I lived in America I would bake bread about once a week. After they got the message they came up with their own plans, "maybe we will be able to bake bread for the school, maybe we will be able to sell bread to the community." Yes, that would be good. Maybe you will be able to build a covered matatu shelter so that people don't have to stand in the rain. Maybe you will be able to use the money to help children more needy than yourselves pay school fees. I hope that they will be able to tell me what the community needs. They are the ones who know, not me. We will see how this pans out. Even if there is not a sufficient demand, I will still be able to teach the students my favorite bread recipes. They will still have gotten practice working with their hands, skills that will help them after school. They will have learned a little bit about thermal expansion (hopefully the oven will not crack under the force). Most importantly, my boys and I will have grown closer through working together.
I found a coconut on a journey to Meru last weekend. I am hoping to reward them this evening for there help by cooking a peanut - coconut curry for them. Spices are not used here because they are expensive and they do not add nutrition. If I wasn't cooking for them they would be eating rice seasoned with salt. In Kenya boarding students eat githeri (beans and corn) for two meals a day. I wish that the American school system was a little closer to this. Instead of fake nacho cheese and corn dogs we could given them githeri with a little sakuma wiki (kale). They could get excited for Ugali (kind of like polenta) day instead of square pizza day. Could you imagine sending your kid to school with a cold lunch of beans and corn? He would hate himself, and no one would trade them their shoe-glue go-gurt for your kids organic proteins.
14 February 2009
X Country Coach
Many of you know that during my time in high school I was interested in running, until I got burnt out and quit. So I played frisbee instead, which gave me everything that I felt like I had been lacking when I was running. They don't have frisbee teams in Kenya and the cross country team at my school was coachless, leading me to make a re-entry into the sport. My first initial duty, other than doing mazeuzi (exercises) with the students was to attend a cross country meet with the students last weekend. Being there brought back a lot of memories for me, the stress, the passion for endorphines, and the desire to perform well. During the 8km boys race one of my students was the third in the pack after the first lap, which intensified all of these feelings even more. He went out of site, and then upon seeing him again he was about 200m in front of the others. I was so excited for him. I cheered, ran along side him, and then hurried off to meet him at the finish. He moved onto the provincial meet, which was today, and I accompanied him to the course.
We were told that the first meet was going to begin at 7:30am, and so I was very worried when we showed up at 8:30am and no one was at the course. Round about 9 another school showed up. At about 9:45 the officials showed up, and then we got going at about 10:30. I felt awful because I told my physics students that I would be back at the school in the afternoon to teach a few extra classes, but there wasn't a lot I could do. So today we got to town at about 7:30, when we were told to meet at 7, only to find that everyone had already proceeeded ahead of us to the course. This is exactly the way Kenya is, you cannot say that they do not care about keeping time, because sometimes they keep strict times. It's those other times that really throw me off. No matter what time is kept - or not kept, people are generally understanding.
We arrived to the meet just in time, and everybody was very curious of who this mazungu. I met with the chairman, I met with some teachers, and some students. Then I got to watch the races. The students were lined up on the starting line, the gun goes off, and I see my student sprint to the front. I know that he got first last time, but maybe I should have warned him that this would be a slightly tougher crowd. One of the reasons why I left cross country was that I was the best at my school, and there was a lot pressure on me to always achieve results. The stress became too much and it just was not fun anymore. Maybe I should have relayed this story to my student, I don't care how well he does, as long as he tries and feels good about himself. So I see him after the first lap and yell out encouragement, "Paul, keep it up," and he returns, "but mwalimu" and gives me this pained face. After that I didn't notice him in the pack next time around but was able to find him sitting away from the course next to a few other students. Okay, talk time, I don't care if you get first, there were lots of people in the race that you could have kept up with. He says that he knows, and wants to try again. During this talk it comes out that the cross country team only goes on 4 km runs, maybe 3 times a week, while the races are between 8 and 12 km. No wonder he got burnt out quickly. Now though, he knows what races are like, and can help motivate the other students. I will also try to step up a little more to help them organize themselves.
The event was followed by speeches from a member of parliment, district commisioner, and a representatives of the sponsors of the events. We were even blessed by the presence of the winner of like 6 international marathons who happens to be from this part of Kenya. Runners in Kenya are really revered. Even the runners today who finished in the top 6 for each race received track suits, 20 thousand shillings, and are being put up in the training camp for the next week in order to prepare for the national event.
I told my student that in highschool my English teacher told me that Kenyans are good runners because they don't have TV, which means that they go on 300 mile runs. We both had a good laugh at cross cultural mis-representations and ended the day on a happy note.
Now I just have to get in shape so that I can run with my students. I don't know what it is, if it is the elevation, the heat, or my diet, but I can't keep up with the students for more than 1/2 a mile. I can't say that I am getting old, because there was a 69 year old man that ran the 12 km race with the students. This guy gave a speech, and said that he has worked on a shamba all of his life, but he just loves running so much that on top of his farm work he runs about 10 km a day. What an inspiration. He certainly didn't get first, but he seemed to be about the happiest of any of the runners.
We were told that the first meet was going to begin at 7:30am, and so I was very worried when we showed up at 8:30am and no one was at the course. Round about 9 another school showed up. At about 9:45 the officials showed up, and then we got going at about 10:30. I felt awful because I told my physics students that I would be back at the school in the afternoon to teach a few extra classes, but there wasn't a lot I could do. So today we got to town at about 7:30, when we were told to meet at 7, only to find that everyone had already proceeeded ahead of us to the course. This is exactly the way Kenya is, you cannot say that they do not care about keeping time, because sometimes they keep strict times. It's those other times that really throw me off. No matter what time is kept - or not kept, people are generally understanding.
We arrived to the meet just in time, and everybody was very curious of who this mazungu. I met with the chairman, I met with some teachers, and some students. Then I got to watch the races. The students were lined up on the starting line, the gun goes off, and I see my student sprint to the front. I know that he got first last time, but maybe I should have warned him that this would be a slightly tougher crowd. One of the reasons why I left cross country was that I was the best at my school, and there was a lot pressure on me to always achieve results. The stress became too much and it just was not fun anymore. Maybe I should have relayed this story to my student, I don't care how well he does, as long as he tries and feels good about himself. So I see him after the first lap and yell out encouragement, "Paul, keep it up," and he returns, "but mwalimu" and gives me this pained face. After that I didn't notice him in the pack next time around but was able to find him sitting away from the course next to a few other students. Okay, talk time, I don't care if you get first, there were lots of people in the race that you could have kept up with. He says that he knows, and wants to try again. During this talk it comes out that the cross country team only goes on 4 km runs, maybe 3 times a week, while the races are between 8 and 12 km. No wonder he got burnt out quickly. Now though, he knows what races are like, and can help motivate the other students. I will also try to step up a little more to help them organize themselves.
The event was followed by speeches from a member of parliment, district commisioner, and a representatives of the sponsors of the events. We were even blessed by the presence of the winner of like 6 international marathons who happens to be from this part of Kenya. Runners in Kenya are really revered. Even the runners today who finished in the top 6 for each race received track suits, 20 thousand shillings, and are being put up in the training camp for the next week in order to prepare for the national event.
I told my student that in highschool my English teacher told me that Kenyans are good runners because they don't have TV, which means that they go on 300 mile runs. We both had a good laugh at cross cultural mis-representations and ended the day on a happy note.
Now I just have to get in shape so that I can run with my students. I don't know what it is, if it is the elevation, the heat, or my diet, but I can't keep up with the students for more than 1/2 a mile. I can't say that I am getting old, because there was a 69 year old man that ran the 12 km race with the students. This guy gave a speech, and said that he has worked on a shamba all of his life, but he just loves running so much that on top of his farm work he runs about 10 km a day. What an inspiration. He certainly didn't get first, but he seemed to be about the happiest of any of the runners.
24 January 2009
Week of Obama and School Strikes
Teachers are striking here. I have not been able to discern precisely which teachers are striking and which are not. Some teachers, primary school teachers, are definitely striking. Secondary school teachers may or may not be striking. All week I have been at school teaching, and some of the other teachers have been too. This week the school may close completely, or it may not. Either way, it is a peaceful strike and I will continue to be present for my students.
On the 20th I had the pleasure of announcing to the students that Obama was being inaugurated today. I imagined myself sitting around a radio with 100 students at 8pm (noon in Washington, DC) listening to the event. In preparation I ran to my fellow teachers house across town, borrowed her radio, and upon returning called all interested students to the flag pole to listen with me. I imagined that even if students were not interested in hearing Obama speak that they would at least be interested in finding a reason to not study. I know that my students are excited about Obama, but still only 6 or 7 joined me. The reason was that they were all too concerned about their studies to leave for an hour. It also turned out that all of the commentary was in Kiswahili. I am learning Kiswahili, but in my excitement I wanted to hear all of the details. The school cook has a friend in Athiru with a hotel that has a generator and a TV. Him and two students rushed me off, or maybe I was rushing them, to the hotel and arrived in time to see the opening prayer of the inauguration. The room was packed by about 60 Kenyans and one American. I wanted my students to absorb and appreciate it all. They said that Obama's speech was very clear and that they understood it, but I wanted to push them to the front of the crowd and let my excitement overwhelm them. I think that even though I refrained from this course of action that they appreciated the experience very much. The TV showed a split screen between the crowd in Washington, DC and the students at Nairobi University. My students said that the crowd in Nairobi looked more excited, but I think that the people were excited in different ways. In Nairobi they had pop music artists playing and the crowds were active. In Washington the people felt how I felt, and we showed it by feeling as though we would cry. It wasn't quite the night that I imagined, I wish that I could have been with all of my students to let them all have the experience with me, but I think that the night would have meant more to me anyways.
At school, two days later, I had the privilege of attending the prefect and administration meeting. This is the analog of student counsel in the States, except that the student prefects do a lot more than I did when I was on student counsel. They do everything from helping the teachers ensure that games happen, to coordinating cleaning efforts around the school, to helping the teachers discipline students. It amazes me that you can expect a student to help enforce the discipline of the other students, but in Kenya it seems to work.
At the meeting we mostly discussed the discipline of the school, and I received confirmation that indeed to the students being discipline with their studying was more important than listening to Obama. The students asked us to enforce discipline more strictly, they asked us to change the schedule to require the boarding students to be in their classrooms every morning at 5am, and they asked us to punish them for speaking Kiswahili instead of English. I am continually amazed and impressed by the students. They really want to be the early bird and to do well. The goal of most of the students is to make it to America. I've been reading the book, The Bottom Billion, which has been making me think about issues like this one. I recommend the book for anyone who is interested in globalization or the giving of Aid to developing countries. It is a big problem for the development of Kenya that the most educated citizens want to leave. I try to tell them that it would be better for Kenya if they focused their energy not on leaving, but on trying to change and build the country. This doesn't work though, I need to think about how to get them to believe the words that I am saying. I wonder if the most educated will always want to leave as long as they see life as being better abroad, or if there are other motivations make them want to remain. Maybe the key to make them appreciate Kenya is to focus on helping them to think about what makes a life good. I have tried this a little by saying that I think the best life that you can lead is the one where you affect the most positive change, but how sure am I of this? Being here in Kenya I have come to believe it, but there was a time when I thought that maybe the best life was the most simple life. Maybe if I open up this dialog with my students they will be able to help teach me what is best. This last sentence was inspired by the movie, Conan, where someone says to Conan, "Conan, what is best in life?" And Conan responds something about crushing your enemies and see them driven before you. I think I can say with confidence that I do not agree with Conan.
I am going to start a debate club in the next couple of weeks, and maybe this can be a topic.
On the 20th I had the pleasure of announcing to the students that Obama was being inaugurated today. I imagined myself sitting around a radio with 100 students at 8pm (noon in Washington, DC) listening to the event. In preparation I ran to my fellow teachers house across town, borrowed her radio, and upon returning called all interested students to the flag pole to listen with me. I imagined that even if students were not interested in hearing Obama speak that they would at least be interested in finding a reason to not study. I know that my students are excited about Obama, but still only 6 or 7 joined me. The reason was that they were all too concerned about their studies to leave for an hour. It also turned out that all of the commentary was in Kiswahili. I am learning Kiswahili, but in my excitement I wanted to hear all of the details. The school cook has a friend in Athiru with a hotel that has a generator and a TV. Him and two students rushed me off, or maybe I was rushing them, to the hotel and arrived in time to see the opening prayer of the inauguration. The room was packed by about 60 Kenyans and one American. I wanted my students to absorb and appreciate it all. They said that Obama's speech was very clear and that they understood it, but I wanted to push them to the front of the crowd and let my excitement overwhelm them. I think that even though I refrained from this course of action that they appreciated the experience very much. The TV showed a split screen between the crowd in Washington, DC and the students at Nairobi University. My students said that the crowd in Nairobi looked more excited, but I think that the people were excited in different ways. In Nairobi they had pop music artists playing and the crowds were active. In Washington the people felt how I felt, and we showed it by feeling as though we would cry. It wasn't quite the night that I imagined, I wish that I could have been with all of my students to let them all have the experience with me, but I think that the night would have meant more to me anyways.
At school, two days later, I had the privilege of attending the prefect and administration meeting. This is the analog of student counsel in the States, except that the student prefects do a lot more than I did when I was on student counsel. They do everything from helping the teachers ensure that games happen, to coordinating cleaning efforts around the school, to helping the teachers discipline students. It amazes me that you can expect a student to help enforce the discipline of the other students, but in Kenya it seems to work.
At the meeting we mostly discussed the discipline of the school, and I received confirmation that indeed to the students being discipline with their studying was more important than listening to Obama. The students asked us to enforce discipline more strictly, they asked us to change the schedule to require the boarding students to be in their classrooms every morning at 5am, and they asked us to punish them for speaking Kiswahili instead of English. I am continually amazed and impressed by the students. They really want to be the early bird and to do well. The goal of most of the students is to make it to America. I've been reading the book, The Bottom Billion, which has been making me think about issues like this one. I recommend the book for anyone who is interested in globalization or the giving of Aid to developing countries. It is a big problem for the development of Kenya that the most educated citizens want to leave. I try to tell them that it would be better for Kenya if they focused their energy not on leaving, but on trying to change and build the country. This doesn't work though, I need to think about how to get them to believe the words that I am saying. I wonder if the most educated will always want to leave as long as they see life as being better abroad, or if there are other motivations make them want to remain. Maybe the key to make them appreciate Kenya is to focus on helping them to think about what makes a life good. I have tried this a little by saying that I think the best life that you can lead is the one where you affect the most positive change, but how sure am I of this? Being here in Kenya I have come to believe it, but there was a time when I thought that maybe the best life was the most simple life. Maybe if I open up this dialog with my students they will be able to help teach me what is best. This last sentence was inspired by the movie, Conan, where someone says to Conan, "Conan, what is best in life?" And Conan responds something about crushing your enemies and see them driven before you. I think I can say with confidence that I do not agree with Conan.
I am going to start a debate club in the next couple of weeks, and maybe this can be a topic.
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