Back in Kenya

       For those of you who don't know, I am back in Kenya for 3 weeks! I don't think I have anything all that exciting to share so far, but I'll give it a shot!

      On Tuesday I went up to the nursery school where I was teaching english last fall. I recognized many of the kids, and they are still cute as ever! The class that I taught has moved onto primary school, and occasionally I see some of them walking home in their brand new primary school uniforms. Here is a video I made of the nursery school from my visit: https://vimeo.com/46688409

Irene

     Yesterday, I went to St. Andrews for the morning to see everyone and talk to Peter, the principal to figure out what I will be doing for the next two weeks. It was so great to be back at the school, meet the new students and teachers and see how much progress they have made! Last year they had a harambee, which is a big fundraiser to raise money to build two new classrooms. This is the first year they have a full school, with students from form 1 to form 4. The form 4 students are graduating in January, and they are the first class to ever graduate from St. Andrews! With the money that many of you contributed in my personal fundraising for the harambee last year they have completed the new classrooms! Here is a picture of the new classrooms, which are connected to two other classrooms.

      On the far side of the classrooms they are building a science laboratory which will make the school complete! The students are in the middle of their two and a half week exam period. They take 24 exams total. Can you imagine? I can't even comprehend how much knowledge they need to have stored in their brains in order to pass all of them. The Kenyan education system is very flawed in some ways. All learning is strictly lecture based, and the students are just expected to memorize. Ok so now time for what I will be doing for the next two weeks. My main project will be creating a peace and reconciliation club for St. Andrews, which will be based off of what they learned in my conflict resolution class. To be honest I have no idea how I am going to do this, but just as it did last year, I'm sure everything will fall into place. My second project will be to help the journalism club create a yearbook, so the form 4 students have something to remember St. Andrews after they graduate. Yesterday I took a picture of each of the 180 students and I'm praying all of the names are in the right order, or else all of the students names and pictures might not match up! My last project is going to be creating a short video of St. Andrews that can be used to promote the school, and hopefully draw more visitors to volunteer and donate. Hopefully all of this will keep me busy! 

     For those of you who live in Lincoln and heard about or stopped by the bakesale that myself, Jessica Nichols, Courtney Ingard and Henry Frost put on to raise money for school fees for two sweet girls here, I'm happy to announce that we raised a total of $1180! This is enough money to pay the school fees for the entire year, and to buy them extra clothing and school supplies that they do not have. Little Deb and Carol are just about to complete their first term at school, and Deb and I are driving to Mt. Kenya tomorrow to pick them up! It is 8 hours round trip, but luckily most of it is on paved roads which is a blessing in Kenya. I will make sure to take pictures of the school and report back! I'm really excited to see the area around Mt. Kenya, I've heard it is beautiful. 

     That's it for now!