Naishipai

Today was my last day at St. Andrews, and boy was it a sad day. Tomorrow is the big harambee, which is the term for a fundraiser here. Unfortunately I couldn't teach, because they were cleaning up the school, but I came for the last few hours of the day. When I got there the students were doing a bunch of different things, such as cleaning, moving dirt, putting up tents and making badges for people to wear. A group of girls were in one room singing traditional Kenyan songs and dancing which was so much fun to watch. I even jumped in and danced with them which they loved, despite my terrible dance skills. About an hour after I got there, Deb and my aunt Liz arrived for the goodbye ceremony that Peter had planned. Of course like everything else  in Kenya, it began an hour after he said it would. Good ol' Africa time, I'm going to miss it.
The whole goodbye process was easily the best and saddest part of my whole experience here. Peter said wonderful things about me, and he gave me a letter of recommendation which will be very helpful when I try to get credit for the teaching I have done here. After the letter, he gave me all sorts of presents from the school! He had me stand there, while one of my favorite students, Margaret came and dressed me up in my new presents. Included in the ensemble was a traditional Maasai (one of the tribes here) cloth, two necklaces, a bracelet, a pair of sandals and a three carved giraffe all together. Here is a picture of Margaret putting everything on.

I was also given posters by two of the students which will definitely go on my wall at college. After all of the wonderful gifts had been given, I had a chance to give a speech to all of the students which was incredibly hard to do without crying. Luckily I made it through and got a few laughs out of them with my swahili words. I don't think I realized how much I am going to miss St. Andrews and all of the students there until today. Two of the girls I have become very close with started crying which made it even harder for me. After some more speeches from several teachers and students, everything came to a close, but not before a lot of hugs and of course some pictures.

Me and Margaret with all of my lovely presents! 

If you are having trouble finding me, look for the only white person in bright red :)

Luckily, I didn't have to say any final goodbyes today because they will all be at the harambee tomorrow. But still, today was the first day that it has really hit me what I am leaving behind here. I don't know why I ever thought it would be easy to leave these students. Every time one of them came up to me today and told me how much they were going to miss me it broke my heart a little bit and it made me want to stay here forever. BUT, as Peter told the students, I am a student too, and as hard as it is for me to go, I have a duty to learn just like they do. One thing is for sure though, I need to come back here in the next few years.

OH I forgot to explain the title of the post! The students gave me a maasai name, Naishipai, meaning something along the lines of "Happy Woman" which I thought was very fitting :)

tatu zuri

So with my limited swahili, my title means three good. The word good is from a list of adjectives that I was supposed to learn. (Whoops) What I'm trying to get at, is I have three exciting things to write about. Hopefully you get the point!
1) My aunt has arrived!!!! For those of you who didn't know, my aunt Liz is going to be here for the last two weeks of my stay in Kenya, and then we are going to spend a week in Paris. It is so great to see someone from home and I'm so excited to share Kenya with her! Tomorrow, she will be coming to St. Andrews with me. In order to really show her what my life has been like, I have arranged for a second motorcycle to bring her to the school and back with me. Luckily, she doesn't have to do the biking part of the journey.
2) I finished grading all my tests on time!!! It only took like 7 hours total. And teachers, not a single one of you send me an email. I am just a tad disappointed, but what can you do. Anyways, out of the 160 tests, over 40 students got an A. Most teachers would say they made the test too easy if this happened, but I am just so excited that they actually studied and are actually understanding what I've been teaching them, so I could care less. On Wednesday I'm giving them an essay which will be the real test of their understanding. Friday is my last day teaching, so technically I need to have 160 essays graded in two days... I think it's time to tell Greg, Deb and Liz that we're going to have one big grading party Wednesday night.
3) Ok this one is the best. On friday, Deb, myself and Peter (the principal at St. Andrews) went into Nairobi and met with a woman named Mary Mugo. She is VERY high up in the education system in Kenya, and she is part of a team that is/ has created a peace and reconciliation curriculum for schools across Kenya. I got to meet with her, and I typed up my whole curriculum and gave it to her to read. When I was told we were going to be meeting with her, I figured they really didn't have much of a curriculum. From my experience here so far, it seems a lot of Kenyans lack the critical thinking skills. Not all of them, but a fair amount. Mary and her team are absolutely an exception to this generalization. She gave me the curriculum they have created and I was blown away. It was 10 times better than anything I have reached, and it would have been really helpful for me to have had when I started teaching! We got to listen to Mary, and her assistants Beatrice and Eunice describe the work they have done, including what they created to help Kenyans who were harmed in the post election violence following the presidential election in 2007. She was a really wonderful woman and it was fascinating for me to hear what she had to say, and incredibly satisfying to hand this very important woman the curriculum that a little 18 year old from America created. And guess what. This isn't the end of the good news. Peter and Deb started talking to her about St. Andrews, and the schools philosophy, and the problems they face, and she said she would love to come out and see the school. She also said that she could get Peter at least 3 government paid teachers which would be EXCELLENT for St. Andrews, because right now all of their teachers aren't even certified teachers and they are paid very poorly. I have never seen a man as happy as Peter was when we left this meeting. Her repeated over and over again, "I am such a happy man right now, I am just thrilled." So even though they probably won't even use most, or any of my curriculum, I was a gateway for St. Andrews to talk to the "big wigs" of education in Kenya.

Beatrice, Me, Mary and Peter
Don't worry I do have other skirts that I wear, this one is just my favorite

Alright so thats all of my "tatu zuri" section, now I just have some odds and ends that people might find interesting.
1) In the teacher's room at St. Andrews, there are wasp nets in every corner of the room except for one. One of them is RIGHT over my head, and I am absolutely terrified of bees and wasps. I always have one eye on the nest, and on Friday I finally asked the teachers why on EARTH the wasps are still there. I said in America these things would have been removed/ killed in an instant. One of the teachers responded that they are sacred. Now WHY would any culture make these stupid little things sacred. Being a curious person, I asked this question. Mr. Ondari, the teacher who answered me the first time, said he didn't know. And here, once again, is the lack of critical thinking. But at the same time, traditions were created for a reason, well hopefully, and I have learned to respect them and not question them. Even if it means I get stung. Except that won't happen because when they're flying around I quickly put my raincoat on, hood included so barely any of my skin is exposed. :)
2) At the nursery school on thursday, I put my new swahili sentences to use. For my lesson I turned them around, writing the swahili then the english. All the students loved my swahili speaking and it was fun for me to actually have something to say to them! Now they know how to say the cow is sleeping, the goat is running, the boy is reading, the mother is cooking. All of which are obviously VERY helpful sentences. It was pouring rain, so unfortunately they didn't have recess which is the best part of the day. Here's a picture of little lilly in her raincoat with a hood that could fit like two heads in it.

Silly Miriam held up her name the wrong direction!

grading.

So my whole life I have never understood what is so terrible about grading. To be honest, I thought grading tests sounded like fun. I'm pretty sure I offered to grade a teacher's papers for her once. My offer was obviously turned down, but as you can tell, it never seemed like a terrible activity to me. Well, this naive opinion of mine has been obliterated. Yes I know, strong word. Giving a test to 150 students and promising to return it by Wednesday was not so smart. So I have a question for all of you teachers reading this blog. HOW DO YOU DO IT?! Like seriously, are there any techniques on how to make grading less boring than it is? Reading the same thing over and over and over again gets old REALLY quickly. I have 60 graded so far, which has taken me 3 hours. If any teachers have any advice, send me an email I would love to hear from you! I'm also just curious about how many of you are actually reading this thing.
Ok none of this is actually very interesting, but the good news is a lot of my students are doing really well so far!!! I have at least 10 100%'s and I've gotten some really good answers. After 5 weeks of teaching, it's so exciting for me to see that at least some of my students are actually paying attention and understand what I've been saying. AND they studied! To be honest, I was a little skeptical.
I can't bear not attaching a picture, because I'm slightly convinced there are a couple people who just look at the pictures. (No harm there, I would probably do the same thing.)
So, here is a picture of me and little Greg, the little rascal who lost my watch, who is still one of my favorite people in the world. I spent Sunday morning with him rolling a tire back and forth and building rock structures, both of which are underrated pastimes.

N'gombe analala

So I apologize for the lack of Swahili titles in my previous posts. I am proud to say that on tuesday I learned over 40 swahili words! And the miracle is I still remember most of them! I also know some short sentences, such as n'gombe analala. Does anyone want to guess what this means? I bet you didn't guess the cow is sleeping. How about kondoo anatembea? Anyone guess the sheep is walking? If so swahili is the language for you! I was telling one of my friends some of the swahili i've learned, including these two sentences, and she sarcastically said to me well those are useful, and I replied by saying, you'd be surprised. And sure enough, I thoroughly impressed James the motorcycle driver with my new sentences. I see at least 50 cows, sheep and goats every trip to or from the school, so these little sentences seem to be proving to be just as useful as a sentence like "I am eating" would be. (Mimi ninakula in case you were wondering :) )
Alright that's enough about my new oh so useful swahili phrases. My 5th week here has come to a close and I have LOTS to share with you. After my successful lesson on Monday I was feeling pretty good about the week at that point. Tuesday, I went up to the nursery school which is always fun. To be honest I completely forget what I taught them, but whatever it was, it went well. Here is a picture of four of the kids who are in the "baby class", which I believe is for kids ages 1-3.

I used the reflective sun glasses trick again and they LOVED it. The little girl in the next picture is one of my favorites and she has the best smile. Unfortunately, I am barely in the picture, but you get the idea. She's much cuter than I am anyways.

On Wednesday I decided it was time to crack down and really learn some of my student's names at St. Andrews. During lunch, I went to my form 1 purple class (one of my favorites) and told them I was determined to learn all of their names in the next 40 minutes. I'd pick a group at a time, and memorize them, then move on. After I had been to every student, I told them all to sit in their seats and I would go around and say all their names. Little did I know, I had a tricky group on my hand. They decided to be tricky, and switched seats. What made it ever MORE hard, was the fact that a lot of them switched jackets, glasses, head wraps etc. This really messed with my brain but it was hilarious to see them covered in each other's clothes.

This is Hussein who just cracked me up with his new outfit.

The first time I went around I got about 10 names wrong. Then, I told them to all switch seats again and I would leave the classroom until they were done. When I came back in, they had all switched clothes once again, but this time I managed to get almost every person's name! (it may not have been on my first try but that's ok)

Yesterday at St. Andrews I decided to try something new. After giving them 10 minutes to review for the test I'm giving them on Monday (we'll see how that goes), I explained to them that I wanted to do some role playing/ skits. I broke them into groups of 4-6 and told them they had to think of a family conflict, assign every person a role, and then act it out, including the resolution. Only one or two groups got to present in each class, but I was SO impressed with what I saw. They were so creative and did a great job using props. 

One of the groups creating their skit

Kakeshi and her "baby"

Here we have a male student playing a pregnant mother, due to the lack of girls in his group.

One of the groups performing, including Mr. pregnant mama

They all did a great job acting and got quite a few laughs from their audiences. I was very impressed with some of the things they said in their skits. In one skit, there was a father, his sons, and their grandfather. The grandfather was talking, and he said "my grandchildren, don't you understand that you must respect your father, you have no say." And one of the grandchildren replied, "Grandfather, this is our time now." This is exactly the type of thinking I am trying to get them to use. Really thinking about why or how they would/ could improve their lives and their society in the future.

I only have 5 more days of teaching which seems so crazy to me. Luckily, I know almost exactly what I am going to do every day which has rarely happened. 

I hope everyone has an excellent weekend, and for those of you in New England I hope you are appreciating the beautiful foliage! And beautiful as Kenya is, I really do miss foliage. 

OH and I am going to attempt to set up a paypal account later today or tomorrow so people who want to donate to the school/ sponsor me in the 15 km walk that I did, can do so. I will write another post when I get it set up, so stay tuned!

Onions

After being terrified I would have nothing to teach today, I ended up having a great lesson plan. The topic this week is family conflicts, which is a tricky one like I said in the last post because of the issue of respect. Well anyways, while reading the Daily Nation, the Kenyan newspaper, yesterday, I came across a poll that asked, "In your opinion, what is the most serious problem facing Kenya today?" The options were tribalism, poor leadership, corruption, high cost of living and lack of employment. I redid the poll with my students, asking the question in two different ways. First I asked what they thought the most serious problem facing kenya as a country was, then I asked what was the most serious problem facing kenyan citizens. The answers were drastically different, which is what I wanted. For the first question, most of them said corruption and poor leadership, and for the second question most of them said high cost of living and lack of employment. Which made complete sense. Then, I compared it to the layers of an onion, talking about how the outer layer was the one that was right in front of everyone's eyes. Props to Deb for the onion idea by the way! I asked them what they thought the order of the layers should be, from outside to inside, and this is what they said:
1) High cost of living
2) Lack of employment
3) Corruption
4) Poor leadership
(We left tribalism out because it only got 1% of the votes)
Their answers were EXACTLY what I wanted them to say which was great to see.
In the nation the percents of the people they asked were as follows:
1) High cost of living 76%
2) Lack of employment 10%
3) Corruption 7%
4) Poor leadership 5%

As you can see the numbers lined up perfectly with our onion layers, which I used to explain what critical thinking is, and being able to understand the root cause of a problem. Critical thinking barely exists in the teaching here, it is all memorization which I might have already said, but this little activity was an excellent transition into root causes of family conflict, and critical thinking. Both of which I want to cover this week. So that went really well!
And in my favorite class, form 1 purple we had a blast today. When I said onion in english they all started saying the word for onion in swahili, which of course I forget already. But, when I finally said it right (it took me about 5 tries) They all started clapping for me and said we're so proud of you!!! We were all laughing and having a grand old time. The next fun moment in that class came about when I was talking about how it's hard to me to really understand what their family life is really like because I've never been in their house (what I meant was the same type of thing as walking in someones shoes) as a metaphor, and immediately they all started shouting out "you are welcome in my house!!! come to my house!!! No you can visit my house!!!" Which was absolutely hysterical and so sweet of them.

Lastly, Deb told me to always carry my rain coat with me these days because of these lovely short rains. After a beautiful weekend with not a drop of rain, I was hesitant to bring it with me this morning. Then I thought, knowing my luck, if I don't bring it it will rain. And MUCH to my dismay, as soon as I got on my bike to come home the rain began. Glad I had my raincoat! Now all I need is some sort of mud guard so I don't get mud in my mouth anymore. (Or all over myself for that matter.) Well, what's life without a little dirt and adventure!

"Short rains?"

So the short rain season has just begun and I'm starting to question the "short" part of it. Wednesday, it was basically raining all day, and then it rained Thursday night and this morning it was pouring when I got up. Perfect biking conditions. BUT this time I was prepared!

I put on a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, then a rain jacket, then my back pack, then another rain jacket. On my head, I had a baseball hat, my helmet and both hoods. I later changed into Deb's orange crocs to complete the rain outfit, which were much more suitable for the weather. I started off on my bike, but the soil on the driveway is a type of soil that basically turns into a slick oil during rain, so I couldn't even get on my bike, let alone walk at a normal pace without slipping all over the place. But I made it in one piece! Just a little muddy. When I was on the motorcycle I was waving at everyone like I always do, but I was getting some really weird looks. When I got to school, one of the teachers said, "Molly you have some dirt on your face!" I looked in a mirror and my face was COVERED in dirt. No wonder I was getting all of the weird looks. My legs were also completely covered, and one of the teachers was nice enough to go heat up some water in a bucket for me to clean them off with. 

My 4th week of teaching has come to a close! Next week the topic is conflict between family members, which is going to be a challenge. Their culture is so different here, especially when it comes to family dynamics. The level of respect children need to have for their parents is much much higher, and they aren't allowed to question a single thing their parents say. If they do, most students told me they would get beaten. Anyways, I will write about how that goes some time next week.

Enjoy your weekend!

Miracles do happen

So. After a rough start to the morning, a miracle happened. Let me begin with the morning. When I left on my bike, it was pretty cold and it looked cloudy, but I figured a simple fleece in my bag would be plenty. As I got onto my motorcycle it started to sprinkle a little, but I thought nothing of it. About 5 minutes into the ride it started DOWN POURING. In about 3 minutes I was literally soaked. There was not a single dry area on me, and my clothes had started dripping with water. I tried to huddle behind James to protect myself from the lovely rain, but that was kind of a fail. By the time I had arrived at school I was so miserably cold so I sprinted into the teachers room. I changed into my skirt and just my fleece hoping I would warm up a little, without much luck. Ok so to sum it up, I was very cold. After my first class I came back to the teachers room and guess. what. Madame Mwangi had my watch!!!!!

I gave her a HEEEEEUGE hug and thanked her profusely. I seriously never thought I would ever see that watch again, now it doesn't even matter that Superman isn't working! I'm definitely keeping that watch as a keepsake though.

Love this woman (That's her scarf I'm wearing, isn't it great?)

After getting my watch, my day started to pick up. At one point, Madame Mwangi, Madame Godana (a younger teacher), and myself all had a free class period and we were the only ones in the teachers room. Madame Godana was asking me about what type of music I like, and I listed off some American artists and then I said that I really liked Kenyan dance music. They got really excited and started dancing which was hysterical! They both had some great moves. Here's a picture of the two of them.

This post was supposed to just be about my watch, but apparently I had a lot more to talk about, whoops! Ok last story. On my way home today I came across 20 primary school kids walking home again and we had a ball! The trip home really goes a lot faster with them. I let them take turns using my bike and I walked along with the rest of them, chatting away. They were VERY impressed that I remember numbers 1-10 in swahili that they taught me last time :)