A cold day in February thinking about Kenya

This very cold February day has me reminiscing about my time in Kenya this past July and remembering the heat. Not that I really enjoy the heat but -37 isn't that great either. I am not a natural blogger, doing things trumps writing about them in my life and I've been very busy since the end of July but now these cold winter days I feel like I've caught up.

Our trip in July was a long anticipated teacher visit to schools in the Kinyambu area. My friend Simon and his wife Beth had both come to Canada early in their careers and found the experience of seeing the world and immersing themselves into another country to be a life changing time. They would love to come back but the Canadian government is very stingy with visas to come and visit here and so we've kind of given up on having Kenyans come to see our schools. But we can still go there and that is what we did.


Three teachers from Saskatchewan and one from Manitoba came with me. We spent a couple of weeks visiting schools in the Kinyambu area. In most of the schools we would pair up with a teacher in an area of interest and spend most of the day with them in their classes. We had brought a variety of teaching resources with us and used these in the classrooms as well as we were able. The teachers of the younger children had lots of fun with balloon animals, games and balls, lots of brightly colored materials that they totally lack in their everyday classes. They generally have a blackboard of poor quality, white chalk and notebooks. They take notes or recite and that's pretty much it. Having some colorful materials and books is very exciting to them.

One of the things we did was bring cash to purchase school supplies for three of the main schools we visited. We had raised this from various groups including a church group in Manitoba. We had a big day driving to the nearest school supply store about four hours away and picking up great packages of textbooks and reference material that the schools had requested.

 We were big hits as we presented these to the schools. Students, teachers and parents turned out in the school yards for the big presentations.

We heard from Simon at the end of the year that the students in these schools had done well in their national examinations. They are very focused on these exams. Students can't progress unless they do well. This determines which secondary schools they can attend and which post-secondary programs they can enter. Kenya is trying to move their system to include more creativity and innovation into the curriculum and focus more on skill development rather than just rote memorization. It will take time though but as a culture they can be very entrepreneurial and this needs to be nourished. Here is a website that describes the changes: How New Education Will Work

After our work there we left Kinyambu behind and started a five-day safari through Tsavo East and West National parks and Amboseli which is at the food of Kilimanjaro. These are all relatively close to Kinyambu.

We stayed mainly in a hotel in the town of Voi which was cheaper than the lodges in the game parks but had some traffic challenges.

We had a great time though, lots of elephants, giraffe, lions and antelope and gazelles. We even saw a couple of cheetah. Because of the lengthy period of drought many animals congregated around the watering holes which made them easy to find, for us and the predators which looked very fat!

Two of us came home after 3 weeks and the other 3 stayed and extended their safari to the western part of Kenya, Masai Mara, the Lake Victoria area and through the Aberdares and into the Mt. Kenya area. They too had a great time.

We have started a project to build 3 classrooms and some administration offices at Nzavoni Primary School (see Philip's blog below) and will need to go and monitor that project probably in November of 2018. We love to take  people with us. Newcomers to Kenya are always welcome.

Work Accomplished--More work to be done.

Philip

  Connie's son Philip has recently returned from Kinyambu and Nzavoni 
  schools, and other places in Africa, and sends his report.

   At the schools I was welcomed with lots of fancy ceremony,  dancing, and 
  singing, which was much appreciated. 

  Kinyambu

The new Kinyambu library

    The teachers and students 
  of Kinyambu primary are 
  really happy to have their new library. They recently got a lockable metal vault in the back of the building where they can store valuables. That's been really helpful now that they have a few laptop computers etc. to keep safe. 

They also mentioned to me that they are really happy with the fence at the school. It's already allowed more trees to grow in the school grounds since it prevents grazing animals from venturing through the area. The gate project has started now, as it was just funded while I was there. They were happy to hear that news. The finished gate will completely seal in the whole school yard. 

The kitchen at Kinyambu school needs replacing.

After looking over all the things that the Friends of Kinyambu and Rainbow of Hope for Children have provided for Kinyambu primary school (for which they are all very thankful), I had asked what the next priorities should be for them to improve conditions there. One of the top priorities was a new kitchen. The kitchen they have is quite small and starting to crumble. 

Other priorities are a new administration building. Theirs is also getting quite old (built in 1974) and showing some wear and tear. It's much too small to comfortably house everyone who needs to work there. They also thought that some permanent metal soccer nets would be a great benefit for the kids. 

Nzavoni

Next I went to Nzavoni school. There are 130 students attending the school.  The first picture is of their newest classroom with some of the kids at school that day walking by. That building is quite good, but unfortunately it's the only good building at the school. 

The newest Nzavoni classroom

The next photo is from inside the other classroom building, which you can see is really starting to crumble with a huge crack in the wall. Just above the crack, you can see that the rafter in the roof is nearly completely eaten away by termites. There is also a hole in the metal roofing there that lets a lot of water seep into the class when it rains. 

Crumbling classrooms that need replacing.

The much needed new building project for Nzavoni is now funded and will have three classrooms and a teachers' room with a vault in it for valuables.

My meeting with Nzavoni school was quite productive. Simon and I met with the parents of some of the students from that school who came out to talk about the project to build two new buildings for Nzavoni. They will be helping dig the foundation of the buildings and providing some security to make sure that none of the new building materials get stolen after they are delivered. The parents unanimously (and enthusiastically) agreed to volunteer their time to help with the project. We had 40 parents there who all voted in support of the project. I also presented a laptop computer to the principal of the school, and a soccer ball for the students. They were really excited about all of it!

These school projects are making a difference for the students and teachers, and are an asset to the whole community. 

Nzavoni - A School in Need

The last couple of times I've been to the Kinyambu area, I have visited a nearby primary school called Nzavoni. 

 The students and staff of Nzavoni

Last winter we brought them some educational gifts and they sang for us. They sing in their local Kamba language with great joy, welcoming visitors.

Nzavoni Classroom

Nzavoni Classroom

However, the poor condition of the classrooms there struck me both times. On the last visit, in March of 2016, I could see that things were getting bad quickly. We saw a couple of classrooms that had rotten rafters half fallen down, big cracks in the walls and evidence of a large termite mound that was forming in the inside walls. The head teacher's office was tiny and the teacher's workroom was in disrepair. 

Parents are concerned for their children in these rooms, consequently, the school has been losing students to nearby schools, causing overcrowding at those other schools. 

It kept bothering me after I got home and after talking to George Bunz and others at Rainbow of Hope we decided to put fundraising resources into building 3 classrooms and some offices for them. Kenya made primary school education free in 2003 but local communities are responsible for school buildings and maintenance. The government supplies teachers and some very basic school supplies.

There will be a water tank on each building to catch rainwater and we will furnish the classrooms with desks, tables and chairs and blackboards. The offices will have lockable storage for exams and materials and desks and chairs for teachers. Parents will provide unskilled labour and are excited to have a new building for their children.

I and the Kenya group we work with, want to make sure that we don't just focus all our efforts on one school and that we spread things around a bit. This will be a good start. We hope that parents bring their children back to this school and that the standards of education will strengthen.

Monitoring visit, February and March 2016

It's been several months since returning from my latest visit to Kinyambu. It seems to take me that long to process things and get down what the visit meant to me.

Monitoring Team

I had two friends with me this time, new to Kenya, who found the visit quite interesting and inspiring. Roy, my cousin, 10 days younger than me, who had spent much of his work life in northern Manitoba  found the whole trip an eye opener. He is someone who watched every National Geographic Special on Africa but kept saying how different the reality is. A TV show just can't capture the smells, the light, the sounds and the people. Cal, a new friend from Prince Albert, was most intrigued by meeting the local people. He enjoyed the dancing, visiting the schools, getting into the local life and eating the local food.

We met with Simon and the KRECD group on the Saturday afternoon of our visit. They are excited about possible programs we can do to improve agricultural production in the area. Their idea is to get better breeds of chicken and improved fruit trees and give them to the school children who would raise them at their homes. Kind of like our 4H programs. Sounds good to me.

Presenting a laptop

We also visited Kinyambu Primary School where we presented them with 2
computers and a printer and a lot of sports clothing for the teachers and t-shirts that the students can wear while playing so they look more like a team. They're enjoying those and the students are learning to operate the printer too.

Thange School Students

We also went to two nearby schools, Thange where Beth Muendo teaches and Nzavoni. We presented some gifts to the schools and they sang songs for us too.

Nzavoni has some classrooms in very bad condition. The termites have gotten into the rafters and they are almost non-existent. The walls have big cracks and the floors are rough. I came home determined to raise some money to build some new classrooms there which I've started to raise money for.

We left for Tanzania after a few days, driving around Mt. Kilimanjaro  to visit another Rainbow of Hope project.

See you next year, Kinyambu.

Learning computers

The Kinyambu Library is now equipped with computers and printer. Sylvia Ndunge Kyalo and Teddy Muoti lend a hand in printing some work for the headteacher.

Both Sylvia and Teddy are class eight pupils in Kinyambu Primary. They did marvelous work with the laptop and printer after just a few directions on how to operate them.

Post and pictures courtesy of  Mwalimu Timothy Kaija, seen below using the computer as well.