School Days & Kibera

Hello! I forgot to mention in my last post that I visited a church in Nairobi with my friends, and we took communion; the whole congregation (about 50 or 60 people) stood in a big circle, and on my left was a woman from India, and on my right was a man from The Congo. And I was from America. But we were all in Kenya. It was so cool.

I am back at Tumaini now; the kids have a new schedule. They’re in school until 5 pm, have about 1 hour of free time & have a schedule to follow until bedtime. I’m praying for wisdom on how to go about meeting with the girls to begin discipleship…I don’t know what to do. They have school on Saturdays until lunch time, and study time for 3 ½ hours on Sundays. There’s a new girl here, a Kenyan, whose job is to be here for the girls as a counselor and guide. She will be really helpful I think. =)
Since the kids have school on Saturday, there’s not really a weekend. So tonight, Lindsey & I are making hot chocolate and watching Gilmore Girls dvd’s to have our weekend time. =)

I started teaching this week, mostly classes 5, 6, & 7 because they understand English better. Here are some notes about the school here…
- There’s a different schedule everyday.
- 10:20-11:00 AM – all staff and students have a “porridge break” (surprisingly, I like it!)
- 1:00-2:00 PM – lunch
- 3:30-5:00 PM – games/music/drama/studying (all the teachers participate in the outdoor exercise & games…)
- Planning is not as big of a deal, things are much more laid back & flexible. So, I don’t really know what I’m teaching tomorrow. And everyday when I get into class with another teacher, I don’t really know what I’m teaching.
- Learning is mostly auditory because of lack of materials. Most of the teaching follows exactly what the Teacher’s handbook reads.
- Students are very well-behaved.
- To teach the digestive system, the teacher related some parts to “you know when you slaughter a hen, and you find the…” It’s true that people learn better when something’s relevant.
- Teachers switch classrooms in between classes, not the students; it’s opposite in America – the kids are the ones who change classrooms.
- Because teachers don’t have their own classrooms, they don’t do any cleaning/re-organizing/setting up at the end of the day unlike in America. They also share all their materials.
- When a student wants to answer something, he raises his hand and snaps repeatedly, saying “Teachah! Teachah!”
- Teachers only record grades at the end of every month. We’ll give grades all the time, but nothing is recorded until the end of the month – in America, we do this daily.
- Saturday school is a normal thing.

There’s a lot of differences, it’s really interesting. I take notes whenever I can just so I’ll remember. There’s a lot more day-to-day pressure on teachers in America I’m realizing. Today after school, one of the kids said, “Teachah katie, give me 5 minutes & I’ll teach you Kiswahili.” So on my journal, he wrote a bunch of words that I would use inside the classroom, in Kiswahili! Things like “do you understand?” book, pen, desk, please, “what does this mean?” etc. isn’t that sweet?

Kibera

Last week in Nairobi I spent a day touring Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi (and largest in the world). I went with one of the SIM staff members who lives there & 2 girls that were visiting Kenya (one worked in Nairobi for a year). It was about a 20 minute walk to get to Kibera from where I stay, not very far at all. The staff member took us first to his house where his wife had chai tea, popcorn, & bread with butter prepared for us. =) She said we needed energy to walk through Kibera. They live closer to the beginning of Kibera, which looks just like a miniature town. While we were walking, he said, “Katie, don’t be shocked. This is their way of life, where they’ve grown up, & they love it here. This is their home.” He was talking about the community of Kibera. I think because he said that, I wasn’t very shocked, I was just prepared. It’s kind of hard to describe. You know how some places in America have houses or lofts all connected? Like in the Northeast or in California? Well, just about every house in Kibera is connected, but the walls may not be cement; they may be used tin. After seeing the villages in Maasai Mara, this didn’t seem too bad. Some Maasai build their homes out of cow dung & sticks. The closer to the major road, the nicer the houses were (with cement walls). It really is a little miniature town…like, looks miniature. The streets are narrow and lined with little dukas (shops).

After our first stop at his house, we went to a school where one of the girls with me used to teach. She said the improvement at the school was unbelievable. They were adding a 2 story building of about 4-6 classrooms, & the kids had desks instead of big rocks to work on. When I say school, I mean 3 rooms with chalkboards & a little dirt yard in the middle. It was exciting being there during construction. Next we walked for about 30-40 minutes. The views from the hills in Kibera are amazing, overlooking either more of Kibera or more of Nairobi. Houses look like they’re stacked sideways instead of on top of each other, does that make sense? There is nowhere for trash to go, so for a lot of the time, we just walked on trash. Next we visited a school that had a library! It was the first day of school, but most of the kids didn’t go. Our friend informed us that that’s typical at that school on the first day…very different from home! Then we walked on for about 5 minutes & came to Joyspring, a school that’s run & funded by a church in Nairobi. About 300-400 students attend, there are 3 little school buildings (one is 2-story), and the entire school is on property a little smaller than the typical Chik-Fil-A building. 3 of the teachers didn’t show up on the first day of school, so my friend there said the headmaster & his wife (the secretary) were a little stressed. Matatu prices (taxi) were raised right after the holidays by at least 1000 ksh (shillings), so a lot of people were stuck up-country and couldn’t come back yet. Also, some teachers were “stolen” by another school…I’m not sure why, I imagine because of better pay? Lindsey & I joke that sometimes we might be on another planet because some things are just so different. Not in a bad way, just, super different. Even though Kibera is a slum, for some reason I wasn’t as “shocked” as I imagined I would be. It wasn’t that bad, just lots of trash & very small homes, schools, and shops. It did make me sad to see kids walking around the slums without shoes, though.

You can read Ryan’s thoughts on Kibera on his blog (on the right of my page…Kenya Mission). He has a picture. My computer is being suuuper slow…I have a feeling it’s because it’s 5 years old…=/ it’s makin’ me nervous! So I’m not uploading any pictures until I delete some things. I’m praying it lasts until I get home!

Most of what I’ve learned about African culture is just about the opposite of American culture. Thus, I am still adjusting to living somewhere completely different. I am missing Fort Worth lately...=/ I’m still enjoying learning here, but the differences can be overwhelming sometimes; I think since school started, it opened up a whole realm of “new.” It was almost like culture shock all over again. And so, that’s why I’m missing Fort Worth lately. Instead of the newness being super exciting, it’s a whole lot to process because school here is so different from in America. It’s so neat though, I can tell people are praying for me. Really!!! I wake up with joy in the mornings, or I receive sweet text messages from other SIMPacters. Today I got a call from Matt! He told me his brother’s tumor is shrinking! The second thing Jackson asked me when I got back to Nairobi last weekend was, “Katie, how is your friend, Steven?” so I’m excited to tell him that the doctors are calling Steven’s progress a miracle!!!

If you go to the Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, eat a funnel cake for me. =]

Super long post, thank you for your prayers sooooo much!!!! Bless you!!! =)