…the roof didn’t blow off!! But there were times that we were sure it would be gone!! Today there were dark clouds overhead – and I could sense some rain was on the way – the mornings have been very chilly at the moment, which makes our morning baths interesting!! As normal we were up at 7 and off to school by 8 heading down the deserted and dusty roads!!
Today could go either way – the head teacher opting for a day of ‘self teaching’ or us actually getting into class and teaching the kids!! Today also saw the arrival of Joesph ( he took yesterday off sick). And after getting spoken to about his grading, proceeded to ask us for a ‘talk’ over looking the valley….
Joesph is a very complex person who seems to have big heart for his community – but sometimes we feel his community work comes first over his Standard 1 class – who are still self teaching. We won’t go onto details about the talk – where money was the main focus (which we don’t haves lot of in the first place) and we have also decided that if we donate money we will do this ourselves, so that we can cut out the middle man. This is to protect our money and hard work going ‘missing’ which seem to happen here sometimes. Its a sad but true fact here in Africa.
After the chat we couldn’t take it and buckled…deciding to take the class 6 and 7 for revision after there exams. As we marked the pupils exams we had a good knowledge of what parts they struggled with and needed to focus on. We covered such basics which back home are covered very early on at school – and should have been mastered well before the exams. It was great to see the kids ‘click’ at something that you had taught them – and it further dawned on us that this school doesn’t need new windows, desks or shoes – but a dedicated timetable, teaching staff and resources like books and pens. That being said – the kids are lucky as we are putting windows in the classrooms this week, but during this process we got very annoyed with Joesph. In this occasion he had locked the measurements for the windows in the office and the DP had gone with the keys – and as ironic as it sounds – Joesph proceeded to break a window pane in the office to gain the paper work for the new windows!! This was the crunch point for us today – and we left at lunch for a long weekend break.
We needed to blow off some steam – so hit the dusty road and walked to the neighbouring town of Saikeri to check out their local school, find out how it’s run, and to chat to our friends based there to get ideas on how to help our troubled teachers. It was great and certainly helped – so we walked home happy, already for another family dinner Kenya style!!
