Day 4 of the strike, and we really don’t see us returning to school this week, but are both hoping there is a resolution for next Monday so that we can return to the classrooms. On the bright side, we are really getting the full Kenyan experience, as we spend a lot more time at home with our family. We are determined to continue our work at the school though, and following a check of our new windows (none have been broken so far!!) we proceeded to continue fixing the schools desks for the kids….and a new project of school beatification!!
The school is a real mess with tons of rubbish, glass, nails and rocks scattered everywhere. So with the help of some local kids that we rounded up we begun to tidy things up a bit. We started by placing the loose rocks around the trees to form mini gardens. We picked up the glass that littered the school and gave the grounds a general spruce up. It’s amazing what a couple of hours of work can achieve!!
As we had the school keys and a home of bored kids, we decided to grab some school books and do a session of home schooling for the kids! Jax made a fantastic ABC chart for the younger kids to colour in, and Jordan gave the older kids some excercises from old work books to keep them occupied.
Before long it was time to fetch our nightly lot of water, so walked the 15 minute trail to the large tank to collect it. We should mention at this point that our village is facing a large water crisis, as the pump for the borehole is awaiting repair (and after they brought the wrong pump, the village was made to wait even longer!!). Because of this the locals have been without water for almost 3-4 weeks, and are having to resort to the extremely dirty and disease ridden dam water, which is designed for the cattle, not humans. As volunteers (and the only 2 White people for miles) we are given access to the clean tank water – or what ever is left of it – for showers and cooking. On this particular trip, we took the very over sized key to the tank, and were soon surrounded by 8-10 Masai men, women and kids. Word had gotten out that we were walking down to get water. This was a dis hearting and intimidating situation. We felt we had to give water to these people who by now are desperate, but we were under strict in instructions not too. If we gave one household water, then everyone had to have some. As we couldn’t communicate with them we took a risk and and left the tank – and promptly locked ourselves in the school office until the situation died down. This plan backfired – as it gave time for more locals to to find us – word was we were in the school office. We never felt physically threatened, but more emotionally. By this time mothers had start to gather around the office doors waiting for us to come out. We decided to do the hardest thing we’ve done so far, and opened the door and said ‘no’ as we shoke our heads. There was nothing we could do, and this became a situation we felt we should not never been put in – and also a decision that we’ll regret for a long time. Saying ‘no’ to a group of mothers who haven’t had clean water for there families for 3 weeks is very hard, and we will always remember the faces full of disappointment and frustration from the mothers.
We locked up the school and grabbed our water and ran back to the safety of home. The day did not get any better though, as on arrival back home I tapped my pockets…empty. There was no sign of the master key, the ONLY keys to the school. In the pressure and mad dash, I had locked the schools padlocked door, with the keys inside.
It was not a good feeling, so we waited for the locals to disperse back home, and we went back to the school to attempt to retrieve the keys. Luckily I did remember, a week ago a teacher broke a window for access to papers to get new windows (remember that post??). So we were able to reach in the windows. We could see the keys sitting on the desk out of arms length, as the metal bars on the window prevented further access. Kiwi ingenuity stepped up to the plate, as I hunted down some old barbed wire from the shed to make a hook. Jax grabbed a bit of 2 by 4 wood to knock text books off the desk to give me a better hope at getting the keys back. It was like a scene from those frustrating movies where the inmate uses a wire to grab the keys off the sleeping guard, as we tried to hook our keys out the window. Finally it did pay off, thanks to a steady hand and old barbed wire, we hooked the keys and guided them out the window.
As you can imagine we were totally emotionally and physically shattered and promptly fell asleep after that evenings dinner and the most dramatic day so far….
