Monday, and Day 6 of the strike. Today it seems certain that we will not return to the classroom this week, after hearing reports stating that the strike could last until July! This is very frustrating, and not just for us but also the kids of Kenya who could possibly lose half a year of education.
We don’t let this news get us down and continue down to school as there is still plenty of work to be done! Today we turned into office administrators/cleaners as we decided to tackle the staff room and office! It’s currently littered with papers, exams (past and present) and general rubbish thrown everywhere!
After two hours, all the exams are back in order, text books in piles and the new timetable grid ready to be filled in once the kids get back to school. Finally we have some order to the office! We decided to give it a small change around as well before we left for the day. We changed where the desks sat and pulled a cupboard out from behind loads of junk…this is where our afternoon turned into a episode of the Crocodile Hunter…or the little lizard hunter!! A fascinating lizard with half a tail lay confused from where the cupboard was. I must admit that it gave us a fright! The only difference between the Crocodile Hunter and Terri, and Jordan and Jax, was that Jax would not come near the lizard, and Jordan ended up by catching the lizard (about 15cm long!!) between two 1 metre school rulers! Once we had him we chucked him out the window (and in the process cutting off more of the poor guys tail!!). We were proud of the successful mission as the lizard scurried off to freedom!
After all the excitement, the day turned a bit pear shaped as we finished up with the office – to catch some kids throwing rocks into the classrooms and VERY close to the brand new windows that we had installed only days before! Jordan was furious, and even more upset to catch the youngest daughter of our family – Sima – as the one throwing the stones! Words were said and Sima cried. What makes this situation harder was the language barrier. On arrival back home Sima promplty told Nini of the news and the fact that she had nothing to do with it – even though we caught her red handed! To this day we feel as though the family still believe 5 year old Sima over the two 25 year old muzungos!
The nightly chores proceeded. The water is really a problem for us now – as this evening on our trip to the tank, the water dribbled out of the large tank. Very soon this water shortage was even going to affect us. This would mean no showers, clean clothes and clean water for cooking. Now we needed rain to break this very serious drought.
It seems as though our wish was granted. That night as we went to bed, rain began to hit the roof…
