The begin of bus journeys

It’s been a really long time since I’ve had a good blog about Africa. I wrote about Ahero but it kind of fizzled out a little. The girls and I decided to go to Mombasa for Easter weekend which was a 12 hour bus ride to be at the Indian ocean for 4 days, then a 12 hr ride back getting in at 5 am and going to work at 6. It was deffinitly worth it. We went snorkeling in the ocean, which I wasn’t sure if id be nervous for but I loved it it was fascinating. We walked along a coral, swam through tons of fish and over a starfish garden! Huge starfish and so many pretty colours. We then spent easter on the beach until evening when we went to a fancy seafood restaurant on the coast. So gourgous. Then it was back to school again for exam week (these kids write exams like crazy) which meant I was in the library a lot. Still so many chalanges there but I’m getting through it. Jenn has kindly used some of her donation money to by the older kids some books as there reading level is above the books we have, I also bought a few especially for the girls. My relationship with my students is growing and Im devastated to think of leaving them. I have an exam Monday, Tuesday is a holiday for the swearing in of the president, and then Friday is closing day. That gives me essentially 2 days. I’m going to bawl. The grade 8’s, instead of standing and greating me with “hello teacher how are you” now say respond with “Whats up” to my “yo” (although they still stand up haha!). We’ve ended our English lessons, I hope they have done some good in expanding their mind. Now creative arts will continue. I asked them to tell me some songs they want to hear during creative arts. They had a great time chosing a combination of gospel/Kiswahili and new music. Friday we celebrated our friend Grace’s birthday. What a beautiful strong woman I am beyong lucky to have met her and had her in my life. Some mornings she walks me to school and it makes my day the best ever. Yesterday she took me to her sons school because I have really wanted to see some kind of theatre or performance while I was here and never had time to make it happen so the school did a little showcase for me. How aborible is that! The kids have great voices, I say some traditional dance, some Christian songs and a dramatic reading by a really animated little girl. I really feel akward when a place goes so out of its way to make me the guest and sets up the kids just to respond and do things for me, so  I make sure I address everyone and the flaw-proof way to make children feel like you’re their friend is by being absolutely ridiculous and letting them laug hat you. Thank you camp songs! I love to change the words to some songs so they can easily follow along and always involve some kind of dancing its great that the kids get so involved in it here. Today I am going back to Elagerini the tented camp my friend works out. I want to visit again and possibly introduce some resources I think will be useful for them to be able to use there! Something about that place I really liked. And later I have dinner with a fellow teacher. Anyway lets not talk about how much homework I have to do oh dear.

Sophie is Sorry

Hey! Look who found her old blog login. Well now I'm that I'm vaguely unemployed I feel like I have time to do this haha. Well obviously I suck and didn't even finish my Kenya blog off, so what I'm going to do (since I actually do have blog entries written just not up) is finish posting those entries from two years ago! Then I will make a switch to some Europe travel entries....which I do not have many of but I may be doing some look backs depending on what strikes me. Maybe it'll be goodand amusing! We will see....additionally I don't really like blogger and may finish this off because that only makes sense, then make a new blog on a different site. If anyone has recommendations let me know! <3

Football coach ?

Wed March 20 2013

            Hi! Well, I’m in Ahero, just chilling out . Just kidding, working my butt off! In Ahero I am spending some time at a different elementary school to get a feel for a rural education system as opposed to Eldoret's city schools. It is very different than El View but private schools and public differ in ways different than I thought. The public school has much bigger classes and less supplies and resources but the teaching is not nessecarily poor... since in private school teachers get paid depending on how the student perform its all about learning to pass exams and less investment in students (not too all - just some) but in public it is government paid and many trained teachers prefer it for the pension and benefits that come with it. 

The challanges are a lot of what the students face outside the school.  Many do not eat breakfast or lunch and maybe only get dinner, many are sick or have to stay home to help care for someone or do chores that day. During lunch period the teachers get sukuma wiki (kale) and ugali (flour and water) cooked for them, I feel so akward when the children just wander around hungry because there is no food at home, especially because I have trouble stomaching too much of the food butI make myself eat it because there is no way it is going to waste! It's a complicated system.  Families are extremely large, probably 8 children is normal, and there is some polygamy, which I don't think occurs as much in the city. It is interesting what family is here, there is often so much sharing of raising children and those who have money or work away from the village often pay for schooling of families children. It is also common to have aunts or uncles adopt children and move them to the city with them in order to give them more opportunities or because a mother or father are sick or have large families already. I like this outlook of family, having so many different families in our schools at home now I think it works well when there are a lot of people willing to work together to provide the best.

 I have to take a boda boda to school (motorcycle) it's slightly scary because you have no helemet and no protection.... I wouldn't' really recommend it but it's the only way to travel on these back roads. There are times when I enjoy it but after the rain when it's really slippy I do get freaked out.

I have been playing a lot of football with the kids, which is good because they have no idea what I'm saying, not being used to hearing english with any accents although they do learn it is school it is very hard to communicate, which makes teaching a little tricky. good thing I'm so good at charades....also songs!
It's fun to play with the students and they absolutely love it, having fun running around and screaming and playing. Look at those smiles!

It is just Jenn and I here for now but Sarah and Erica are going us at the end of the two weeks. We miss them!

Microwaves and Patience

Tues March 12 2013

Let me talk to you about patience. Patience is a virtue I do not poses. As in this is the girl who will eat a lukewarm meal because I cannot wait for a microwave to fully heat a meal. So, to work on an African computer system, filing books I don’t understand, half in a language I cannot read. Trying to fit in teaching, librarian duties and my own school work as well as exploring, friends and sanity. Dealing with communication in a way I don't understand, and students who will never tell me when they don't, patience has become the centre of my life. And let me be the first to admit, I’m still not that good at it. I am still likely to shut the library door and burst into tears of frustration once (or twice) a day because I don’t know what I’m doing and just see mountains of work ahead of me, and a thousand things needing to be redone and a million expectations and disappointments when I cant achieve it all. 

But the funny thing is, I am so excited about this. My ranting is in enthusiasm as opposed to in frustration. Challenge is good. Challenge, especially in an area you care about, leads to improvement, it means you do things you never thought you could do. It means at least once a day you think “I give up, I quit, I'm done.” Then at the end of every day you get to think “I didn’t quit, I kept going.” That is a great feeling. It's good to be uncomfortable because then you have somewhere to move. You will always make mistakes. You will entirely Screw up (or at least I will). And you will learn enough to make you eager to do it again. 

Rafting and Rugby

March 13 2013

Back in Kenya! Wow what a wild ride (literally in some cases). The girls and I left Eldoret to go to Uganda during elections time, as there was some worry over the possibility of violence in the cities after the results. Thank goodness everything seems to be fine right now, and I really hope it will stay that way now we’re home. Let’s relate some of our trip! We went first to Jinja, which is a city right on the Nile River in Uganda (which I reluctantly have to admit I never knew was in any countries but Egypt, but it actually goes through Uganda, Egypt, Tanzania, Sudan, South Sudan and Rwanda). Crossing the border was an interesting experience, very different then the organization we have between the Canada and American border, there was a lot of in and out of the car and a lot of passport looking but not so much actual questions. But we had no problems and where on our way. I was quite excited to see the Nile, and though it does have crocodiles it seemed to be fine where we were staying so one of the first things we did was jump on in! Our friends Renske and Anneloes met us on the weekend and then returned to Kampala where we joined them later in the week, they work at the hospital like Sarah and Erica and we make a good group. The campsite we stayed at was lovely, made me feel quite spoiled though to be enjoying myself while people back in Kenya were praying for peace. The best part of the place as meeting all the interesting people that we did. It’s like when your out somewhere and you meet someone who likes a lot of the same stuff as you and has a thousand interesting stories to tell, but they are all at the same place! Among others we met a girl driving a bike through Europe and Africa, 2 boys just out of high school doing the same, a Canadian! And Austrailian couple returning from climbing mount Kilimajaro. Two Canadian brothers, one working in sanitation in Nairobi and the other travelling through Africa, a pig farmer who owns a farm on an island in Uganda, and a team made up of people from America, France, Mexico and England who are coaching rugby in schools all through Africa. We were very lucky to be invited to join the coaches at their rugby tournament, to watch how they do what they do! It was a very impressive event, I was especially interested in the inclusion of girls into the game which is not always easy to do in sports especially one like rugby. The kids didn’t wear shoes while they played, and the girls played in dresses, but you can tell they had a lot of fun and were learning pretty fast. I was impressed by the guys patience in coaching so many children at once, and ones who have never played Rugby before and possibly knew even less than I do about it:P There organization is called Rugby In Africa and I suggest visiting their blog if you are interested in more information and want to show some support! In the middle of the week we also visited Kampala, where we met with Juliet a lovely contact given to us by Jowi. Oh man was she fun! She kept telling us we were so young and needed to be looked after (which she did a very good job of) but she was very young herself. We got to visit a school and a hospital to compare then to Kenyan areas. The school was kind of the same, though their classes go up to class 7 instead of 8 and then they do 6 years of secondary school instead of 4 so it ends up being 1 more year of school. The hospital was huge and I think much more advanced from the hospital in Eldoret, at least that’s what I hear. I don’t have the courage to go very far in the hospital after last time when I nearly fainted! So I do my best to observe from a distance. We also met with a CIDA representative in the Canadian embassy in Kampala, it was great talking to them and telling them about our internship. The heat in Kampala was something ridiculous, I now understand why people tell us “Eldoret is cold, wear a sweater” because compared to Uganda, Eldoret is an ice box. (We will see how I deal with Canadian Winter next year). We also met Juliet’s family who were lovely and even sowed my skirt up that I had ripped during the day! I wish we could have stayed longer there but we wanted to go back to Jinja for the Rugby tournament. It’s definitely a place I’d go back to visit though the business of Kampala was completely overwhelming I’d really love to see more of the country of Uganda. I guess I really need to talk about white water rafting too:P The girls convinced me that white water rafting in the Nile would be an excellent idea and that I wouldn’t die, or if I did that it would be worth it (crazy muzungus). It was a fantastic experience and I wouldn’t take it back, however I think if I did it again I’d maybe stick to smaller rapids as opposed to level 5 (the highest level you can take untrained rafters on). It was great fun while In the raft but once it flipped I was fairly certain that was the end. However, there isn’t a group of girls I would have rather had such an experience with. The first time we flipped we all ended up in someone else’s rafts instead of back in our own so I just saw our guide paddling along the boat by himself thinking “uh oh where are my girls” but we had been rescued by various other rafts. The first drop was the most fun, off a 12 ft. waterfall so I can definitely say I’ve done that! I’m sure I’m missing something but that’s my last week and a bit in a nut shell, kudos to you if you read till the end!

Rugby in Africa: http://rugbyinafrica.org

School Kids and More Babies

Once again technical problems have prevented blog posting by me, but here are a bunch in a row if you care to read!

Feb 25 2013

This weekend we made another trip to a friend's village. Erica knows Gilbert from running races in Thunder Bay and he has visited us a few times, and we went to see the Peace run he was apart of a couple of weekends ago. At his village all the school children had gathered to meet and talk to us. I felt pretty bad because we arrived in Kenyan time - 5 hours late due to miscommunication with transportation. So there were less children as some went home, but there were still more than enough! As usual we were presented with a large crowd we didn't know what to present to. The children were great though and with the help of their teacher were prompted to ask us questions about Canada and what we are doing in Kenya. We met more babies and families and it was welcoming and great, a lot of the children are sponsored by people in Thunder Bay and there are always many more who need help in oder to go to school, which really makes me want to help them all. The teachers invited me to go back and visit them during a school day which I'd love to do and hopefully I get the chance!