My Summer in Kenya: Quiet Weekend PLUS Pictures

It’s been a relaxed couple of days here. We had intended to do a school-meal assessment on Friday morning but were informed that the regional school music festival was being held and were invited to that. So off we went… it was quite entertaining and both the singing and the dancing that these children were doing impressed me. There were over 20 schools there, and all were in some sort of costume. They sang songs that I couldn’t understand - but they had great moves and some of the young girls had exceptional voices. We were however (much to our embarrassment) the main attraction. It was quite obvious that we were the odd ones out, and on top of that they made everyone clear a space for us in the front row. It was kind of funny however as there were many children standing behind us, and every once in a while I would feel a little finger reach out and touch the back of my arm (most of them just want to know what our skin feels like).

We had a good old pancake breakfast Saturday morning and then spent the day in Meru (the nearest town), wandering around and checking out the main downtown area. I am slowly becoming more comfortable with the chaos of life here and am not so put off by people shouting out at us, cars honking, dirt blowing, donkeys or goats running across the road, or the smell of burning garbage as I was initially.

I picked up a leso at a textile store and spent $2.50 on a new pair of flip flops as I do not have much confidence that the ones I brought with me are going to last the summer! I come home every day absolutely filthy (for example I sat in chicken poop on Thursday) and have to scrub myself down. My shoes are a disaster. Yet, what continues to amaze me is that the women here always look impeccable… I don’t know how they do it!

We are all adjusting to life in the compound. We are not allowed out after 6pm and so are getting used to playing lots of card games, board games, and watching movies. We try to exercise in our little courtyard everyday and have a ‘family meeting’ every Sunday night to discuss the week’s events and anything upcoming. We have tried to plan something to do each weekend so that the time goes by a bit faster. Hard to believe but we are actually a third of the way through on Monday.

This week will be full of home visits and “Champs” sessions. We also start at some of the schools on Monday with some follow-up assessment and teacher training. Should be a good week.
Check back for pictures!