Our final week in Kenya

The last seminar…

The last teacher seminar took us to a remote rural area.  We bumped along dusty dirt roads past small homes, gardens and cows.   It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, but all of that changed as we rounded a curve and entered the village of Musoli on a busy market day.  The car could barely pass through the crowds selling vegetables and goods and the congestion of bikers and shoppers walking from stall to stall.

This time the host school for the seminar was a girls’ Catholic primary school, and the teachers who attended taught at nearby rural schools.  It is not a stretch to say that rural schools are the poorest of poor in resources and student populations,  and perhaps that made the teachers all the more eager to try the instructional strategies that we modeled and taught.  One strategy was two column note-taking.  Most African teachers write lengthy notes in paragraph form for weary students to copy, but not necessarily understand.  Two column notes are a departure from this style in every way, and it has been very popular with the teachers at the seminars.  The second day a teacher named William was late in arriving, and explained that he had stopped by his classroom to get his students started one two column notes before he came to the seminar.  The third day William brought his students’ exercise books with their first attempts at two column note-taking.  William was proud of the results and his enthusiasm was contagious as we all examined the good work of his students.  You can imagine that this experience with William’s success was very gratifying for Sue and me.  The last seminar was just as fun as the first one had been.

A visit to a Mothers’ Union Orphan Feeding Program…

I wanted to show my co-trainers, Sue and Jinx, a Saturday Orphan Feeding Program and friends from our last year’s stay helped arrange a visit.  If you scroll down the blogs to last year, you’ll see that I wrote a great deal about my admiration for the good work that the Mothers’ Union does in local Anglican churches each Saturday to help orphans.

We hired a driver and car and followed the directions to the church about twenty minutes out of the town of Kakamega.  We were greeted by women whom I recognized from last year and taken to see the vicar of the church and have tea.  On our tour we saw the children doing their lessons and visited the smoky room which served as the kitchen where a big kettle of beans bubbled away on a wood fire for the children’s lunch.  Two women were also plucking chickens, and I knew immediately that they were preparing them for our lunch.  Chicken is considered the food of hospitality, but we had not wanted this special attention or had planned to stay the several hours until lunch.  Obviously people had called ahead to tell of our coming, and now that it was being treated in such a special way, we were obligated to accept graciously.  In a quick conversation with Jim, Jinx, and Sue, we decided to go along with the events and see how it would unfold.

What unfolded was quite wonderful, because as soon as I abandoned my preconceived schedule I was able to enjoy the unhurried conversation with the ladies working that Saturday. We talked about their lives and their commitment in answering the call to help the orphans. Once again, I was humbled and inspired by how these women live out their faith.  The morning returned me to the lesson that I often have to revisit—that the most important gift that we have to give is ourselves—our time and attention.   It was a mutual exchange for we offered our encouragement, and they in turn sang for us and said eloquent prayers for our safe travel.  And yes, we had a lunch of ugali and chicken and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Some closing thoughts…

Jim and I brought over a thousand dollars of donations with us for helping in Kenya.  Over half of it has gone to help fund the expenses of the teacher seminars in the form of copying, food for teacher lunches, and fuel to travel from place to place.  We have given some to Phoebe House and Gladys, the director, was grateful for the help.  The Sunday school children of Faith Episcopal Church sent us with their Advent offering, and it will go for much needed repairs at a primary school.  I look forward to sharing the photos with them.  I believe that we have spent it well and the donations will help many people.

On Tuesday, February 1^st we leave Nairobi for London and have four days there to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday.  We are looking forward to this.

Thank you to all who have sent encouraging comments to us.  We liked hearing from you very much.  It has not been possible to post photos from here, but I am anxious to share some with you when I am back in California.

Home on Feb 6^th…..

Fondly,

Mary

 

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