School's out

Blog revised!

We have now left Agape Academy and headed off on an extended holiday to other parts of Kenya and countries beyond.

This blog is about some of the wonderful people that we have met over the past 10 months:

There are students who are wise beyond their years, like my friend Caleb. He is a mature, spiritual and caring young man whose family has struggled to maintain a HIV care program despite many set-backs. Caleb wants to train as a doctor so that he can help HIV positive people in his local area. When he 'gives the word' in bible studies it really comes from his heart, and he throws in lessons from his life experiences. He could teach many western teenagers about a mature attitude to life.

Another special person is Maurine, who despite seemingly constant ill health, is a loving, caring and gracious young lady. She has been 'cursed' by her paternal grandmother, and traditional beliefs run deep in these parts. She has feared that she will never be well again, but thankfully she has now been diagnosed with an extreme form of dermatitis that is affecting her bones. We will miss this girl dearly, but it is good to know that the medication she is now receiving will restore her health. 

Everlyne in form 3 has a voice like an English princess and a heart of gold. She is an organiser, which is very rare in Kenya. Also she isn't afraid to stand up in front of the girls and tell them that they need to shape up. Whether its late to meetings or talking during prayers, she makes her opinions known. Everlyne is a very good student and has exceptional English. We think she will go far.

Sammy, also in form 3,  is one of those quiet, inoffensive people who impress by their calmness and resolve.   I admire him so much - always supportive with never a bad word to say about anyone. If someone fails to turn up, Sammy will step in and do it for them. When someone does something deserving of thanks, Sammy will be the one who jumps up and thanks them.

Then there are two elderly men who I wish were my neighbours. Herman and Joshua have been such wonderful friends, although we didn't see nearly enough of them. They are both calm, faithful and encouraging men who made us feel part of their respective families. It is very sad to think that we may not see these people for a very long time. 

Lastly, my friend Titus. He lost his job at the high school, and has recently suffered a severe stroke. Thankfully, his recovery has been miraculous and you would not know that a few months ago he couldn't talk or move his right side.

Titus is director of a primary school in Chwele (I have dedicated a previous blog to this school). He voluntarily spends most of the week there. He doesn't teach, but does the administrative work. The school has been a labour of love over many years. The teachers are all volunteers who are waiting for a position in a government school. The students, 290 of them, are from poor families, many of whom have HIV positive parents. A large percentage of them cannot afford to help the school financially. Most of the funds for this school comes from Titus' family and church community. They even allow some of the orphans to sleep in the school, and provide supervision and meals for them. I am in awe of the drive and dedication of the entire family - their love and care for the needy is extraordinary.

So we leave with good memories and hope and pray that in the future we will still be able to support these people in Western Kenya.

I don't know if we will ever return to Kenya, but I do know that I will be helping some of these people and their humanitarian projects for a long time to come.

Expect to be asked to pitch in. You probably can't actually go there, but you can help financially. 

Keep watching ... There will be more to come!

Greg.

Camping at home

This is a weird feeling - not a problem, just weird.

It is 7:15 at night. For all intents and purposes it is dark.
The electricity has been off for two and a half days.

I am writing this on my iPad which has just given me the 10% low power signal.
There are no lights, no running water and no appliances. Th computer ran out of battery yesterday, and, as stated, the iPad is just about to. The mobile phone is flat as a tack, so I can't phone anyone. The Internet is out because the modem requires power, or a USB connection to my computer, and there is no computer.

You might say, "so there will be no TV or DVD's either". Well, we don't have those luxuries anyway. And wouldn't you know it, the book I am reading is an iBook!

Des is still away in Australia and Tabby and Jennifer (our new arrival from Canada) have gone to the coast to do sponsorship work. I am not lonely but it is extremely quiet. The boarders would normally be in their classrooms, but without power, they have gone to their dormitories early.

What to do? Supper is over (fortunately there is a gas cook-top), the dishes are washed.
I guess I will just lie here, listen to the buzzing of the mosquitoes, and dream of a place where there is a regular power supply.

Apparently there is some saying about "early to bed, early to rise, etc ...". I think I will have to try it out tonight.

Greg.

Kenyan Fast Food

I have just realised that one of the best things about Kenya is the absence of McDonalds for at least 1000 kilometres. That’s right, not a single one in Kenya and perhaps none in the whole of East Africa (although I am guessing here).

However, do not think that there is no fast food. Many of you know that developing countries love their food on the run. It may not be nutritious but it is usually yummy and cheap.

So here is a brief guide to Kenyan fast food. I'm not talking about what you can get in cafes and restaurants, but what you can buy from the street vendors in the market places.

1. If you go into a Kenyan café, kuku and chips is the big seller (kuku is chicken). Out on the street chips are one of the standards. Vendors will sit with a fire under a large metal pot or wok full of oil. The chips (fat ones) will be cooked in the oil. They will place too many chips in the pot so they will not go crisp. They come out cooked but they are yellowish and somewhat limp. As all good travellers know, at least they are cooked in hot oil (hopefully not too old) so they pose a low health risk.

                Nutritional value; low

                Price; very cheap (60c)

                When available; after midday

2. The hidden culinary gem in Kenya is the mundazi. It looks like a large triangular doughnut, and is similarly fried in oil very quickly. It puffs up and develops air pockets inside. The taste is similar to a doughnut, but definitely better. Kenyans eat them plain, although we like them covered in icing sugar (as you can see in the photo). They are wonderful eaten fresh from the pan. Older ones go a bit leathery and the oil solidifies and detracts from the eating pleasure.

                Nutritional value; low

                Price; even cheaper (12c)

                When available; all day (popular in the mornings)

3. Roasted maize. Australians are really not familiar with maize, although here it is the most popular food by far. Maize is white corn that is not sweet, soft or juicy – quite the opposite. A large percentage of maize is ground into flour but some is boiled or roasted on the cob. Along major roads you will find people holding up cobs of roasted maize, especially around lunch time. Travellers will stop, buy their snack, eat the maize then throw the cob out of the window. The maize is roasted on a grill like we would cook a sausage. The end product is still very hard and chewy and is not a food that I enjoy.

                Nutritional value; moderate

                Price; as cheap as mundazis (12c)

                When available; lunchtime to supper

4. This country is tropical. You name the tropical fruit and you can get it on the street. Even fruits like grapes, oranges and apples are quite readily available (mostly imported from South Africa or Egypt).

The tropical fruits are to die for. You will pick up a tree-ripened avocado for 12c, a mango for 20c and five bananas for 25c. The secret is that they all come from local farms and they are not picked before ripening. Pineapples are also prevalent, but more expensive. We pay about $1.80 for pineapples, but they are the best tasting pineapples on earth.

                Nutritional value; high

                Price; why aren't they this cheap at home!

                When available; as soon as the stalls open

5. The largest minority in Kenya are the Indians. They have been here so long that Kenyans think chapatis are a Kenyan invention. Many cafes sell Indian dishes. Curries are popular but don’t expect them spicy (Kenyans don’t go in for herbs and spices).

On the street you will often find bhajias. These are pieces of potato or other vegetables deep fried in chick pea batter. They are the vegetarians snack food of choice here (just ask Tabby), and they are delicious. The ‘batter’ is very light and complements the vegetables beautifully. As you are beginning to see, Kenyans enjoy their fried food. It’s probably just as well because, as already stated, frying kills a multitude of bad things.

                Nutritional value; moderate

                Price; moderate ($1.00)

                When available; lunchtime and beyond

6. Talk about fish in East Africa and you are talking tilapia. It isn't a pretty fish, but it tastes quite sweet. Tilapia are indigenous to the region, many coming out of Lake Victoria. It is not a large fish and is usually cooked whole.

The fish is shallow fried in a wok over an open fire. Sometimes I doubt its freshness, and have seen it on sale in a dried form. Vendors in our market claim that the fish has arrived from Lake Victoria that very day. Due to a lack of refrigeration, I think sometimes it is sold cooked and then the buyer re-heats it for supper. Des is a fish lover and she doesn’t like tilapia. I am not that keen on fish but I thought it very tasty. Perhaps it depends upon the cooking method and skill of the cook.

                Nutritional value; moderate?

                Price; on the expensive side ($2.40)

                When available; evening

Interestingly, although ugali (the maize porridge/cake) is the most popular food in Kenya, it is rarely seen on the streets. Ugali-starved Kenyans prefer to go to a cafe or hotel to have their ugali served to them with side orders of greens or meat.

So there you are, why indeed do you need a McDonalds when you have all that!

Edukashon

Perhaps a blog for the teachers among you, however others might find this interesting.

I would really like 24 hours in charge of Education in this country.
And I will be careful here, because I know that education has cultural constraints, and just because we do things a certain way in the West doesn't mean that it is appropriate elsewhere. However, the major daily newspapers and some university-trained people I have spoken to seem to concur with my suggestions.

Firstly, students in high school study 12 subjects. There is very little choice. A business graduate I spoke to said that high school was largely irrelevant to him. Business studies and mathematics were helpful but the other subjects (perhaps he was forgetting English) were not useful. He had to study three strands of Science but had no interest whatsoever in these subjects. My first edict in charge would be to decrease the number of subjects and provide more personal choice for each student.

Secondly, the education system is predominantly concerned with rote memorisation and regurgitation of fact. Students are not taught to think for themselves or problem solve. Answers are given higher marks if they are verbatim from the text book - putting ideas into your own words is frowned upon. Simply speaking, students are taught the "what" but not the "why". Bloom's taxonomy is basically ignored. Students can describe (a low order thinking skill) but they cannot explain, analyse, extrapolate or theorise.
This country needs independent thinkers to take the country forward, not just people who are good at remembering facts. In the twenty-first century all the facts you need are readily available using information technology.
My second pen stroke would be to reduce the amount of syllabus content to allow time for students to develop a deeper understanding of each topic. Along with this, examinations would change to assess higher-order thinking skills.

Thirdly, it seems as though the educational workforce is not valued enough. Teachers are paid low wages (yes, I know all teachers everywhere claim this) forcing them to generate other income streams. This produces a workforce that is semi-professional, not totally dedicated to their primary occupation. A biased statement perhaps, but there is no more important resource than a well-educated population, and it is the teaching profession that can facilitate this. Economic development is dependent upon the growth of secondary and tertiary sectors and these require a skilled workforce.
The next pronouncement would be to increase the wages of teachers, but at the same time insist on a professional approach to their work.

Number four; there's some good work by John Hattie, an educationalists, showing that the most important factor in improving results is the teacher in the classroom, delivering quality lessons. His thesis is that the most valuable educational resource for any child is a dedicated teacher.
Unfortunately, the teachers here see themselves more as overseers. They under-estimate their value as "explainers of knowledge".
When it comes time for revision many teachers leave their classes to study alone, sometimes providing worksheets. They should be there to help iron out any difficulties or misunderstandings.
Unfortunately teaching is not always the number one priority.
This is a cultural trait, and no doubt the teachers have experienced this when they were in school. However, during my day in charge, I would insist that all principals in-service their teachers about the three most important roles of a teacher:
1. Teach your class every lesson you are timetabled.
2. Teach your class every lesson you are timetabled.
3. See role number one.

Lastly, there is a belief in Kenya that the longer a student works throughout the day, the better they will perform in examinations. You might say that this is a reasonable assumption, and it is to a point. However, in Kenya this means many parents expecting their children to study to 10:30 or 11:00 pm each night, and then arise the next morning around 4:30 am to begin the process all over again. Some students arrive in their classroom before sun-up, by mid afternoon some are falling asleep on their desk. It is very difficult to convince locals that eight hours sleep for a teenager is an important necessity. As their study time increases, their marginal propensity to learn decreases, and they become stressed and tired. It's a case of "more is less''.
My last piece of legislation would be to give students some balance in their life and mandate sensible hours for study. I would insist that students have no more than 12 hours per day dedicated to school work.

So there you have it, my five strategies to drag local educational institutions into the twenty-first century. Will it happen? Yes. Will it happen soon? Probably not!

The Passenger

It was one of those times a picture is worth a thousand words and I didn't get the picture.  We are travelling down a dusty Kenyan road.  I am sitting comfortably in the back seat of our van, windows firmly closed with the air conditioning up full.  Only small amounts of the red powdery dust filters into the car and give a small annoyance as the dusty smell reaches my nose.  

We have been staying in a forest for the last three days. Many international visitors come to experience this very special place. The forest air was dust free and fresh except when we had to walk along the dusty road following our guide to get to the next walking track.  If motor bikes or push bikes passed not much dust was raised however cars and fast moving buses filled the air with choking dust causing our eyes to water and leaving a fine film of red powder over everything.   

Here I am gazing out the window of the van bumping along the dirt road when I get a glimpse of a white person’s face, head bare, clinging on for dear life behind the Kenyan driver of a motor bike.  The expression on his face said it all to me. This one glimpse tells me life in Kenya is very different from what he is used to back home. Riding a motor bike without a helmet would have been unheard of and you wouldn't get far anyway before you would be pulled over by the police and fined.  That is not the case in Kenya.  Motor bikes are a cheap way to get around and to carry all sorts of goods from 300 eggs stacked on the back of the bike separated by cardboard egg trays to furniture, drums, bags of maize, wood and reinforcing wire attached on the bike and trailing out the back scraping along the road.  Also one passenger is just a waste.  Two adult passengers plus a baby wrapped totally in a shawl is more common.  

This white person’s face may have been coated with lots of red dust however I think it was just a bit whiter than normal as he awkwardly sat on the bike peering over the driver's shoulder, hoping and praying that this motor bike driver is not abducting him but is in fact taking him to the world famous Kakamega Forest for a refreshing retreat.  

At this moment, as we are about to pass and shower him yet again in red dust, he looks just a bit like he is thinking he should have paid the extra money and caught a taxi. “ The joys of experiencing the real Africa.”  It is rare to see a white person in the area we are staying and every time I do I have the urge to find out where they are from and what are they doing in Kenya.  As I looked helplessly out the window at this frightened figure I wished I could have given him some comfort and told him it is OK, he is headed in the right direction, the forest is definitely worth it and there are hot showers to wash off that dust.

Des.

Just a file photo - but this really happens!

George

George is the cook at Agape High School.

I started talking to George one Monday morning and I asked him if everything was OK because I had not seen him around on Sunday. He said he had gone to see his Father. His mother and father had divorced and George had not seen his father for 20 years.  Now he had come back into his life and their differences had been resolved.

“I will be leaving in September” Says George. “Leaving, what do you mean leaving” I reply.

My father wants to support me to go back to school.  I want to further my education.  I will do form 3 and 4 again and then I want to become an electrical engineer.

George is in his 30's and has 3 children. He is an incredibly hard worker.  He said that he is so thankful for the opportunity to work at the school.  He said he was in a very big hole when her came to work here as a fundi (labourer) when the first buildings were being built.  He approached the Director and said he could do the cooking for the school and he was later hired as the cook. Before he came to work at the school he had moved into town and was cooking what he could, and selling it to people in the market but he was not doing well.

He is so thankful for the chance to work here and all that has been done for him.  He is thankful to the Christadelphians for what they have done.  “You will see me on Sundays and if you need help you can call me and I will come” he added.

I have talked to the director and I just have to put in my notice and give 7 days before I want to leave.  However if everything falls apart for me I am welcome back here.  I will not forget you all.  I will work HARD.

He says all this to me while looking at me with his smoke-affected eyes.  The cook’s day starts around 4:30am and finishes sometime between 7 and 7:30pm.  Chopping wood, working over smoky fires, cooking, picking over and washing maize and beans, fetching water, serving meals and cleaning.

I am very happy for him and I hope his studies go well and he can get a good job but I will miss him.

Des.

POSTSCRIPT: George is still at the school. For now he has decided to stay!

Lake Bogoria

“There are not many flamingos around at the moment” says the newspapers. “They have moved South because of rising water levels in the soda lakes” they add. “You are more likely to see big flocks in Tanzania where it is drier” one local said.

Taking a gamble I drove to Lake Bogoria, approximately six hours North-East of the school. Lake Nakuru  (90 minutes further South) has traditionally been the spot for flamingo watching, but they haven’t been there for a number of years. Last year there was a huge number in Lake Bogoria, but word was that they had left for more alkaline pastures, so to speak.

As I approached the main gate I was less than optimistic. I said to the ranger taking my money, “are there many flamingos here at the moment”? “There’s some in the corner of the lake just as you enter the park”, he replied. I didn't ask him to elaborate on ‘some’, I have been here long enough to know that Kenyan directions and explanations are very vague.

Five minutes later I am right next to a flock of flamingos so large that I hesitate to estimate their numbers. They like the shallows, so they are spread out along the edge of the lake, in some places up to 30-40 birds deep. I would guess over one million, but I am not an expert flamingo counter.

This truly was a remarkable sight. There were car tracks right up to the edge of the lake. The birds didn’t seem to mind the car coming close, but when I left the car, they were quick to edge away. So the trick was stay in the car and wish you still had the telephoto lens that Des had taken home for me!

The day was warm, bright and sunny, with hardly a cloud in the sky. The lake itself is long and narrow – steep hills surrounding most of it. I was surprised how picturesque the lake was, as travel guides paint a picture of a dry, semi-desert landscape. There are other animals in the reserve, but I was there for the flamingos.

The gravel road extends down the Western side of the lake for about 25 kilometres. In places the rising water level is obvious because detour roads had been hastily constructed around the flooded lakeside route.

All along the lake there were smaller flocks of flamingos, even some taking time out by themselves. Dotted across the lake were more of them, floating in the deeper water. Often, up in the sky, a single file of birds, like a huge streamer, slowly glided across the lake.

It was difficult to leave them. Their presence was quite mesmerising, not to mention the constant honking, similar but much gentler and more pleasant than a goose’s call.

This is still in the Rift Valley. At one location there are thermal pools, right on the edge of the lake – graphic evidence that there is geothermal activity below. The water from the pools is boiling, and the lake water around it is also very hot. In places you could see bubbles coming from underneath the water.

Still further South there are geysers, but I didn't get that far down. Never mind, I am going to return. This is an awesome place and a slice of nature that I want to see again before I leave Kenya.