Saturday in Kenya

Saturday in Kenya

                Friday afternoon we finished painting the classrooms at Lorubae School – continuing our new-found efficient way of painting using small children instead of brushes (just to clarify: we’re definitely joking about that) – and beading at Unity Village. Cori has a knack for drawing every child into her vicinity through silly children’s’ songs from home. Even the women are delighted with the ditties she sings. Last night Mary orchestrated a “light writing” photo session. We wrote in the air with lights while she captured our messages through super long exposures in the dark.  We wrote all sorts of messages from “Kenya!” to “Bob” and lit up the Safari Car in the darkness. Brett turned it into a dance party with ‘80’s tunes on his portable speakers. Epic.

Group leader clarification*:  not all songs were from the 80s. Sometimes I do manage to know something about music within the last 22 years.

Today’s events have been a nice change up from the normal morning activities. Every year before the secondary school students that are supported by the Samburu Youth Education Fund (SYEF) return to their boarding schools for the new school year, Brett meets with them to make sure their grades are good, their paperwork is in order and to generally check in. This year all the CSU students were interested in helping talk with the SYEF students to listen to their stories about secondary school to let donors know what their money is going toward and find out what they want to do after they finish school. As SYEF students arrived, we got in groups of 4 SYEF students and 2 CSU students. They told us what a typical day of school consists of (waking up at 4am and having 11 subjects, for example), their favorite subjects, and advice they offer to new incoming students.

                All the ideas were summarized in a drawing from Karina and showed the careers students wanted to pursue, their roots and the advice they offered. We’ll try to post it too! It was so incredible to hear that their priorities for getting an education were not self-centered; they all described their dreams of getting a good education in order to help their families and community. We wrapped things up with many speeches, some impromptu from both Kenyans and Coloradoans about the importance of education for men and women and being community leaders.

                This afternoon we look forward to a Kenyan football (soccer) match in town, the final Girls Conservation Club before they go back to school on Monday and another glorious sunset over Samburu. Each night we look forward to being exhausted by 8pm after long days filled with wonder, hard work and laughter.

PS. Spence, how’s the rockered snowboard? I miss you!

Fambam, comment, miss you! And friends, love you! mar