One week left!

A Saturday morning wake up call from Trevor and Precious:

Time is ticking

Hello! Sorry we haven’t updated in a while, we have had a few internet-free weeks but we are back and we have lots to report.

Firstly, the photocopier arrived and Elphas taught some members of staff how to use it which was pretty exciting! The whole school gathered to admire it and the school was able to print each student’s report card to take home before the end of term. Elphas and Mildred (our Headmistress) got on really well so we are confident that a brilliant working relationship has been established.

Proud Secretary with the photocopier

Elphas was keen for many photos of the new photocopier

Secondly, all the furniture for the library was built and delivered. That means that soon Kakunga Girls’ will have a fully functioning library! The girls and staff can barely believe it! We are working on setting up a good system for checking books out and for distributing class books. It’s tricky because the ratios of textbooks to students are really low and some years will have double streams, so we are trying to work out a way to make the books as widely accessible as possible.

Construction of the 10 shelves

When we arrived the books were all being kept in a tiny dusty room. Many were missing covers and some were even missing chunks from rats! We hope that moving the books to the library will mean they last longer, and this week we have been busy covering the 1,100 books in plastic sheet to protect them. By now we are very well acquainted with all brands of plastic, sellotape and staples that can be found within a 25km radius of Kakunga. We’re getting a little concerned about how often we tell people we meet about the super strong plastic sheet we found – and we still have 700 books to go..! Its really satisfying seeing all the shiny covered books though, and the days are nicely broken up by trips to Kakamega to collect more plastic sheet.

Bea and some books

Emily squished in a matatu (public minivan) with 20m of plastic sheet

We thought getting into a matatu with plastic sheet was impressive until this lady succeeded with a chicken.

Writing the 1,100 reference stickers for the books

On Saturday we spent the day learning how to be “Kenyan women” at home. Mama and her daughter-in-law Susan showed us how to wash our clothes, and we cooked ugali and cabbage for lunch. Even washing up can be fun when its in the sun! It was really nice having to time to get to know Susan better. By the evening we were exhausted and retired to being “muzungus” again, with pot noodles and Cadburys for dinner.

Emily the chef

Washing clothes (finally…)

That’s all for now!

Until next time,

Bea & Emily x

Halfway Point!

We have just finished week 4 of the project and have reached the halfway point of our time in Kenya. We realised this as we took our 35th antimalarial tablet of 70 today at breakfast and pondered the significance of this moment.

Looking back at our first five weeks, here are some of our greatest personal achievements aside from the project.

We think number one has to be making Mama a plate of food that she enjoyed. We have been trying extremely hard to convince her that we are independent and self-sufficient. We’re not sure she believes us just yet.

She didn’t enjoy it quite as much as we did, but it was a win for us.

On Saturday we were put to work: we washed all our clothes Kenyan style, cooked ugali and cabbage for the family and washed up the dishes in the sun. Our poor muzungu bodies were exhausted by the end of the day. We finished the action packed day with an intense game of snap with the kids.

 

 

We have also been trying to pick up some Kiswahili, so we are now able to understand and talk to people a little more. The tribal language around here is Kiluya. We haven’t got too far with that one yet.. We got the chance to practice our language skills when we visited Eunice’s church in Malava. We were initially terrified at the prospect, as Bea had accidentally volunteered us to give a sermon, but we got away with a little introduction and a prayer. No big deal!

The church was quite a way off the main road, when we got there we were welcomed into a mud hut with plastic chairs and a modest but friendly congregation of about 20 people. It was definitely an experience! The sermon wasn’t like any one we had ever been to before. We definitely enjoyed the singing and dancing though, accompanied by a gang of little kids who were watching us through a crack in the wall.

 

 At the end of it all, we got to meet Eunice’s lovely family over a soda.

During the week we went all the way to Kisumu to find a photocopier for the school. We had heard of a good supplier who had sold to other EPAfrica Project Workers in the past, so he was our first port of call. His shop was hard to find, but when we got there we found him to be extremely friendly and hospitable, and his prices were definitely the best we’d seen so far. We soon agreed on a machine that would cater for our school, and the manager, Elfas, promised to deliver it personally on Monday. When we called Mildred to tell her the arrangements she was really really happy, exam period is a huge strain for the school.

Anyway, once all that was decided, Elfas told us we could not leave Kisumu without visiting Lake Victoria. He promptly drove us out to a super fancy restaurant on the lake and bought us possibly the best meal we have had so far. Love a good business lunch!

We also spotted some cool crocodile lizard creatures.

 

On our way back from Kisumu, we dropped in on our Coordinators in Kakamega as it was getting late and we couldn’t get home before dark. The house got invaded by a cockerel trying to stage a coup on our manager, Kate. Words can’t describe the panic that ensued. Maybe a video can!

While in Kakamega we also ran into Ringtone, our celebrity friend, who very generously gifted us with a couple of t-shirts from his new clothing brand, Ringwear. It was an exciting moment!

Anyway that’s all for now! Goodbye from us (and Kanny and Trevor!)

 

Crunch time

The last week and a half has been the busiest and most exciting yet! On Thursday evening Emily looked on in anticipation as Bea got a call from, Kate, “the boss”, about our central pot application. Luckily it was good news! Kate explained that 75% (£453) of the funding for a generator for the school would come from the central pot. The next day the Principal and teachers were incredibly happy to learn that the school will no longer suffer from power cuts or electricity rationing. We celebrated over bananas and soda.

Although this was great news, it also meant it was crunch time for deciding exactly how we were going to spend our £1800 investment money. After considering many different options and discussing with the girls, teachers and management, we came to a decision everyone was happy with. We are going to spend the money on library electricity, the other 25% of the generator costs, a photocopier, and shelves and tables for the library. We decided to abandon our original plan of sharing the cost of tables and chairs for the library with the school, as they have no spare cash at the moment and we did not want to leave them in debt. Instead we are fully paying for the library tables, and the school plans to buy chairs at the start of next term when fees and government funding start to come in.

Today we took  the plunge and spent around £800! In Kakamega we collected all of the supplies needed for the library electricity, and the much anticipated generator. We also met with Samuel, a dynamic carpenter (and student) from Kakamega over a “business lunch” of chai and mandazi. We left him with a down-payment to build 4 library tables and a librarian’s desk. Hopefully these will materialise next week! With a mahogany veneer and metal frames we hope they will last many years of students.

We have been really encouraged by the school’s response to our idea of bulk buying sanitary pads. In Kakunga pads are marked up and many girls struggle to afford them, or simply forget to buy them. Some use dirty rags and others borrow money from teachers to buy them.

After some awkward conversations with supermarkets assistants asking where we could purchase hundreds of sanitary pads, we hit upon a potential solution. Our idea is quite simple: the lovely school Matron will make a termly trip to a wholesale store we found in Kakamega to buy pads in bulk, and can then sell individual pads or packs of pads to girls in school at cost-price. Yesterday Emily spoke to the girls and decided with them that the school will stock both the cheaper “Dream Girl” and the more pricey “Always”. Exciting.

       

 

 

We are keen to hold a careers day for the girls so they can learn more about what is required for different career paths. We have asked the teachers to invite friends from a variety of jobs (doctors, journalists, businesswomen), so the girls can speak to them about their future plans. We’ve also been asked to talk to the girls about our university experience which should be fun!

Chatting to the girls about their interests, we found some are Scouts

“Students should engage in Boy-Girl Relationships” was the motion for this week’s school debate, which we awaited with great anticipation through the week. To our surprise, we were told on arriving at the debate that we had each been named as the first speaker, Emily for the proposition and Bea for the opposition. A huge variety of points were made from both sides, both funny and serious. We left confident that quite a few girls have the potential to pursue a career involving public speaking.

Thanks for reading! We will keep updating as often as we can.

Until next post,

Emily and Bea