We had a bitter-sweet goodbye to our friends at Kipepeo and said farewell to Kima. Alot of great memories here. We took a Matatu to Priscilla's house, across the road from her 'Vihiga Children's Home', the orphanage she runs. We unloaded at her home, as no one was there, and just when we thought we had a few minutes to relax outside and wait, her husband came home very happy to see us and right away took us to the school across the street. We thought we'd just say hi and go back to their house since the school day was almost done, but noooo, the children were all prepared to greet us and were waiting for us all day. So they put our chairs front and centre in the field, and all 237 kids ages 5 to 14 put on a show for us which included singing, dancing, plays, recitations - wow, they really know how to greet people.
The teachers all stood and greeted us formally, as did Priscilla. It's funny, we're just Scott and I, but to them our visit is something quite special. We toured the school, Priscilla is doing quite a good job for the little that they have to work with. Scott and I fell in love with the place and the people, we'll try to spend the rest of our time here with these kids. I told them I'm going to teach them music. I asked where they kept their electric guitars, amps and distortion units - actually, I'll just teach them some songs from home. I'm going to teach a math class as well, should be fun. Scott said he'll teach some geography and socials. The classes are very small for the number of students, very small actually. And because they've been so successful and run out of space, they had to sell the cow and turn the cow's stall into a kitchen (with very little renovation I may add) so they could make another classroom out of the existing kitchen space. They have a water problem, as their well is dry and not deep enough, and they need to get through rock to get it deeper. Most water comes from the rain eavestrough runnoff into a 20,000 gallon barrel, and a nearby stream. They've laid piping from the stream but need a pump to get the water to the school. I'm going to sit with one of her sons who is in charge of getting water to the school, to see what he's got planned and see what kind of help we can give him.
Back at Priscilla's home in the evening, we finally had a chance to relax a bit, sponge-bath so-to-speak, and chat with Priscilla and her husband Sham. They are really nice people, Kenyans who have spent a bit of time in the 60's abroad and so they seem to have more of a worldly outlook than most people we've met. We asked them, 'Do all Kenyans think white people are rich?' and they said 'Well, yes, because you are.' We told them we have poor people and people on the streets as well, but their thought is that we take care of our poor, whereas they can't. It was an interesting conversation. Sham said he was in New York in 1961 and he saw someone getting food out of a dumpster, and he said that floored him. He never in his wildest dreams thought someone in the US would not have enough money for food. We chatted about their history, and how the school came to be. Had dnner and went to bed. That's when the fun started for Scott, as he had stomach problems all night. He felt somewhat better in the morning after taking some of the antibiotics we brought with us just in case, but still not 100%. The kids were having their track and field day today with a bunch of other schools, so I went ahead and Scott was to meet me there around noon. I walked over with some of the teachers - "It's just down the road, not far..." - 40 minutes later we arrive. There was a crowd of over 1,000 kids of all ages listening to a guy on the loudspeaker. I had to walk through the group to get to where we were to be seated, and of course by the time I was in the middle of the group the focus had shifted from the loudspeaker to me. All around I saw a sea of little heads trying to catch a glimpse of me. I tried to cature this on video but not sure if it can do the moment justice, it was quite something. We took our benches and their activities began.
I remember the longest track event to be 1,000 metres in my schools when I was young and I don't think they're much longer today. Well, these kids were racing 5 and 10 kilometres - 24 times around their field was 10 k! I timed some of the races, and they're doing 10 k between 30 and 40 minutes, 40 being the slowest kids. So the average Kenyan child is running a 10k in like 35 minutes! Most people in the Sun Run are 1 hour+ - these kids are born runners. All are in bare feet, the funniest thing I saw was one kid who was lucky enough to have running shoes, but 1/2 way through the race I saw him carrying his running shoes, running in his socks to keep up with the others! They also had high jump - into less than a foot of dried corn stalks piled up. It was a great event to watch.
Scott soon met me at the field, watched for a bit and Scott showed the kids how to throw a javelin and how to use a shot put - Earl Haig days: and then we headed into Majengo on motorcycles and took a Matatu to Kisumu. The Matatu ride over all the potholes didn't do wonders with Scott's stomach, but we found a place that does Internet and so are entering this blog now. It looks like we will stay at the children's home until Tuesday morning, then I'll fly out of Kisumu Tuesday, back to Nairobi, and spend 2 nites there before flying back to Canada.
We plan to come back to Kisumu this Sunday and enter more on the blog, so till then...
