Rain rain go away

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the rains have arrived, which is a good thing - no more dust, it's nice and cool, things are growing etc etc. But it would be really lovely if they'd stop. I've had enough. Everyone's had enough. The situation in some parts of Kenya is really serious with floodings ruining crops, destroying homes and in some cases taking lives. It's not like that in Nairobi but it's horrible being wet and mud splattered all the time. I don't have any clean clothes as nothing can dry, I'm kept awake at night by the hammering of the rain and any hint of a tan that I'd picked up has long since faded. The rain was so heavy last night and this morning that the slums flooded. I didn't realise how bad the situation was until I was too far into them to turn back. The slums that I work in are set along the Ngong river. This is normally a fairly stagnant, fetid river clogged up with rubbish and sewage. However today it was raging and had burst at the seems. Bridges were submerged and the river was so high that it looked more like a lake. I tried in vain to keep dry and to jump onto stones to keep my feet out of the water but before long the stones were submerged and I had no choice but to wade through knee high brown water that was flowing at great speed. Once I'd given in to the fact that no part of me was going to be dry, I quite enjoyed wading through the water - I felt as if my 'plight' should be captured on CNN and I would be lifted from the water by helicopter. Clearly there's still not enough drama in my life! I eventually made it to school having witnessed a huge articulated lorry almost being washed downstream (photos to come) and countless people slipping over - to everyone elses great amusement! I was absolutely sodden. Not an inch of me was dry. Thankfully there were no lessons or children today - it was parents day and my job was to help prepare a 'feast' for all the teachers to celebrate the end of term. It was a joy to spend the day in the kitchen as it was warm and welcoming with an open fire oven burning away in the middle of the room. I took off my shoes and socks and slowly dried by the fire while peeling ginger and tumeric for the chicken stew. I'd advise anyone to avoid peeling tumeric, my hands have been stained a bright yellow and no amount of scrubbing is making any difference.
My fellow 'chefs' created quite a feast of chicken, potatoes, carrots and ugali (traditional kenyan food which is basically a thick lump of white stuff). We all ate together in the hall (with our hands) while people made speeches in honour of the departing Headmistress Mrs Nyaga. The speeches were hilarious; very long and earnest and everyone wanted to say something - which would have been ok had there not been thirty people present. Most people ended their speeches with a song and we all had to get up and dance whenever a song broke out. The weirdest moment came when Mrs Nyaga came to cut her cake. Before she was able to do this we had to sing about three different 'cutting cake' songs, all of which are accompanied by actions and strange shrieking noises. When she had finally cut the cake she had to feed everyone with a piece so we all had to stand up, mouths wide open while she put the cake in our mouths. Apparently this is what always happens when people have a cake. I think I'll keep quite about my birthday.
Thankfully the rains had ceased when we eventually left for the day but my walk home was still blocked by the floods. All was not lost however as some bright sparks had made a temporary 'ferry' to take people across the worst of the flooding. The ferry was basically a large trolley which anyone mad enough to give it a go climbed onto and then three men would run at full pelt to push the trolley through the river and onto 'dry' land. It was fantastic fun and I screamed the whole way much to everyone's amusement - I don't think it's everyday they see a squealing white woman crouched on an out of control trolley covered from head to toe in mud!
Tomorrow is the end of term. I am incredibly sad about this. I've grown to really love the children and we have such fun together. I will miss them enormously and will even miss sitting in the staffroom drinking horribly sweet tea (which I'm now addicted to) while everyone debates the political situation with passion and humour. I never thought I'd find myself standing in front of a blackboard trying to teach adjectives and irregular verbs. I don't think I'm a natural teacher but I have loved watching the children grow in confidence and self-esteem and have relished the challenges of finding ways to keep them entertained and under control without beating them. I was thrilled to pieces when I heard that one of the teachers said to another teacher that she was amazed that my class had calmed down so much and had become so charming this term as they were notoriously a wild bunch. She couldn't understand how I'd done it without waving a stick around. Maybe she'll realise that the old adage really is true; 'all you need is love'.

Martha

I'd like to introduce you to one of the most amazing people I've ever met. Her name is Martha, she's ten years old and she is an orphan. She has the most extraordinary spirit, gentleness and kindness and I'm lucky enough to be able to spend time with her and teach her. While all of the children I teach are great and I am lucky enough to have great relationships with so many of them, there is something that sets Martha apart from them all. While she is quite shy and serious when she smiles you can't help but be bewitched. She always wants to carry my bag from the class to the staffroom, she helps the other children with their studies, speaks beautiful English and lights up a room. On occasions I've taken a few children for sodas and chips after school and Martha always says thank you, clears the plates at the end of the meal and insists we say a prayer of thanks before eating. She may sound boringly good but this couldn't be further from the truth! She's full of spitit and is great fun. Last week she told me that when her mother and father died she thought she would be sad forever but then she became a 'peer educator' and she knew that she would be ok. 'Peer Educators' are children in the schools who teachers pick out as being trustworthy and influential and they are trained up by a charity to advise children on issues such as HIV, their rights, how to handle problems at home etc. I'm currently trying to become her official sponsor which involves many things but it essentially means that I take responsibility for her education, her health and try and provide her with other essentials that she currently doesn't have access to - a long term commitment. It's very exciting but it's a slow and complicated process which involves interviews with social workers, visits to her legal guardians, forms and documents galore. Knowing the politics here I'm very aware that it might not happen and so I haven't told Martha yet but I really feel it's the right thing to do and I'm prepared to have any amount of interviews to make it happen. I'll keep you updated.

Last week was, as they all seem to be, pretty up and down. I had some fantastically enjoyable lessons where I finally felt as if I was making a few breakthroughs with some of the more challenging children and I also had some time to really play with and talk to the children. However there were a number of incidences which tarnished the week somewhat. The first was receiving a telling off from the deputy-head for 'distracting the children from their studies'. She came into my classroom to find about 10 of us playing 'trumps' and was seriously unamused. I would understand her point if a) it hadn't been 'games and clubs' time, which is the time of the day when the children are supposed to take extra-curricular activities. However as none are provided due to lack of facilities the children spend the hour messing around in the playground and so I saw no harm in them playing a supervised game which is also educational, and b) all the teachers were in a meeting so there was no one to look out for the children or give them something constructive to do. I was pretty put-out when the deputy said that the children won't stay in their classrooms if they know that I'm around to play with them but at the same time I can also choose to see it as a compliment!
Another downer was when I approached the headmistress to ask her permission to take my class out for a day trip to visit a couple of tourist attractions here - places where the children can feed animals, learn about wildlife as well as going on a few rides, having a picnic etc. There are no lessons this week as the schools have closed while the standard 8 pupils take their KCPE's - official exams which they need to pass if they can graduate to secondary school - so I thought it would be the perfect time to take the children away for a fun, educational day. I offered to hire a coach and take care of any expenses etc but the Headmistress said no. I was so shocked - her reasons for saying no were extraordinarily petty and I've since learned that she hates anything that isn't her own idea. The irony of it is that my housemate Daniela was in a meeting with her that same day and she was complaining that there weren't the funds to take the children on school trips. I felt so flattened by this rejection as it was unnecessarily preventing the children from having a real special and fun day. Sometimes the politics here are completely beyond me and I have to ask myself just how much some of the staff really think about the children over and above themselves.
Another grim moment was witnessing a particularly unpleansant beating. All of the teachers walk around with sticks or strips of plastic which they wave threatening at the children to try and control them when they get too rowdy and while I'd seen them use them occasionaly clip children on the back of the leg or on the hand if they were getting out of control, I hadn't seen anything like what I saw on Thursday. I was walking past the classroom of a lovely teacher who has been really accommodating to me and seems perfectly 'normal', when I saw about ten children kneeling in a line with their arms raised above their heads, their shoes off, being beaten on the soles of their feet. I was frozen in horror. It really was the most sickening sight. These children were all between 10 and 11 years old and while they aren't the easiest bunch to control they are extraordinary examples of how the human spirit can endure the grimest of situations - the fact that they bother to turn up to school at all considering the conditions they've been born into means they all deserve a socking great medal as far as I'm concerned, not to be humiliated and bruised for being too noisy or not handing their homework in on time. Once I'd gotten over the initial shock I slipped into the social workers office to discuss what I'd seen and to ask if there was anything that could be done about it but when I saw a cane on the social worker's desk I gave up and walked home seething at the injustice of it all. I can't help wonder if I'm being soft - is this sort of discipline really wrong? Only a generation before me corporal punishment was commonplace in schools in England - did it do that much harm? I'm convinced it's wrong, damaging and sick but no one here seems to agree with me - beating is just what one does to slum children, it's the only way to control them apparently. Well, I'll stick with handing out hugs and giving them the attention they crave for now. It seems to be working and that's good enough for me.

When the Rains Came

People have been talking about the rains for the past couple of months - they're talked about like a much anticipated visit from a favorite aunt. People long for the rain here and while I adore the sun I have to admit that I'd begun to join them. The dust in the slums and surrounding area is grim. The ground soil is so fine that even the gentlest gust of wind blows huge clouds of the red dust into the air making one blind, filthy and induces choking as you simply can't avoid inhaling it. I'd taken to walking around with my kikoi wrapped around my head but even this had little effect. The school playground has been one large dust bowl and even though the children seem completely unaffected, I've been increasingly exhausted by it. The classrooms are permanantly filthy, no matter how often the children clean them, and text books are constantly covered in a film of grit. I've returned home every day with scratchy eyes, a sore dry throat and matted hair. It takes ages to feel clean (no thanks to our drizzler of a shower) and then it happens all over again the following day. So the thought of a few rain showers to stick the dust to the floor and freshen the air was a glorious idea. But of course the 'rains' aren't a few gentle showers. They are thunderous torrents of water that turn the dust into a mud bath that would delight a hippo. So I've swapped dusty flip flops for mud splattered trainers. The slums have become trecherous terrain and my journey to school involves slipping through inches of mud, leaping over puddles and desperately looking out for something solid to tiptoe onto. It's a fairly futile excersize trying to keep mud-free and much quicker to slop through the puddles and mud (and goodness knows what else) even if it means turning up at school filthy and splattered from head to foot. The children are of course complete troopers and splash around in the mud and puddles with great abandon. I dread to think what kind of bugs they could pick up as they slosh around without shoes on but they're a pretty resiliant bunch. The rains have also had a real impact on the lessons. Without the natural light provided by bright sunny days the classrooms are incredibly dark which puts a real strain on one's eyes, not to mention trying to speak over the noise of the rain hammering on the roof. We might as well invite a steel band into the room such is the din. Still, the rains have provided a bit of a festive atmosphere and while I don't much enjoy being wet and dirty all day it is lovely to be able to breath in the fresh, clean air.