Running with Kenyans
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I’m the worst blogger ever!
It’s been nearly four months since my last blog entry. Just a quick update to where I am now, I completed my pre-service training and got sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on December 14th. I arrived at my site here in Marereni on December 16th, and I’ve been here for a little over a month now. A little bit about my town, Marereni is located in Coast province, and is approximately 40 km north of Malindi. I live in a two rooms of a four roomed complex. The other two rooms are used for an NGO called MACODEP and for a local human rights forum in town. I don’t have any running water or stima (Kiswahili for electricity), but life is good here! When I first moved here I didn’t have anything to do for about two weeks (school didn’t start until January 3rd). I used the opportunity to get some things for my house (I didn’t have to get much because I actually replaced a volunteer. She was awesome and left her furniture and other Peace Corps-like items for me), find my way around my community, meet the people of my village, attend five hour church services, go to the beach (about a 30 minute walk from my house), spend Christmas and New Years with my neighbors, get lost in Malindi (my banking town), walk to my school and teach biology to any students who were there on break, and to read three novels. Yeah I don’t do well with “resting.” The week after Christmas I wanted some work, but unfortunately there was no one to tell me what I would be teaching (my principal was in Nairobi furthering her studies).
So I used the opportunity to find out what Marereni Secondary School actually needs. It’s a pretty young school. It opened about three or four years ago, and just got approved by the government the end of 2011. It consists of about six classrooms, an office, a make-shift kitchen, a few choos (toilets), an unfinished laboratory, and an unfinished staff room. It currently has a principal, an accountant, a secretary, a small cooking staff, a few watchmen, 10 teachers, and 200 students. Now the way the Kenyan education system works is that there are two national tests. One for the primary school that determines which secondary school you will attend, and one for secondary school that will determine which college or university you will be able to attend. In December, all the results for the primary school national exam come out, and all the principals within a designated area meet together and choose which students they want for their secondary school (this occurs in late January and the Form 1 students start attending school in early Feburary). Of course there are different types of secondary schools. We have the national level (takes the highest scoring kids from the primary schools), provincial, then district. This week my principal will attend the Form 1 selection, and the following week our Form 1 students will arrive. Now the crazy thing about this is that my school is planning for over 200 Form 1 students to come to our school this year (that is three “streams” or different classes. It’s suggested that only 45 students be in a classroom). So our school student population will literally double this year, and we only have two empty classrooms (the other four are taken by one stream of Form 4 students, one stream of Form 3 students, and the other two are for two streams/classes of Form 2 students). We are planning for the one stream of Form 1 students to use the unfinished laboratory building, but the other problem now is that we don’t even have any desks or chairs for all these students. Therefore some needs at the school are more classrooms and furniture for the students, but it’s not just that. My school also needs a water tank, more choos, a shady area for the students to sit under during lunch (the Coast is ridiculously hot), lockers for the students to keep their textbooks safe, money for sports and activities, hand washing stations, and more textbooks!
During my second week of the term, I was assigned my classes for the year, and was actually able to start teaching (during the first week, the students had opening exams, and I had a four hour staff meeting). I’ll be teaching all streams of Form 1 and Form 2 biology, and all streams and forms of life skills. It totals up to almost 30 hours of teaching a week. I distributed the biology text books for my Form 2 students, the beginning of my second week, and my students started complaining. I don’t blame them. There was only one book for every five students. The previous volunteer actually asked her friends and family from the States to help donate some money to buy these textbooks, because perviously the school had nothing. Our school doesn’t have the funds right now to buy anymore textbooks. Our school just received some money from the government, but it’s just not enough.
Back to my community, my community relies a lot on their farming for their food and for profit. Which means they rely on the Kenyan rainy season. Unforuntately last year during the rainy season, there was no rain. If you were to ask any person in my community how their crops did last year, they would tell you that it was a complete failure. Now the way my school is mainly funded is through the parents. The parents pay school fees for their child to attend school. Considering last year’s crops were nonexistent, there were no profits, parents could hardly keep food on the table for their families. Thus, no school fees. My principal even had a hard time paying the teacher’s their salary from last year.
So here’s where my idea comes in. I’m planning several things:
1) I’ve asked my friends and family to help donate money for a dairy cow for my school. I can’t thank them enough, because they’ve exceed my expectations! I will be able to buy a better cow than expected (I just wanted a cow that could produce six liters of milk a day, but now I will be able to buy a cow that can produce 10 liters of milk a day)! From profits we gain from this cow, I plan on saving it for two separate projects at any given time. For now, I plan on saving money to buy more textbooks for the school and the other hand-washing stations. Once these projects are satisfied, I’ll move on to more projects.
2) The Ministry of Education (MoE) recently placed funds into my school’s account to have the opportunity to build a computer lab/facility at my school. The problem though is that if the MoE doesn’t see any progress at our school, like if they don’t see us having any interest, or creating progress within the school to build a computer lab/facility, they will take all the money away. One way they will see that we don’t have “interest/progress” is if we don’t have electricity (which my school doesn’t have stima). Fortunately, because I have extra funds from my donations for my cow project, I will be donating the rest to get stima installed at our school. That way the money stays within our account when the MoE comes to inspect our school. If not, this opportunity and money will disappear.
3) Also with the profits from selling milk I plan on creating a tree nursery for our school. Instead of creating a shady fixture for the kids to sit under during lunch, perhaps in a few years the trees will be enough. Not only will they provide shade (and be good for the environment), the trees will bear fruit within a few years, and can be sold in the market for more profit.
4) Other plans: I plan on using my artistic skills by painting diagrams (the ones that most likely will be on the KCSE/secondary school national exam) on the empty walls of the classrooms. I will probably only be able to do this during school breaks, but each classroom will have diagrams that pertain to their form/class. This way it helps teachers not have to draw their own diagrams on the blackboard, but it can be a sustainable way to keep these diagrams for a long time. Also it helps the students remember these particular diagrams better considering they stay in the same room for almost eight hours a day. Repetition is key. Other secondary projects include working with MACODEP with women empowerment within the community along with human trafficking. These projects will also have to come at a later time once I get my first school break in April.
I feel like there’s so much more to say, but this blog entry is getting way too long. Plus my computer is almost charged now (I’m currently sitting at Michael Kazungu’s shop. He charges any electrical device for a decent price)! Within the next two weeks I will be getting help from the agriculture teacher at my school along with the cooks (who actually have cows of their own), and plan out a cow house with them. I’m hoping we will have the house ready in three weeks, and the cow bought by late Feburary. I really wanted to name the cow Oliver, but of course she’s a girl so she’ll be named Olive :) Kenyans aren’t very big on naming their animals, but I figured it would be fun for her to have a name. Anyways more updates to come! Kwaheri (goodbye)!
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Write to:
Jessica Bankos, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 698-00621
Nairobi, Kenya -
Packing done. Go eat ice cream!
If angels could just surround me right now and sing a hallelujah chorus that would be as accurate as it can get to how happy I am to be done with packing!
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I’m ready for some Kenya!
I arrived in South Korea on August 30th, and as of yesterday, I’m back in Louisiana. It’s been 17 years since the last time I’ve seen my Korean family, and my mom decided this would be the best time to reunite with them before I head off to Kenya for 27 months. She couldn’t have been more right about her decision.
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Lucky helping me out with some Kiswahili. I have about 200 cards taped around the house. Bring it Kenya! :)
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Countdown
Leaving for South Korea: 51 days
Leaving for Peace Corps Staging: 86 days
Seoul, Korea vs. Kenya
I say both skyscrapers (the city and the giraffes) are pretty amazing :) can’t wait to experience both worlds!
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Dry milk powder?
It’s been about a month since I’ve received my Peace Corps invitation, and I’ve already started gathering items off my packing list for Kenya. I will say this much about packing… It’s an adventure in itself.
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Exercises for Kenya
It took approximately eight months, but I’ve officially been invited to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya!
The contents of my invitation packet. Talk about overwhelming…
After receiving and accepting my invitation I was busy reading over 200 pages of Peace Corps material, like my assignment, Volunteer Handbook, and a Kenya Welcome Book (here’s the link if you’d like to read what it’ll be like in Kenya http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/kewb615.pdf). After completing the necessary reading, I completed my updated resume along with my aspiration statement, and e-mailed it to the PC staff in Kenya. Lastly, I filled out the necessary paperwork for my government passport and visa, and sent that off to Sato Travel. I don’t have anymore paperwork to do until about 6-8 weeks before I leave for staging. So what’s next until staging?
The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.
