Lost in the bush....

Today's blog is brought to you by: the Little White Truck that Could(almost):

Our trip to Boma on Saturday turned into a much bigger adventure than expected. It was a wonderful day, but reaaaaaally long and a little stressful. We got up really early to leave on Saturday morning, and arrived at Boma around 9:30. Mama Lucy, who runs the orphanage, had asked us to get there early so that we could get an early start. We ended up waiting around for a few hours because the truck that takes the kids places was being repaired. It finally arrived around 12:30, a little white pick-up with colorful handprints all over it and steam seeping out of the bonnet. We piled as many people as possible into the truck; 5 wazungu, 18 Boma kids (some of them close to our ages), Mama Lucy, a random Rasta visitor person, and the driver. We finally left around 1 after squeezing everyone in and starting the car by pushing it forward and backwards over and over. We were told that the springs we were going to were about an hour away, but it took us an hour and a half to get there. The car died at least four times, usually when we went through huge mud puddles, but we were always able to push it somehow and get it running again. It was all worth it when we finally got to the springs. It was a really beautiful place. We played and swam for a long time, and re-loaded into the truck around 4. Once again we couldn't get it started, but this time even pushing it didn't help. Luckily, there was a group of wazungu who were also at the springs, and they were nice enough to help us out. Sophie and I loaded ourselves and 11 Boma kids into the back of one of their cars and they drove us about 15 minutes a way to a little village in the middle of nowhere. We were able to send a tractor from there to go tow the truck and the rest of the kids and volunteers to us. Around 5 they made it back to where we were and luckily the truck decided to start! We somehow made it a little ways in the truck, re-starting it 3 or 4 times, but the last time it stopped, it would not start again. A truck piled 15 feet high with corn stopped and tried to tow us a few times, but the rope kept breaking, and eventually they just kept driving and left us behind. To make a long story short, the people from the orphanage refused to leave the truck but by this time it was dark so we HAD to get back to the main road to catch a bus back to Moshi. The rasta took the 5 of us and we walked about 4k through Massai lands to get to the main road. I have no idea how he knew the way back, especially in the dark. We finally got home around 8, and luckily there was still food out because we hadn't eaten since breakfast. It was exhausting but totally worth it.

Kids piled into the truck:

Sophie and me-can't smile with my teeth anymore :(

Swimming at the springs:

It was sooooooo pretty there!:

On another note.....
I can't believe I'm posting this, but here is my poor, ugly snaggle-tooth:

Just so that doesn't scar you too much, here are some really nice photos from the other night when Claire and I were at a St. Marg's potluck (and I had normal teeth). The sky was BEAUTIFUL all evening.

Adorable child from St. Marg's:

Claire and me:

New pictures are up on facebook too...mostly the same ones though.

Since I've found a computer that works, I'll try and put pictures up on some of my other entries...maybe just the one about Denisi, Precious, etc.

At the volunteer house we made a set of poker chips by flattening bottle caps, and they are awesome. I've played in three TX hold'em tournaments now this weekend and won all three of them (only one for money, unfortunately). I never knew I was good at poker and everyone hates that they are getting beaten by a girl (no other girls here know how to play-thank you Bob, Tim, Ben, and Bart!). Muah-ha-ha!!!

Abby

My tooth and other things

Yesterday I went to a really beautiful waterfall and we got to jump off of a 25 foot cliff and when I hit the water my jaw smacked shut and I chipped off about a quarter of the outside corner of my front right tooth. It didn't hurt when it happened and it still doesn't hurt much, but it does look ugly. I'm hoping to have it at least temporarily fixed on Wednesday. Once again, this computer isn't working for picture uploading, but as soon as I find one that does...!

School has been going really well for the past few weeks. It is always slow work teaching young kids, but I do think I'm seeing progress. This past week we started to teach colors and on Tuesday we dyed their porridge green which they really liked! We also played the game 'red light-green light' which they now love, but luckily they haven't yet figured out that its a race; the casualties will be high when they do- they are all pretty competitive.

This weekend is a 5-day weekend (which is why I wasn't at school yesterday) and has been nice and relaxing so far apart from the tooth drama. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to Boma orphanage for the day with my friend Sophie. Boma is a very poor orphanage with around 70 kids who live there. Quite a few of them were abandoned because of learning or physical disabilities. The conditions are quite bad and there isn't a lot of supervision of the kids. They don't have many beds and 6-8 kids usually share just one. A lot of the volunteers who aren't assigned to the Boma project still go there some days to help out. While I was in Nairobi, a group from the house went and cleaned and painted all the dormitories, donated new mattresses, and put up mosquito nets on all the beds. Boma was a project that Zak and Hayden helped out with a lot, and so at Hayden's funeral the family asked for donations for Boma rather than flowers. A friend of mine, Aaron, who is from Seattle but living here for a year, is doing a project to help Mama Lucy (the head of the orphanage) get out of debt and become more fiscally responsible, and he is handling all the money from Hayden's friends and family.

Abby

The babies...

The youngest kids in my class (as far as I can tell) are Denisi, Precious, Julius, and Presensia. They are supposedly all 3, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are even younger than that.

Denisi and Precious have been at school the whole time I've been there. Precious is in love with Denisi, and some days he loves her back, but some days he breaks her heart. Young love is so hard. Some of Denisi's hobbies include eating his socks, climbing trees, chasing crickets, and rolling on the floor. Some of Precious's hobbies are wandering around the classroom while we're trying to teach, trying to always sit next to Denisi, being chubby and adorable, and rolling on the floor.

Denisi playing-note the chewed sock and Precious in the background:

Precious:



Denisi spinning on the floor (blurry because of how fast he is moving):

Precious showing her love for Denisi:

Julius and Presensia are both fairly new to the classroom and are still very shy. Julius tries to never smile, but if you make faces at him, he usually can't help it. Presensia is quickly making friends with the older girls but is, I think, still slightly confused about why she is in school. Neither of them has a very long attention span (surprise surprise).

Julius:

Kili Marathon!!!

Sunday was awesome. It was the day of the Kilimanjaro Marathon, half-marathon, and 5k. I ran in the 5k, and it was my first race ever, but definitely not my last! A whole group of i-to-iers ran in Skydive t-shirts for Zak and Hayden which was really cool. My friend Nick ran the half and was the first Mzungu to finish; he was ridiculously fast. Nodd, Chris, and our Massai, Zac, also ran the half. A lot of us ran in the 5k, but we split up quite a bit because everyone had different speeds. I ran with Claire's roomate Chris and we finished in 28 minutes!!! I was really excited because I am a slow runner (10min miles usually) and I haven't run more than 1.5 miles since I've been here (and I haven't run at all since the beginning of February!). Anyways, it was just a really good time, and I can't wait to run more when I get home!

I don't have time right now, but I am going to start blogging about the kids in my classroom, individually. I'll work on that next time though!

Abby

Nilienda Nairobi, rafiki mgonjwa

That is my broken kiswahili explanation of why I was gone for two weeks, "I went to Nairobi, sick friend." I think it got the point across. I went back to school on Wednesday, and it has been SO good to see my kids again. There are also kids that walk with me on segments of my trip to and from school, who I finally got to see again! I was scared they wouldn't wait for me since I'd been gone so long! Its so good to be back in Moshi.

A lot of people have been asking about the way the school is run, what the kids are like, how it is different from schools at home, etc, so here we go....compare and contrast!

In schools at home, there are about 15 kids (in my experience) in a preschool/kindergarten classroom- Here my class has around 25 students

At home kids wear what they want to school- Here, every age of school-child, from the youngest to the oldest, wears a uniform. They look really cute on the young ones, but tend to look much more awkward as the kids get older.

In the preschool where I worked at home, there was a HUGE emphasis on accepting any sort of marking on paper as a positive step towards writing, no matter how accurate the letters were- Here the emphasis is too often placed on writing the letters correctly, rather than understanding the correlation between writing, reading, speech, and the sounds that each letter makes in a word. (this is a big pet peeve of mine if you couldn't tell)

At home kids wear shoes in the classroom- Here they don't. I love teaching bare-footed.

At home if a kid falls on the playground, they bawl, and demand a band-aid- Here, when poor little Denisi knocks out his four front teeth, he is sent to squat by the water basin and rinse his mouth out, while the teachers ask him if he thinks he will still be able to eat ugali for dinner. (He is doing fine now!)

All the little girls at home have bows and ribbons in their hair- Most of the girls here have their heads shaved (just like the boys). I'm glad they wear uniforms because it can be really hard to tell them apart!

At home my preschool classroom was divided into sections for different parts of the day e.g. circle time, snack, playtime, crafts, etc.- Here we have only one space with three benches and a blackboard. Planning is more difficult in such a small space, but since the resources are so limited, much of every activity is already done on the blackboard.

Children at home raise their hands to answer questions- Here the answers are shouted in unison, and when I try to signal that I want someone who knows the answer to raise their hand, everyone raises their hands in imitation of me.

There is so much difference and I think I covered a lot of the main ones, but keep the questions coming if you have any!

Instead of a daladala them today, I just want to write a question that I was asked, VERY seriously, while waiting for the daldala yesterday. "Do you think Tupac is really dead?" I told him yes. I don't think he agreed.

Abby