Dear Friends,
Another crazy day in Kenya... I met Juliet at Chebuyusi Primary School this morning, where the "cow man" from Rural Service Programme actually showed up to meet us! He and I, Juliet, and the principal of Chebuyusi School sat in the principal's tiny office. I was glad to see that he looked awfully nervous about the situation. He claimed that he'd had the missing cow for a year, but no-one ever told him to bring it! Juliet doesn't believe him, and told him, "Sell that cow and give us the money. Also, give us all the money you earned in the last year, by milking that cow and selling her milk!" She is quite a smart woman, and wants to make sure that this man doesn't take any of the money that Moses Brown students sent for their Kenyan buddies.

These are the fourth graders! I was asking them what their favorite subjects were.

After that meeting, the principal and Juliet showed me around some of the classrooms.

These are the nursery children. The little girl standing up is asking me my name.

Then the school children put on a program, showing me some of the dances and songs that they have learned in school.

Here the instrumental band is playing, dancing, and singing. They seemed to be having a lot of fun.

These little girls did a dance for me, while their classmates played in the instrumental band. Mr. T would be proud of their music! That is Juliet standing on my left, and the school principal on my right.

These kids are reciting a funny poem about what they want to be when they grow up.

It is the weekend, and tomorrow Nick, Amelia, Geoffrey, and Zachary and I will head off for a family adventure to Lake Naivasha, which is about 4 hours south of here. We will stay at a hotel by the lake, and supposedly get to ride bikes in a National Park there that has lions, leopards, giraffes, and lots of other animals. Should be fun! I'll let you know how it is on Sunday.
Take care,
Elizabeth

Dear Friends,
What a day. Amelia, Geoffrey, Zachary, and I spent several hours today with the Moses Brown fourth graders' Kenyan buddies. When we first arrived at Juliet's house, they stared at us in amazement, because most of them had never seen a white person (in person) before. They were very shy, but we inflated the soccer and rubber balls, and soon everyone was running around playing happily with each other and with us.

After sharing tea together (Kenyan tea and mandaazi, a sweet fried dough snack like a munchkin), we handed out the packets that the MB 4th graders had put together for their Kenyan buddies. Inside each packet was a letter, a package of photos, and a book the 4th grader had made. (For those of you not familiar with this project, during the school year the MB 4th graders exchange letters with Kenyan students at Quaker schools in these villages. We also send over disposable cameras for each Kenyan child, to take pictures of his or her daily life, home, school, family, etc. The Kenyan teachers get the cameras back to us in the US, where we develop the film. Each MB 4th grader uses the photos of his or her buddy to learn more about their life in Kenya. Then they write a book about their Kenyan buddy's life, based on what they have learned from the letters and photos. Each personalized book contains copies of the photos, as well as text, and is printed, laminated, and given to their Kenyan buddy.) After the Kenyan children got their packets, they looked through them. It was an hour that I will never forget, watching the expressions on their faces as they looked at the photographs they had taken themselves. Many of them have never seen a photograph, let alone one of themselves, or a book made with photos of themselves. I hope these pictures capture a small fraction of the moment for them.

Oliver is VERY excited about the airplane Matt put in his packet, because he knows Oliver wants to be a pilot when he grows up.

Shanty laughs at the picture of her holding her 'paka' (cat).

Valentine and Sylvia look through their photos together.

Marrion and her friends enjoy a picture from Alex C's family photo calendar.

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What I think sticks out about the experience, several hours later, is affirmation that our Kenya-Moses Brown partnership is allowing for meaningful learning on both continents. The Moses Brown students gained a more personalized understanding of the Kenyan children as fellow human beings, and the Kenyan students today felt proud to be known and respected. Hopefully their image of "Americans" has been personalized a little, too. Needless to say, the school supplies and craft sale money that the 4th graders raised will have a significant impact on these 28 Kenyan children's lives. Maybe for some of them, this experience will give them hope that they can achieve their dreams.

Tomorrow I will repeat the 3 hour drive to spend time at Chebuyusi School.At Chebuyusi, I am hoping to clear things up with Rural Service Programme about the missing cow (see earlier post), as well as learn more about how things work at the school itself. The students from Chebuyusi that saw me today should be comfortable showing me around, but my guess is that the other students at the school will show that initial shyness and quiet curiosity about the strange mzungu ('white person') in their midst. You should have seen the double-takes, the looks of surprise, and heard the cries of "Wazungu! Wazungu!" (the plural of mzungu) when children looked at our passing taxi today full of the four of us! Everyone is extremely friendly, but in the small villages, our faces are definitely unusual looking.

I hope you are all well. More news later...
Take care,
Elizabeth

Katy's Post - Ready...Set...Summer!

Hello Everyone!

The start of my summer journeys began right after MB graduation!  After seeing the lovely Class of 2012 receive their diplomas, I raced off to The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, CT.  It was a whirl-wind week full of fun, inspiration and energy.  As always, it was a rewarding and exhausting time! I was a member of the Yellow Unit (my favorite color!) and was happy to meet our unit leader, Pendo.  He is from Ireland and was a counselor at Barretstown Camp (the one I am going to) for the past six years!  Needless to say, I peppered him with questions throughout the week and left with a list of people I needed to hug for him and some very American items that the Barretstown camp counselors might enjoy (they don’t have Twizzlers, Twinkies or Swedish Fish in Ireland!!)

Yellow Unit! 

Our H.O.P. Donations

While at camp, I delivered our donations of art supplies to the Hospital Outreach Program (H.O.P.)building.  All the Outreach Specialists were out at the hospitals when I stopped by, but I left a note (see picture)!  I later spoke with the H.O.P. director and she was so appreciative of all the thoughtful, fun and creative supplies you collected for the children to use in the hospitals. Well done, first grade!

My traveling companion...who is nameless...please help!

In other news, I have recently acquired a traveling companion for my trip to Europe.  Chosen by a vote during the last few days of school, I will be traveling with a little duck (similar to the Duck from the Dodsworth books we read….) However, my new friend needs a name.  I am open to suggestions so…post or email me (misskaty12@hotmail.com) your ideas!

Hope everyone is enjoying summer!

Dear Friends,
Today I travelled by taxi to Juliet Wambani's home in Naulu village, which is about 45 minutes drive (but only 20 km) north of Kakamega, Kenya. You can find Kakamega on Google maps, and you can even find Chebuyusi Primary School, one of the Chesina schools, on Google maps! Her house is just up the road from Chebuyusi Primary School. The last 2 km of the drive was on something that I would describe as a washed out hiking path, but my taxi driver, Nelson, did an amazing job. He did agree that tomorrow, when we return with Amelia, Geoffrey, and Zachary in tow, we should use a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Juliet is a wonderfully warm, calm, funny woman. Her home is similar to one you'd see in the Caribbean, with wooden interior, cement & brick walls, and breezy, curtained windows. We had lunch together with her daughter, Sheillah, who is home from college, and with 3 other teachers (Mary, Joyce, and Isaac) who are also part of the Chesina program.

Juliet, Mary, me, Joyce, Isaac, in Juliet's living room

We talked about ways to make the program even stronger for next year, and also about some of the struggles they have had with getting the dairy cows and chickens that we had bought for them in June 2011. It seems that the money next year's 6th graders raised for cows and chickens when they were in 4th grade wasn't all used the way it was supposed to. In Kenya there is sometimes corruption, we hear... So, the third cow was never delivered, and the director of the organization who was supposed to bring it to Juliet's school stopped answering her phone calls. She asked me to call him using my Kenyan cell phone number, and when he picked up, I explained that Moses Brown School had paid a lot of money and expected them to fulfill their promise. Juliet directed me to ask him to meet me and the other Chesina teachers on Friday morning at Chebuyusi School, where he would be expected to return the portion of the money that was supposed to be for the third cow. Sitting in his office here in Kenya, he seemed very surprised to hear that I had come all the way from Rhode Island to check up on the cows we had paid for!

I am not convinced that my request will be met on Friday, but Juliet and the other teachers are very hopeful that he will take it seriously. Maybe I should tell him that if he doesn't give them the money, he will have to sit in the Take-A-Break chair, or go talk to Abby!  (:

One of my favorite moments of the day was when I taught Juliet, Mary, Joyce, and Isaac to play some of the math games we play at Moses Brown. Here is a picture of me playing Multiplication Tic Tac Toe with Juliet. I have just won, and Mary is in the background laughing, because she kept trying to tell Juliet what moves to make, and Juliet kept ignoring her!

It was a close game, but in the end I won. Good thing I've been practicing my math facts!

They are very excited to teach their students Addition Tic-Tac-Toe, Multiplication Tic-Tac-Toe, and some fun new games with playing cards.

Here is a picture of me with Juliet and her daughter, Sheillah, in their front yard.

Tomorrow I will return to Juliet's house with Amelia, Geoffrey, and Zachary. We will meet all of the Chesina students there, give them their packages from our 4th graders, and give them the school supplies and recess equipment that the 4th graders collected. I will try to take lots of pictures. Maybe we can even get a soccer game going with one of the new soccer balls!

On my drive home today, there was a big thunderstorm with lots of hail. There was so much hail that the side of the road looked like it had snowed!

I hope you are all well. More news tomorrow.
Take care,
Elizabeth

Dear Friends,
Yesterday was a long day! We traveled for 21 hours, flying from Boston to London, and then from London to Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and it is a big city with skyscrapers, billboards, and lots of traffic. We stayed the night in a hotel and then left early this morning (Sunday) to catch a flight to Eldoret, which is in Western Kenya.

When we landed in Eldoret, we took a taxi to the Indiana University House where we will be staying for the next two weeks. IU House is a big group of buildings where doctors stay when they come to work at the hospital in Eldoret. We have nice rooms with mosquito netting over our beds!

This afternoon a group of people staying at IU House are going to play a pickup soccer game against a local Kenyan team. It should be fun to watch.

Tomorrow will be a big day! Nick will begin working with children in the hospital, and Amelia, Geoffrey, Zachary, and I will learn more about ways that they can help with the children in the playroom and baby room. I will travel to the Chesina schools later this week, bringing all of those supplies the 4th graders collected!

Kwa herini,
Elizabeth

Dear Friends,

The fourth graders collected more than 100 pounds of supplies for me to bring to their friends in the Chesina schools in western Kenya. Their Kenyan buddies live in the villages of Chebuysi,  Sidikho, and  Naulu. We filled a huge duffel bag with pencils, crayons, paper, puzzles, math games, and soccer balls. The bag also contains an envelope for each Kenyan student, containing a letter and book written by their Moses Brown buddy. I can't wait to meet our Kenyan friends and their teachers in person and deliver these envelopes and supplies. Stay tuned....