Dear Friends,

Today Amelia and I headed back to the villages to visit Sidikho school. When we arrived, the kids were all waiting (there are 600+ kids at this school) and they swarmed around the taxi smiling and talking. From the outside, this school is very nicely organized, with the classrooms and offices in a square around a nice courtyard. Inside, the classrooms are very dark and empty, and the floors and walls are cracked. Some of the classroom roofs leak when it rains. Walking through these schools makes me want to bring a group of MB students back some summer to help fix them up.

Despite the fact that they work in such challenging conditions, pretty much all of the students in this school pass their national exams in 8^th grade and get accepted to the secondary school (high school) next door. Pretty impressive, because they’re doing it sharing well-worn books, using old bits of pencils, and some of them are doing it hungry. That’s integrity for you.

They had another celebration today, and the kids did some great singing and dancing again.

By now I realized that seeing a person with white skin is totally strange to them, so after it was over, I told them that if they wanted to, they could feel my skin. Many of them came running over to feel my arm. I joked with them and kept touching their arms back. It was a very strange experience, but hopefully now they realize that it’s just a different color but the same stuff.

Amelia also surprised them by showing them she knew how to jump rope, just like them!

Tomorrow will be my last day visiting the schools. I will head to Naulu school for the day and get a chance to visit some of the village homes, too.  It will be sad to say goodbye to Juliet, Mary, Joyce, and Isaac. But hopefully some day I will be back, and in the meantime, we have lots of ideas for ways to keep connecting our students with each other.

Kwa herini, and good night!

Elizabeth