I guess I never mentioned this before, so I will now. The deal with the skirts. In Kenya, women wear skirts, below the knee... plain and simple. In areas like Nairobi, you would see women in pants, but if you saw them in rural areas... it gave you a label you probably didn't want. So, all the women on our team wore skirts below the knee.
TUESDAY - DAY FIVE
This morning I woke up around 6:15am. Not really sure why I decided to get up EARLIER than the day before... but I did. I ate a wonderful breakfast of bacon, toast and scrambled eggs. That got me to thinking, I ate better over there than I do here. Maybe I should fix that ;D
We headed out at about 8:30am. However, I had a busy morning. Tuesday (Day two of VBS) was my group's day to run VBS... so I had some last minute scrambling to gather supplies. Amazingly enough, I wasn't freaking out... I know... weird... ;D
This morning I rode in the van with Rick, I think that was the only time I did that... as it so happened... lol.
Anyway, since we left before the other van, Rick decided that we would stop at the equator on the way into Cheppema this morning. I was so excited... especially because I was wearing my favorite skirt!!!! We took TONS of pictures. Several of each team member, then groups... people straddling the 'equator line', etc. However, I got a unique picture. I went into the middle of the road to take my picture on both sides of the equator. One foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern. Now, don't ask me which is which, cause I don't know... BUT if I had to guess, I would say that my left foot was North and right was South... see what you think in the picture below. Either way, before I got out of the road, I did manage to get a car to honk at me!!!
Anyway... when we got to the Hope Center, the kids were having recess (we arrived later than the day before because of the equator stop). They were waving to us as we pulled in, with MASSIVE smiles on their faces. We had brought along bubbles today, so we decided to break them out and play with the kids. I can not describe to you how much fun these kids had with the bubbles. The girls chased them, or ducked away from them... and the boys... they attacked the bubbles... it was so funny!!! And of course, some of the kids ate them. Even the older kids had a lot of fun with the bubbles.
When the kids went back to class, I went and observed the preschool classroom. The little kids in there were soooooooo sweet! AND SMART! They were singing the English alphabet. The song went "Capital letter AAAA, small letter a... Capital letter BBBB, small letter b..." But really, you had to HEAR them for yourself. It was so adorable.
I moved on to watch some other classrooms. I went into the standard 3 classroom and sat next to some of the kids. Rachel was up front teaching and the children were writing answers on the board. It amazed me to see that these kids were itching to get up there to write the answer. The kids jumped out of their seats, raised their hands HIGH in the air, and shouted 'teacher, teacher'. What amazed me even more was that they didn't care if they were wrong... they just wanted to TRY! I was blown away. Some of the students in American schools could learn a thing or two about valuing education.
Anyway, after leaving that classroom, I ran into Stephen. We both expressed interest in seeing the grade 8 classroom. So, we hopped in there to watch Elain, Amanda, and BJ teach the students. They taught on everything from snow (and everything that goes with that...) to the United States geography and government system. They needed a little bit of help on the government system (it's been a while since they were in school), so Stephen and I obliged.
The girls even taught on sports and they sang "Take me out to the ball game."
It amazed me yet again how attentive those kids were... and they were willing to learn, even with those crazy wazungu (white people) teaching their class. ;D
The kids broke again for recess. Jennifer found me this time and pulled me aside. She showed me some pictures of her brother... the one who came to America... his name was Elijah. The pictures she showed me were ones taken IN America. This pictures were obviously something that she cherished very much. And she took great pride in showing them to me. I was very glad that she did.
After they went back inside for class, I walked over to a few of the teachers. Sometimes when the kids are doing an independent study, the teachers get a break. Lisa, Sherry and I held a conversation with them for about a half hour. We learned a lot about Kenyan marriage, dowries, Kenyan government and geographic divisions, Kenyan school systems... etc.
After a while, the team ate lunch. Same as the day before... but this time, we had JELLY on the sandwiches. Lisa, Tim, Terry and I gathered supplies for VBS.
VBS was amazing! The kids loved it! When Lisa, Tim and Terry had to act, they did an amazing job!! The kids were laughing hilariously!! And when we asked the kids to memorize the verse, they did an amazing job!!! We didn't have to give them any clues or anything, they had it immediately!!
The health lesson for the day was teeth brushing... and it was obvious that the kids enjoyed it. We even caught some of the kids brushing their teeth after the lesson! It was awesome! The craft for the day was even better, I say that only because I participated in it.
We took polariod pictures of the kids for the craft. We had them stand outside and smile for the camera. They were escorted inside and given a dum-dum to keep them busy. We also put the memory verse at the bottom of the picture. It was so amazing to see how these kids LOVED their pictures. They would look at them, and show them to each other... and then put their fingers on it... it was just... I can't describe it... I wish I cherished pictures like that...
We even took pictures of the teachers and the headmaster, and the pastors. They loved it too!
After we had taken all the pictures and brushed all the teeth... the boys played soccer and the girls sat around and talked. I got to hang out with Jennifer. After learning some more Swahili, we had to leave.
The team got back to Sunrise around 6pm... we ate an amazing s-peghti dinner with fresh nanasi (pineapple) for desert... and then we de-briefed.
At the de-brief, Shane shared a story from his first Christmas in Kenya. He was almost killed, he was robbed and his children asked him "Daddy, am I going to die?". It was hard to keep my eyes dry.
Pam also got vulnerable and shared some of her story from Tanzania.
The team prayed over Shane and Jill.
I went straight back to my cabin, journaled and went to bed!!!
Check in later for pictures!!!
-Britt
