Reducing

The week has flown past and I’m, typing up my last post from Kosele. Tomorrow I’ll be on my way back to England. This will, unfortunately involve a lot of hanging around in airports. Still, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can take my office with me and carry on working. There’s a very nice place called the Simba Restaurant in Nairobi airport where you can sit in comfy chairs all day and only have to buy a coke. It’s out of the heat, has nice toilets and power sockets. A perfect place to hang about.

I love the way the English language is used in Kenya. Like lots of places where English is spoken as a foreign language grammatical constructs and use of vocabulary can be very funny. I spent a bit of time this afternoon chatting to Collins who is currently teaching Geography, History and Kiswahili in our Secondary school. I’ve known Collins for a long time. He’s the about same age as my son Tom and lived with our family when we first came out to Kenya for a year from July 2002. We were chatting about the work in the school, some of the things that we’ve been doing for the last few weeks and the progress that we’ve made. The pace has been pretty non-stop for all of us. I’m sure everyone will breathe a small sigh of relief when I’m safely on the way back to England. Collins made a lovely remark about the effect that Kenya seems to have on me. “You have reduced”, he said. I haven’t got any shorter since I arrived but I think I’ve lost a bit of weight. Collins seemed to think so anyway. I think Collins ought to consider a career in advertising. With one liners like that he would be a great success. It’s a much bigger encouragement than just saying “You’ve lost weight.”

We had a final debrief on the maths project today and it was encouraging to hear the very positive feedback from the team of teachers. The best comment came from Mr Ayodo (John), who said that he had been very excited when he saw two of the girls he had been teaching stop on their way home from school to do the ‘hand jive’ action chant we have been working on to help the pupils remember their times tables. The look on John’s face as he told this story was priceless and, all on its own, made all of the preparation and planning involved worthwhile. I hope to hear many similar stories when I return to Kosele after the election.

Last lap

The week has careered along at a fast pace and I am now coming up to my last day in Kosele for this visit. It’s been a very busy five or so weeks and, like this time last year, I am optimistic about the coming months - despite the intrusion of the election. The most rewarding part of the visit has been seeing our primary school teachers and pupils really taking the maths project to heart and putting a lot of effort into the lessons. I’ve been teaching some of the groups to push the training a bit more and am looking forward to seeing the progress that will be made in the second half of term.

Tomorrow the pupils will be staying at home as part of an extended half-term caused by the imminent election. It gives us a nice opportunity to conduct a detailed review of this term’s work in both schools as well as a chance to do some training with the secondary school teachers. This will be a particularly welcome chance to get to know them a bit better as a team. Having focused on the primary school for the last few weeks I am looking forward to getting the low down on our new students and sharing some new resources with their teachers.

Bright Spark

Every so often something happens that makes you realise how close to the margins we live out here. I've just finished reading The Flame Trees of Thika and was struck by the close similarities between the writer’s experiences of living in Kenya in 1914 and mine today. She wrote about the same battles against nature that all farmers face and the cultural differences between Europeans and native Kenyans. The same challenges and differences are still close to the surface in 2013. I was struck overall by the slim margin between living in relative comfort and life on the edge.

I have always enjoyed the early evening in Kenya. It’s usually a bit cooler than the heat of the day and the sunset is never disappointing. It’s a nice time to take a shower and wash away the dust of the day. Our showers are, at the moment, supplied by our bore hole. Whenever the shower tanks run dry a couple of lads roll out the hose and man the pump. It’s a very smooth routine now. Except when the generator packs up!

One of my recurring nightmares is that the powerful generator we use to pump our bore-hole or the gear at the business end of the bore-hole pack up. Without the water which we pump up from ninety metres below the ground we would very quickly come to a halt. It would be impossible to keep the children’s home going, let alone meet the needs of nearly two hundred pupils, students and staff every day.

Half way through pumping water for the showers the generator ground to a halt and wouldn't start. The oil was checked, petrol topped up and the whole thing left for twenty minutes to give it a chance to stop sulking and get going again. Still no joy. I would not really describe myself as a mechanic. I have a basic understanding of how a generator works and can check the most obvious mechanical faults. The only one remaining in our case was the spark plug. After a quick brushing with a tooth brush dipped in petrol the spark plug was replaced in the engine block and …… thank goodness ….. the generator roared into life. Great relief all round.

Small victories like this are all the sweeter for knowing the consequences of a more serious equipment failure. As we worked through the problem check list my heart had begun to sink. It is not easy to find a reliable mechanic out here and the prospect of being without the generator for any amount of time did not bear thinking about. Our minor glitch did provide a useful opportunity to do a quick reminder about the importance of routine maintenance on the generator. When you reduce life to the basics it is, in lots of ways, much simpler. Being so close to major challenges certainly makes you appreciate the luxury of good old fashioned infrastructure. 

Off to a good start

Our maths project is up and running now and seems to have got off to a good start. I was a little nervous as the pupils split up into their new groups after assembly this morning but was very pleased with the organisation and prompt start that was evident  thanks to the two teachers leading everything. We are starting the day with a long maths lesson and finishing with a shorter one. One of our main focuses during the project is to get the children more actively involved in their learning. This was certainly evident in the lesson I popped into this afternoon where there was a lot of noise and participation. So far so good.

We are at a very nervous time of the year as far as our farm is concerned. We have been busy preparing our plots for planting for the last couple of weeks. Duncan, our farm manger, was planning to plant the first seeds today so we really need to see some evidence of rain soon. In our teacher training days I found out more about the ‘dry winds’ and the ‘rainy winds’ that blow and have been trying to decide which we have been experiencing over the last two or three days. As we were working in the classrooms with the children this evening we enjoyed a short flurry of rain. Just enough to make conversation difficult for about ten minutes and encouraging enough to believe that the real deal may not be too long in arriving. This would be a welcome development. Our water supplies are holding up well so far but could be stretched a bit if we have to wait much more than two weeks for rain. Rain would come as a welcome relief to the children as they are having to fetch and carry water in buckets and watering cans to make sure that the tomatoes, peppers and water melons in the greenhouse receive enough water.

Election Day looms closer now. One week today the nation will go to the polls to elect the new president. It’s a very keenly contested race to State House and there is serious chance that a run-off election will have to be held in April. The papers are full of speculation and electioneering is gathering pace – especially in the larger towns. The political pace has picked up a little in our community but could hardly be described as frantic just yet. Yesterday evening a pick up carrying a number of obviously drunk and quite raucous guys drove past our place then turned round and went back up the road again. Today a pickup with a very loud speaker system strapped to the roof drove past extolling the virtues of a local candidate. Nobody took very much notice. As Election Day draws closer we might see a few more candidates on the stump. Like the rest of Kenya we are praying for a speedy resolution to the poll without any problems.

Midnight oil

It’s 11:40 p.m. and it seems a little strange to be listening to Steve Hackett (the guitar player from mega group Genesis) on headphones while typing out the final version of our maths project brief. I've got to that stage in my visit when time is running out and my to do list hasn't shrunk much. This is usually quite a productive tension – somehow the extra energy turns up, the work gets done and we move on. This maths project is one of the most ambitious we have attempted for a while (comparable only to preparation for the first season on our farm) and it’s important not to leave any loose ends. Those of the praying disposition might like to add this project to their prayer list.

I’d like to be fresh and raring to go in the morning so this will only be a short post tonight. I hope to have good news about the first day of our Maths Symposium tomorrow,

Fowl pest

Farming is a constant battle against the weather, weeds and pests. Our farm is still very much a work in progress so we are still new to this conflict. We are approaching our third growing season and are trying hard to earn maximum income in the short and longer term from our land. It’s a constant challenge. The weather is unpredictable; the pests come in a variety of shapes and sizes from the small larval type to the increasingly large chickens that enter our property at will at the moment. Then there are the rats, bugs, fungi and soil deficiencies that we have to do battle with. It’s no wonder farming is such a stressful occupation.

I have had a lifelong aversion to birds. Whatever kind of phobia attaches to fear of being in a confined space with any type of bird I have it. I’m not at all keen on picking them up or handling them either. I would, despite this irrational fear, happily wreak havoc on the chicken population in our immediate vicinity as they have eaten all of the water melon seedlings that we planted behind our classrooms. It is, to say the least, infuriating. Our neighbours have a very negligent attitude to the management of livestock – especially goats and chickens. Protecting a crop against these pests is very challenging. We will have to have words with our immediate neighbour tomorrow about the damage her chickens have done. I have to say I’m not at all optimistic about the outcome. It is difficult to see what changes she can make that would solve the problem. I’m not really sure if our rights in a situation like this extend to impounding offending poultry. It would be a good way of building up our own flock.

These problems are not new to the farming community, so I’m sure that we will find solutions to them. As we gain more skill and experience running the farm we will, I’m sure, draw nearer to achieving our financial goals. In the meantime I think we might need to train the children in chicken scaring tactics and mount patrols!

Fowl pests

Farming is a constant battle against the weather, weeds and pests. Our farm is still very much a work in progress. We are now approaching our third growing season and are trying hard to earn maximum income in the short and longer term from our land. It’s a constant challenge. The weather is unpredictable; the pests come in a variety of shapes and sizes from the small larval type to the increasingly large chicken that enter our property at will at the moment. Then there are the rats, bugs, fungi and soil deficiencies that we have to do battle with. It’s no wonder farming is such a stressful occupation.

I have had a lifelong aversion to birds. Whatever kind of phobia attaches to fear of being in a confined space with any type of bird I have it. I’m not at all keen on picking them up or handling them either. I would, despite this irrational fear, happily wreak havoc on the chicken population in our immediate vicinity as they have eaten all of the water melon seedlings that we planted behind our classrooms. It is, to say the least, infuriating. Our neighbours have a very negligent attitude to the management of livestock – especially goats and chickens. Protecting a crop against these pests is very challenging. We will have to have words with our immediate neighbour tomorrow about the damage her chickens have done. I have to say I’m not at all optimistic about the outcome. It is difficult to see what changes she can make that would solve the problem. I’m not really sure if our rights in a situation like this extend to impounding offending poultry. It would be a good way of building up our own flock.

These problems are not new to the farming community, so I’m sure that we will find solutions to them. As we gain more skill and experience running the farm we will, I’m sure, draw nearer to achieving our financial goals. In the meantime I think we might need to train the children in chicken scaring tactics and mount patrols!

A Matter of time

Today has been very encouraging. Our maths planning went really well. The teachers and I rapidly finalized the details of the timetable, assessment, resources and other practical details of our scheme and had fun in the afternoon learning some new games for use in the classroom.

At the moment I’m reading a book called “The Flame Trees of Thika”. It’s a famous account of life in Kenya at the time of the First World War and follows the lives of a motley bunch of Europeans as they set about colonizing a part of central Kenya. It’s narrated by Elspeth Huxley and tells the story of her childhood in Africa. Despite the hundred year span between Elspeth’s experiences and mine it is very easy to relate to her tale, especially when she writes about the differences between her own culture and that of the local community (in her case from the Kikuyu tribe).

One short passage in the book beautifully captures the difference. Elspeth writes:

“Sometimes, when Tilly [her mother] made a cake she let me use the beater, which had a red handle that you turned. The two arms of the beater whirled round independently and never touched so that perhaps one arm never knew the other was there; yet they were together, turned by the same handle, and the cake was mixed by both. I did not think of it at the time, but afterwards it struck me that this was rather how our two worlds revolved side by side.”

A conversation that we had during our planning meeting this morning illustrated the truth of this observation very well. Our main aim with our maths project is to make sure that all the primary school pupils master the most basic maths concepts then move on to tackle more advanced topics. I have noticed that the children have real difficulty understanding the topic of time and are unable to solve problems which involve time – especially if the complications of a.m. or p.m. are involved. Until today this has always puzzled me.

Our discussion reached the point of deciding which advanced topics we should cover. I suggested time as it is such a problem. “That will be because of the vernacular”, one of the teachers said. This surprised me. I wondered why something as simple as understanding the idea of 8 a.m. was so difficult for the pupils to grasp. “For the Luo [our local tribe] that is 2”, was the reply. “But that doesn’t make sense,” I objected. In typical European fashion I had jumped to the conclusion that anything other than our approach to time keeping was backward. Discussion of this mystery flowed between us for a few minutes and I was no closer to understanding the logic behind ‘Luo time.’ Fortunately one of the teachers understood my inability to think beyond GMT and explained that 2 makes sense if you start counting when the sun comes up. At this point everybody cottoned on and we had a bit of a diversion in discussing the same problem in a Swahili approach to time. Our oldest teacher recalled a national debate on the same subject some time ago.

I love the way that new nuggets of information like this drop into my understanding out here. It really is another world some days. Now that I know the cause of the problem it will be easier to design a solution. It really is a challenge but I’m sure we will rise to it. If our youngsters can cope with being tri-lingual (speaking ‘mother tongue. [Luo], Swahili and English) I’m sure they will be able to cope with two different methods of telling the time.

Maths adviser

The frenetic pace of maths re-invention continued today. Our maths boot camp resources are now ready for the ‘Let’s get going’ meeting tomorrow and I now have a fairly in-depth understanding of the Kenyan Primary Maths Syllabus. Talking to my wife Judi tonight we agreed that it doesn't really matter whether you are planning for a new project in a large school or a small school. The initial planning and preparation is as time consuming in either case. The only thing that really differs is the size of the photocopying bill at the end.

In a rare moment of self-indulgence I did take a short time out as dusk was approaching to empty all my bins and burn the rubbish. There’s something quite satisfying about poking a fire round to make sure everything catches, especially as the light is fading. It might just have been my choice of friends in my childhood but I think setting fire to things is pretty much hard wired into boys. I just never grew out of it. It was also nice to spend twenty minutes or so watching the children playing before the sun set and they all had to go indoors to do their homework. The girls were playing a game which involves hurling a ball at anybody in the middle of the playing area to get them out. Some of the girls could pitch for a baseball team. I’m surprised we don’t get more injuries. I haven’t been out to catch the sunset much during this visit so it was really good to see the sky slowly catch fire then fade away to darkness. A bit like the embers of my bonfire.

It’s late now so I’m going to call it a day. Tomorrow is an important day for the primary school as we set out our stall for the ‘Maths Symposium’. I’m not taking the old school Larium tablets to avoid malaria any more so don’t suffer from the associated crazy dreams. I've had one or two mildly strange ones though so hope I’m not plagued by maths nightmares tonight. 

The best laid plans

Some days out here are straightforward; others turn into something completely different from what was planned. Today has been one of the latter. Having made great progress on our training yesterday it almost seemed like today was determined to put a spanner in the works.

At about four o’clock yesterday afternoon I had a talk with one of the teachers about a concern that she had about her social security payments. It came as a surprise to me but I said I’d follow it up and made a few enquiries. It seemed that the problem was, in the end, a misunderstanding. Mostly a combination of poor communication and bad filing. This kind of thing pops up in most organisations at different times so I didn’t really think too much of it. I made a note to bring it up at the start of our training session today as an information item as much as anything and thought that there would be no further discussion

This turned out to be somewhat optimistic. The issue that we started with quickly led to a more general discussion about various issues that had cropped up since the last time I was in Kenya. This is a familiar pattern of events but it meant that the day’s agenda was hijacked. We talked a lot and, in the end, reached a good point where the various issues had been aired and settled. As the day unfolded we even got back on track with the training schedule. In a very short time we managed to pull the initial planning stage for a maths ‘boot camp’ together. I don’t know if the earlier discussion loosened up a creative vein in all of us but we very quickly arrived at a working outline for what will be a significant timetable change for us, starting as a pilot next week and continuing during March and early April. We will (assuming we have no further distractions) continue with our planning on Friday. 

Our ‘boot camp’ involves grouping the pupils in the lower and upper school by ability rather than age and working through a very intensive maths programme with them. We are aiming to make sure that all of our pupils master at least the basic maths skills needed for a solid foundation in the subject and that the most able mathematicians have a chance to make accelerated progress. It’s an ambitious plan that has the potential to really boost our maths performance over the year. It might not sound revolutionary but we are trying to address a problem that is common in countries all over the world. It would be marvelous to achieve a 'Made in Kenya' solution.

Time management

All the typing yesterday paid off today. The teachers and I had a good training day and I think we took another step closer towards improving our performance in maths. The training sessions were very intensive. We had a lot of ground to cover today and the classroom got hotter as the day progressed. Even after turning the air conditioning up to the maximum setting (opening all the windows and the door) we were very hot and sticky by the end of the day. The teachers’ evaluations were very positive and we had some fun experimenting with new approaches to teaching maths in the classroom.

While we trained the children in our upper classes helped to prepare the plots on our farm for planting. The weather is still predominantly hot and dry at the moment. We have had very little rain so our water storage tanks are a great help in making sure that all of the crops we currently have on the go (peppers, tomatoes, water melons and Kale) don’t dry up and wither away. The new students in our secondary school are, according to Duncan our farm manager, as enthusiastic in the fields as they are in the classroom which is very encouraging. We may see our first serious agri-business entrepreneurs out of this group.

As ever at this stage in a visit to Kenya the time is racing away again. I guess it’s the same in any situation when you have a limited amount of time and a lot to do. Time management isn’t really a strong point in our neck of the woods. Mr Isaiah (our High School Principal) and I attended a head teachers’ meeting a couple of weeks ago where the ideas was mooted that there will be a three day management workshop for head teachers in Kisumu (our nearest city about an hour and three quarter’s drive away) sometime soon. We received notification today that it will take place on the first three days of next week and that we are all expected to show up on Sunday 24^th to be ready for it. I’m sure the other details like where the meeting will be held will arrive in due course. Given the commitments that we have over the next week and a half this timetable creates a bit of a problem for us. Still, we have a few days to think it over. I’m sure we won’t be the only ones weighing up the pros and cons of attending.

Pain in the neck

Today’s post will, I am afraid, be shorter than usual. It has been a very productive day today. We have found a well-qualified maths and physics teacher for our secondary school. He starts work tomorrow. I've managed to finish all the training materials for our first day of teacher training, which also starts tomorrow. It’s been such a productive day that I am now heading towards the advanced stages of having a pain in the neck.

I’m beginning to wish I had taken more interest in design, technology and ergonomics when I was at school. History will, I’m sure, bear witness to the debilitating effects of computers on people’s health. I have tried very hard to ensure that the eye, shoulder, posture equation works on my ‘work station’ set up over here but today, I am afraid, I have been defeated. A simple case of too much typing and proof reading has left me with a pain in my shoulder and a tendency for my head to tilt slightly to the left. More worrying are the definite crunching sounds that my neck makes when I try to move my head up, round and down as recommended by health and safety types. I think it’s time to call it a day and hope that sleep will iron out the wrinkles. 

Downtime

Today started well – washing done early, blue sky, sun, good church service. I’m working on some training material for our teachers that we will be starting on Tuesday. The biggest challenge of putting it all together is avoiding my usual tendency to try and get too much done in one go. I’ve decided to focus on two strategies to help us in our quest for creating amazing mathematicians in our schools. Neither of them are rocket science really. One involves digging really deeply into test results to see where youngsters are struggling and the other focuses on a back to basics maths ‘boot camp’ approach to the pupils who have the most difficulty. All was going well until I decided to try resurrecting a laptop to use on the training day.

I have probably said before how much I enjoy putting spreadsheets together to make data management easier. A couple of years ago we were fortunate enough to receive funding for five laptops for the teachers and pupils to use. As is the case with all technology it’s alright as long as it works. This particular machine has, in the last six months or so, picked up a virus which is making it very difficult for me to hook it up to the Internet. Viruses are relatively easy to get rid of if you have got a good antivirus programme and reliable access to the Internet. Unfortunately neither of these things hold true for this laptop. Tonight it has been very difficult to get any kind of connection to the Internet, making it impossible to do anything about the problem. I’m hoping that tomorrow the situation might be better. I have a horrible feeling that the only thing to do with it in the end will be to restore it to a previous incarnation and re-install all the software. A tedious job at best and a nightmare if the restore doesn’t work and I have to rebuild it from scratch.

On a more positive note I have drawn some real inspiration from Salman Khan’s book “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.” If you haven’t visited the website or have children who are struggling at school go to https://www.khanacademy.org/ and have a look at one of the most powerful tools in the education toolbox at the moment. 

Downtime

Today started well – washing done early, blue sky, sun, good church service. I’m working on some training material for our teachers that we will be starting on Tuesday. The biggest challenge of putting it all together is avoiding my usual tendency to try and get too much done in one go. I’ve decided to focus on two strategies to help us in our quest for creating amazing mathematicians in our schools. Neither of them are rocket science really. One involves digging really deeply into test results to see where youngsters are struggling and the other focuses on a back to basics maths ‘boot camp’ approach to the pupils who have the most difficulty. All was going well until I decided to try resurrecting a laptop to use on the training day.

I have probably said before how much I enjoy putting spreadsheets together to make data management easier. A couple of years ago were fortunate enough to receive funding for five laptops for the teachers and pupils to use. As is the case with all technology it’s alright as long as it works. This particular machine has, in the last six months or so, picked up a virus which is making it very difficult for me to hook it up to the Internet. Viruses are relatively easy to get rid of if you have got a good antivirus programme and reliable access to the Internet. Unfortunately neither of these things hold true for this laptop. Tonight it has been very difficult to get any kind of connection to the Internet, making it impossible to do anything about the problem. I’m hoping that tomorrow the situation might be better. I have a horrible feeling that the only thing to do with it in the end will be to restore it to a previous incarnation and re-install all the software. A tedious job at best and a nightmare if the restore doesn’t work and I have to rebuild it from scratch.

On a more positive note I have drawn some real inspiration from Salman Khan’s book “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.” If you haven’t visited the website or have children who are struggling at school go to https://www.khanacademy.org/ and have a look at one of the most powerful tools in the education toolbox at the moment. 

Woodpile

Phrases like a snake in the grass or a snake in the woodpile don’t really have a lot of resonance in a place like England. Out here in Kenya, where there is a real possibility that a snake could be in either of those places, they are a bit more powerful. We have, fortunately had no snake incidents for some time but these phrases wandered across my mind earlier today.

Saturday tends to be chores day and the big chore today was sorting out the large pile of wood that has been occupying our volley ball pitch for the last week. Our wood is delivered in a lorry every once in a while. Once the driver has successfully parked up by our wood store he sits down for a rest and two other hefty looking guys chuck the wood off the lorry onto a big pile. The wood is left to dry for a little while and then another guy comes to ‘split’ it into manageable sized chunks. The idea of splitting the wood is a term from a by-gone age when an axe was used for this job. Nowadays the timber is ‘ripped’ with a chain saw.

At two this afternoon myself, Mr Isaiah (duty manager) and all the kids set to transferring the wood from the pile to the traditional style house that we use as a wood store. We had made a start on this task a couple of weeks ago and had put the first lot of wood into neat piles depending on size. There is a real art to creating a wood pile that is both compact and easy to take wood from without risking major injury. The kids are now fairly well practised as a chain gang so we got going. I was at the end of the line stacking the larger pieces of timber. I made a lot of noise laying the first few pieces of timber just in case a snake had decided to make itself at home since our last efforts. Fortunately nothing stirred.

Working with the children on a task like this is always good for some light relief. They are very adept at working out who is contributing to the work and who is slacking and tell each other off very readily. The production line stalled a couple of times but we soldiered on for just over an hour pretty much none stop until all the wood had been shifted. It made a nice change from slaving over a hot computer or observing in classrooms. Our newly appointed teacher for Year 4 is very keen on volley ball so I’m looking forward to seeing him inspiring our pupils into action on our newly reclaimed ‘court’.

Language barrier

There is a widely held belief that one of the ways of testing your understanding of something is to try and teach it to somebody else. On the whole I think it’s a very sound theory. It is very difficult to teach about anything that you haven’t really got to grips with. Except ……

I have always enjoyed reading. I can’t remember a time when I couldn't read and have very fond childhood memories of ploughing through any number of stories, especially at holiday times. I think I read almost all of Enid Blyton’s adventure story output and then graduated to westerns by JT Edson and Alistair Maclean novels. One of my favourite indulgences currently is finding time to take on a big political thriller.

Given my lifelong experience of reading I thought it would be quite easy to help some of our youngsters to improve their reading and give them a better foundation for making progress in their studies. I started in a small way last week by spending some time in the evening reading through a Walt Disney story book of Bambi with one of our weaker readers. It’s only when you start trying to explain the idiosyncrasies of English spelling and grammar that you realise what a truly awful language it is. There are always exceptions to any rule that you care to define. It’s really difficult, for example, to see any reason why the word gentle  isn't spelt jentel. Why does the g become j when it’s next to an e? Who decided this should be the case? Why? I've found it really challenging leading my student to approach reading as a series of logical building blocks that can be put together and made increasingly complex. Beyond the simplest words the English language (langwij?) is simply bonkers.

Over the week-end I’m going to see if I can find some crash course materials in teaching reading. I’m sure that there is a whole raft of such pedagogic gold out there on the Internet. Without at least a basic core of language building blocks learning to read the English language simply becomes an exercises in memorising vocabulary that somebody else leads you to. As a tool for lifelong learning this approach to mastering reading English seems highly deficient (difishunt?) to me.

All in all this latest challenge makes me in awe of those special primary school teachers who can successfully lead children to fluency in reading and at the same time inculcate a love of reading for pleasure. I was lucky, I know, to have teachers who led me in this dyreckshun.

If you’re stuck for something to do you might want to try remembering how you learned to read. I know I can read but I can’t for the life of me remember how I got the hang of it.

Bus conductor

Like employers the world over we have to meet a number of obligations to our employees. Labour Laws in Kenya are very similar to those in the UK so it makes it easier, in some respects, for us to be compliant. We are suffering from a minor population explosion among our ranks at the moment. Two of our primary school teachers are about to go off on maternity leave so we have got to find temporary replacements for them.

Today we conducted our first interviews for one of these temporary posts. Recruiting teaching staff in Kenya is a very different process to that in the UK. In the UK an advert in the Times Educational Supplement would almost guarantee a good field of candidates to choose from, drawn very often from across the country. In our part of Kenya the process is a lot more localised. It is difficult to entice teachers to come to a rural location like ours. Fortunately we have a file with applicants’ details in from previous recruitments so we can usually draw up a shortlist. It isn't always possible to ensure that shortlisted candidates will attend the interview but we do our best.

Our Senior Management Team (SMT) has convened as an interview panel a few times now so we are quite good at putting interviewees on the spot with a set of finely tuned questions. We share the questions between us and chip in as we feel prompted during an interviewee’s responses. I was very encouraged today by the answers we received from our successful candidate. We are trying very hard to adopt a principle from the Jim Collins book Good to Great as we build up our team of teachers. Originally featuring in a very crazy book called The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test we are working very hard at making sure we have 'the right people on the bus with us'. Being a bus conductor was never really high on my life work wish list but it’s a nice metaphor. Right now the bus is rolling on and we’re all packed for a long journey.

Observations

Having all but concluded my observations in the classrooms I’m now looking forward to putting our training together for next week. Over the last three days I have seen some encouraging evidence of results from last year’s training in August. I've seen teachers developing the practical activities that we started last year and a real willingness to try out new approaches to managing lessons. From the feedback sessions I've had with our teaching team I’m confident that there is a commitment to pushing on with our agenda for change.

One of the real challenges of developing training programmes is to practice what you preach. If lessons should be interactive, lively and challenging training sessions should be the same. I have, fortunately, been able to build up a large bank of resources to support learning from a very wide range of sources on the Internet. Some of them need a bit of tweaking to make them suitable for using in Kenya but the principles behind the games and activities are fairly universal. My hoarding instinct is ideally suited to Google searching for these kinds of materials.

As I've been trying to find resources that match our current priorities this year (literacy and numeracy) I have been struck, again, by the constraints that most teachers in our area work under. Text books are available (though they don’t always find their way into the classrooms) and many teachers are very skilled at producing their own wall charts and teachings aids. The absence of television and high cost of good quality magazines and other media seriously hamper teachers who wish to expand their pupils’ horizons and knowledge of the world beyond Kosele. There are those who would argue that this isn't necessarily a bad thing but in a global society ignorance is, I think, a dangerous thing.

I have often read about the ‘poverty mentality’. A lowering of aspirations and expectations in the face of sustained economic hardship. It occurs to me tonight that one of the challenges of raising educational standards in rural schools like ours isn't so much the unwillingness of teachers to make more effort. It’s a much more deep rooted problem that draws on their own experiences and lack of access to the curriculum enriching resources that we take so much for granted in our classrooms in the UK. It’s a cultural gap that is difficult to cross.

I’m planning to introduce our teachers to the popular UK TV game show Countdown during our training next week. It amazes me that such a simple format has been popular for over twenty years. The two contestants in each episode compete in three disciplines:  letters rounds, in which the contestants attempt to make the longest word possible from nine randomly chosen letters; numbers rounds, in which the contestants must use arithmetic to reach a random target number from six other numbers; and the conundrum, a buzzer round in which the contestants compete to solve a nine-letter anagram. Perhaps that’s the secret to crossing the cultural divide – start off by keeping it simple. 

Discussions I never though I would have [Part 2]

Today has been a busy schedule of teacher observations again and has been very revealing. I've seen teachers from both of our schools today. From the youngest children in our Nursery class to the oldest in Form 2 of our secondary school. It has felt a bit like fast forwarding through a film watching children grow up. First lesson this morning I was watching the nursery children learning to write the alphabet. My last observation was a geography lesson with Form 2 taught by Teacher Collins.

Watching Collins teaching was a very strange experience in many ways as he is the main reason that Judi and I became involved with Kenya. About eleven years ago we started to sponsor Collins and just over ten years ago came out to Kenya to work with the lady who ran the orphanage he then lived in. Collins is about the same age as my son Tom and he came out to Kosele with Judi, our children Tom and Ellie and I when we started our work in Kosele in July 2002. Collins is currently waiting to start University in Kisumu, (the closest city to us) and is earning his keep teaching humanities subjects for us. Collins is a good teacher and had a nice rapport with the class I watched him teaching. We sat in my ‘office’ (the living room of the house I stay in) to discuss the lesson. When Collins was living with Tom and Ellie in 2002 the same room had been their classroom. We had a quiet chuckle about the way life works out.

As I type our Year 8 pupils are doing another test for me. Tonight it is English. I’m very glad we have a mark scheme for the questions. The tests that the pupils sit in primary school in Kenya are all multiple choice, fifty questions to a paper. It is very impressive that our children can speak three languages – their ‘mother tongue’ (Luo, the local tribal language in our case), Kiswahili and English. I enjoy the creativity of writing but have long forgotten the formal rules of English grammar. The questions that the children have to answer on their English paper are, I think, very hard so it will be extremely interesting to see how they get on. Despite the multiple choice format the questions are very subtle and require good subject knowledge. There is about an hour left to go and you can almost hear the grey cells turning over.

Tomorrow is my last day for lesson observations. On Thursday and Friday all the pupils in our primary school will be sitting their first exams of the year to help us determine their baseline performance. Next Tuesday we’ll be poring over the data as part of our training day. I still can’t believe that I get to do this job sometimes. Teaching isn't for everybody but when you feel the momentum building with a group of youngsters and teachers it’s very exciting. 

Form 1

It has been a very good day in the life of our Technical School today. Having spent last week selecting students for our new Form 1 intake and making preparations for their arrival, today was the day they started. It was very encouraging to see them arrive on time and dressed smartly. I’m not really sure how they all felt as they went to take their first breakfast together but I was quite nervous about the whole day. It is very important for us to encourage these young people and to give them a real hope for the future. None of them would have been able to go to secondary school if we hadn't offered them a place. Their teachers remain confident that we have chosen a good group with great potential. Time will tell but at this point in the day (a couple of hours after the end of school) I am feeling a bit more relaxed about the rest of the week.

I've spent the day in school inspector mode observing lessons in our primary school and giving feedback to teachers on their lessons. Most of them have been through this process before so it is fairly familiar territory for them this year. I enjoy watching teachers at work. There is always much to learn. I particularly enjoy the feedback session after an observation. Talking to our teachers I get the distinct impression that this type of professional development is not widely practiced in public schools in Kenya. Rose, our Year 2 teacher, told me that you are inspected while you are training to be a teacher and then left alone to get on with it. I am encouraged by our teachers’ response to being observed. They are appreciative of both training and performance management seeing these practices as positive and career enhancing. We will follow up with a training day next week.

It’s my birthday today so I’d like to thank all the regular blog readers who have sent me birthday greetings. I think I spent my birthday last year in Kenya as well, so I’m now getting used to it. I try and keep this event as low profile as possible as I don’t really like anybody making a fuss about it. I spent an interesting forty minutes this morning observing a lesson about divisibility rules in maths. I can confidently say that my age as of today is definitely divisible by five!

Bundles

The Internet is an amazing thing. In our rural backwater in Kenya it is an unbelievably amazing thing. The pace of progress in mobile communications in Kenya (and, I believe a good chunk of the rest of Africa) is quite incredible.  Last year I had to opt for the slow connection option on my Googlemail account to get any messages to display within an acceptable amount of time. This visit there is not that much difference in performance from home on fairly basic applications like email. As an internationally joined up organisation it is, obviously, vital that we have up to the minute communications systems.

This is a fairly roundabout way of saying that you very quickly get used to Internet access and come to rely on it for a number of things – communication, news, light relief and the feeling that you aren’t actually in a fairly off the beaten track location. It is, therefore, very frustrating when there is an interruption to the usually good service.

I have had a really good evening doing some more work with our young leaders team. The three of them are becoming increasingly open to sharing about their dreams, strengths and weaknesses and I really think we are getting somewhere. Once we had finished (about 9.15 p.m.) I thought “time to do the blog and email Judi” only to discover that THERE WAS NO INTERNET. At least not on my usual network.

This led to opting for Plan B – the other network which, at least last year, was very patchy. The majority of Internet users like me in Kenya plug a modem device with a phone SIM in it to access the service. It’s cheaper to buy a pre-paid bundle of a fixed number of Megabytes than to use the gadget like a phone. The only problem is this network seems to be very difficult to top up online. This may be a by-product of the way I installed the little modem on my computer but it’s getting a bit late to mess about with starting the installation all over again. Solution to the problem (plan C). Put the SIM card in a phone. Top up by text messages (chosen from a not very intuitive menu system) then put SIM card back in modem and plug back into computer. Somewhat long winded but it worked. I now have a backup Internet connection and have learnt a little bit more about the idiosyncrasies of the Internet in Kenya.

You can’t beat a good wrestle with technology to test your patience. I really admire the ability of people in Kenya to get the most out of mobile communications. The various Internet cafes and mobile phone services that are available look like they are held together with the electronic equivalent of string but they frequently stay up and meet an increasing demand for connectivity. As a Westerner I guess I am as addicted to the Internet as the next person. It’s a far cry from the first missionaries experience and sometimes feels like a bit of a cop out. I wonder how Stanley and Livingstone’s relationship would have worked out if they’d both been on Facebook.

Haircuts and Hallelujahs

It has been a fantastic day today (for the obvious if somewhat contrived link to the song which will probably irritate you all day now follow the link below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iYhw_5ehZ4

My continuing spiritual quest through starvation continues with, I’m glad to say, very encouraging results. I started today with a bit of an overwhelmed feeling again. Following on from a previous post the audacity of what we are aiming for with the expanding scope of our work is both exciting and terrifying. I am still convinced that we are doing the right thing and believe that we will be successful but it still feels like a very big ask occasionally.

The most challenging part of this visit is building up momentum again in our continuing quest to implement new approaches to teaching that will make the children’s experience in school more rewarding. It’s a global challenge but that doesn’t make it any less pressing out here in rural Kenya.

I’ve been reading a book called “Jesus on Leadership” today as part of my preparation for some training with our team of teachers in a couple of weeks time. It’s a book I picked up in Nairobi last February when I was killing time waiting for my work permit to be processed. I made a bit of a start on it but didn’t really get very far. I have frequently found that when I most need inspiration the resources are at hand. This year (almost exactly a year after buying the book) it is just what I need. Inspiring and challenging. Having started the day praying for inspiration and encouragement I find I am given inspiration and encouragement.

One of the perpetual roundabouts in work like ours is the thorny problem of what our mission is. You could be forgive for asking “Well if you don’t know by now what have you been doing?” but the issues is a bit more complex. My wife Judi and I have always believed that we were called to this work in Kenya. As we have understood the issues and problems that the community that we serve experience we have initiated a number of responses and have come to the point where our primary focus is education. I guess this makes sense as we are both teachers. Knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it are quite different things. I regularly reflect and pray to make sure we stay true to our purpose.

“Jesus on leadership” poses a number of questions throughout the text. One of the first questions really pulled me up short. “You know what your vision is by completing the statement ‘God called me to ……’. I think it is important to be able state your vision in this way because being that succinct really puts you on the spot. It’s a hard thing to do meaningfully. It’s easy to knock off some catch all ‘mission statement’ but very difficult to compose something that has real personal and organisational significance.

Accepting that this pre-supposes one overriding mission (which can be achieved through many actions over a lifetime) I started to think about my first decision to become a teacher, way back in the 1970s. I remember sitting on a bus going from Aylesbury to Oxford and looking out of the window at a large school. I was at a decision point in my life. I was working as an operating theatre porter and beginning to realise that I was unlikely to make much of a career as a guitarist and that being an operating theatre porter was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. As the bus drove past the school I felt a very strong urge to go to university, get a degree and then train to be a teacher. This was a somewhat unlikely course of action for me, having been expelled from one of the schools I attended. I still remember the drive behind this decision. The desire to ‘do something’ about what happens in classrooms and to make education more rewarding and exciting for children than my own experience had been. I duly went on to become a teacher and have pursued that goal over the years.

Reflecting on this long distant memory helped me to complete the sentence. ‘God called me to transform children’s experience of education’. Job done. In the context of our work as it goes on it was an important point to come to. I have found it difficult to state what I really believe our schools are about so simply before. This focus will, I am sure, make my job easier in the training I will be doing shortly and as we go forward this year. It was a eureka moment.

Believing, as I do, that our work is God given I was massively encouraged when I very quickly checked my email on my phone minutes after writing this simple statement down. I have a lot of respect for a Christian writer called John Maxwell. He has written a number of very good books on leadership. I receive a short video message from John Maxwell every day (like thousands of other people) in my inbox. It’s a short encouragement from John Maxwell which he provides free as part of his lifelong mission to equip leaders. He speaks for a couple of minutes about a word suggested by one of the many subscribers to the feed. The email was at the top of my inbox list. The word for today. TRANSFORM.

I have said to many people who have commented on these ‘coincidences’ that they happen most when I take my prayer life seriously and least when my prayers are flagging. The voyage of affirmation through the book today and the fresh ideas it has given me are sufficient proof for me that God takes my requests to heart. This morning I needed a lift. By this afternoon I’d received one.

 On a lighter note (returning to the 80’s pop link) our place has been a hive of haircutting activity today. We are having a smartness, discipline and good self-presentation drive in both schools at the moment so all of the kids have had a haircut. Quite a short one really. To show solidarity with their experience I decided I’d better pay attention to my own ‘neatness’ so had my hair done as well (a No. 2 cut which is one shorter than my usual preference). I don’t know what the kids made of it but they all seem to have recovered from the shock of losing their hair and really do look very good.

Updates

The billy goat saga continues. We have been very concerned up till now that we have been sold a dud and that our billy goat has more in common with pandas than goats in the fatherhood stakes. Duncan, our farm manager has reported a development in the goat rearing stakes. Duncan has been keenly monitoring the behaviour of the goats and seems confident that we can expect the patter of tiny hooves from one of our she goats (called Oink) in about 5 months time assuming all goes well. Hooray!

We have been busy over the last three days enrolling new students into our Technical School. We had a very successful meeting with the students who passed our selection panel and their parents yesterday and have spent today making sure their classroom is ready for occupation on Monday and that we have all the text books that they will need to start with. We have been able to select a very bright bunch of boys and girls from the local community and are looking forward to getting the ball rolling with them. I spent a couple of hours tightening up the nuts and bolts on their desks this afternoon. It was very therapeutic.

I have felt a bit cooped up on our compound since arriving in Kenya this time as all of my work has been focused on our schools and the start of the school year. It was nice to get away for a brief spin early this evening. Our driver, Elkana, lives quite a distance away and didn’t return from driving our manager from a major supplies shop until about 6 pm. It took a little time to unload the Landrover so Elkana was a bit worried about the prospect of getting home. We loaded his bike onto the roof and set off in the trusty Landrover. The road is bumpier than ever. As it hasn’t rained for a while it’s also very dusty so the return trip was very ‘Desert Stormish’ with dust kicking up from passing vehicles and visibility down quite low. It was, none the less, good fun. We stopped on the way back to pick up two neighbours who were laden down with shopping. If all else fails we could always start a taxi service.

Blast from the past

As I type tonight’s post I am reminded of my own school days at secondary school. For the first four years of my secondary education I went to boarding school and, after the initial horrors of homesickness and communal living had worn off I quite enjoyed it. It certainly helped me to develop some good study habits which came in very helpful later in my life.

We are working very hard with our Year 8 pupils to help them to prepare for their KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education). Apart from one or two new topics in the exam subjects that the pupils take (Maths, English, Science, Kiswahili and Social Studies) year 8 is pretty much a revision year. Having attended the head teachers’ meeting earlier in the week and learnt about some of the finer arts of making sure the pupils perform well I am trying to do my bit to assist in the coaching and encouraging.

Tonight the five year 8 youngsters who live in our home are taking a science test which will be followed up by some re-teaching of the topics that they have not yet mastered. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. If you are a people watcher an exam room of any kind is a fascinating thing to observe. You can easily spot the confident students as they steam through the questions, pausing every now and then to catch an elusive thought before committing it to paper. At the other end of the spectrum the pupils who have clearly got no idea what the answers are squirm in their seats, look to the ceiling for inspiration, stare at the paper in disbelief or put their heads in their hands and slump on the desk – possible praying but more probably trying hard to make the time pass.

This evening our youngsters are, to their credit, having a good go at the test. They are working out of a revision book (The Highflyer Series – a revision institution in Kenya) which has got mock exam papers for each subject. They have all resisted the temptation to look up the answers at the back of the book. I have set this test up carefully with them, explaining that it will help me and their teacher to work out what topics we need to revise with them to make sure they understand them. I’m sure that somewhere deep down in their student psyche the children probably think I am very cruel working them so hard. I remember thinking the same myself when I was sat with about thirty other boys in ‘prep’ at boarding school. It’s funny the way life works out. When I was 13 years old the last thing I wanted to do was to be the teacher supervising our homework time.

It will, I hope, be very rewarding watching the youngsters become more confident about their school work as we go on with our year 8 programme. Right now we’re at the start of our year 8 marathon.  I’m looking forward to helping the children see where they went wrong and working towards the ‘eureka’ moment when the topic finally lands fully in their understanding. 

Juggernaut

Some days it’s only faith that keeps the plates spinning here in Kosele. It’s not usually a crisis that precipitates this response. There’s just so much going on some days that the threads are hard to hang on to. Today has been one of those days. One of the main tasks has been our selection process for new students in our Technical School (Form 1). The start to the secondary school year was delayed by a teachers’ strike last year creating something of a rush as we and other schools round the country start enrolling students. Our process involved two exam papers and a check on pupils’ home circumstances. Our Technical School aims to cater for students from needy backgrounds who would otherwise be unable to attend secondary school. We had a good response to our flyers advertising places for this year and did not finish processing the exam results until well after the end of our normal school day. It’s been a long day for our team of teachers and they have really pushed the boat out to arrive at a final selection of students who will be offered a place.

During the rest of the day a series of meetings, budget planning and a printer breakdown added to my sense of the day gathering pace at an unreasonable rate. The enormity of what we are committed to sometimes feels a bit daunting, especially when the pattern of the day’s activities exposes the knock on effects of each decision. It’s really important to hang on to what you believe on in this situation.

Just when I thought most of the day’s issues had been laid to rest I heard a large white Toyota pickup pull in through our gates. The UNICEF logo on the side meant it could be only be one person – the DCO (District Children’s Officer). I haven’t seen the DCO for a while so had no idea why he was calling. When I spotted a young lad sitting in the cab of the pickup clutching what looked like a bundle of rags in his hand it became clear. The DCO had rescued a runaway and wanted us to offer him a safe bed for the night. We have been asked to provide this kind of short term care before and were, fortunately able to find him a place. His case was typical of many lads his age. He had fallen out with the relatives who were caring for him (having no parents) and decided to walk to see another relative some distance away. He was picked up by the police in a town called Homa Bay some distance from our place. He has spent the last month in a children’s home in Homa Bay and I’m hoping, for his sake, that the DCO will live up to his promise and come back in the morning to return him to his family. I know children run away from home in the UK but I’m still amazed how tough life is for orphans out here.

I've started a leadership training programme with three of our young people during this visit and am very encouraged by their response. It’s based on a book called “The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader’s Day” by a guy called John Maxwell. After a long day trying to keep the various pieces in place it’s really nice to be able to spend an hour investing in these youngsters. It’s fairly easy to write a mission statement about what you are about but you can’t beat the hands on experiences that bring it to life.

Tomorrow we’ll be meeting the students we've offered places to and their parents. I’m sure our team will rise to the challenge and make sure it is a good meeting. I’m hoping there aren't too many surprises between now and then.

Famous last words. As I was posting the blog I'm sure we had a short earth tremor. Ah well. Tomorrow is another day.

Meeting Notes

The head teachers’ conference that Mr Isaiah (our Principal) and I attended today was very worthwhile. Both of my worries about it were unfounded. I was welcomed at the meeting but didn't get asked to make a speech and the food was very nice. All of the attendees also enjoyed a soda courtesy of the local MP who is currently seeking re-election.

The meeting combined congratulations for the previous years’ exam results from Year 8 pupils who took the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and various announcements, requests for fee payments and assorted reports on administrative matters. The meeting came to an end at about 4 p.m. after a rousing call to continuing the good work from the District Education Officer who carries the can for all things educational in our area.

Due to the seating arrangements I tried, at different points during the meeting, to do the aeroplane passenger exercises (seated variety, wandering about wouldn't have gone down too well). The meeting was held outside on the campus of a primary school in Oyugis, (our nearest town). The education officials and guest speakers were seated under a largish gazebo, mostly on plastic chairs and the head teachers sat in school desks in front of the gazebo. Kenyan public school desks are an interesting combination of economy and bum numbing practicality. The desk is an all in one structure that could, with a little imagination, be used as a sledge. The seat and back are made of one plank of timber and the ‘desk’ itself is another plank of wood that you can just about fit a small exercise book on. Pupils sit two to a desk. The whole structure is bound together with timbers that give rise to the sledge comparison. Sitting in one of these for nearly six hours introduces you to all sorts of new ways of trying to keep the blood flowing to your legs. Hence the airline exercise routine. Because the meeting was held outside the sun kept changing position, so every so often desks would be shuffled over to the nearest spot of shade (we moved twice).

It’s easy to be dismissive or critical of the way events are managed in cultures different to your own. There were some funny moments in the meeting (as there are the world over) and some phrases that don’t sound odd in Kenya but would in the UK (“All protocols observed” for example). There were some very good speakers at the meeting who spoke with passion about their desire to do the best for the children in primary schools in our district. Given the absence of nearly all modern teaching technologies in these schools the teachers do incredibly well to manage classes of up to 60 plus pupils. I was glad of the opportunity to take my place among the other head teachers and will, I am sure, learn a great deal from them as we get to know each other better.

Early Night

I've been meaning to have an early night for days but somehow never seem to get round to it. For a few days last week the rain made it difficult to get to sleep. We have had the more normal hot weather for the last couple of days which has been a great relief to all. Over the weekend there was a major funeral celebration which involved a bizarre combination of all night disco and gospel singing on Friday and Saturday topped off by what sounded like a series of sermons on Sunday. If it was anything like a fairly large funeral Judi and I attended a few years ago there were also quite a few speeches and public announcements from the local Chief and possibly his assistant. I guess it makes sense. It was pretty much a whole community affair which sets up a convenient captive audience.

Anyway. Apart from appreciating the catch up on sleep I want to be at the top of my game tomorrow for the Head teachers’ meeting that I’m going to. The District Education Officer is responsible for calling this meeting so I’m guessing it will be well attended. I’m really looking forward to meeting the local heads. I haven’t attended one of these meetings before.

Apart from ensuring the white shirt is well ironed and that the tie goes with it I’m a little nervous about etiquette at the meeting. I’m sure I will be the only white person in attendance. In the past this has often led to having to make a speech of some sort. Apart from standing out in the crowd I am also wondering whether there will be any food or drink issues. The meeting is supposed to start at 10.00 a.m. I’m hoping the DEO will be strict on time. Either way the meeting is sure to go across lunch time. Deciding what to eat, should lunch be served, could be interesting. I’m not unadventurous about trying new food but do tend to be cautious when eating away from our place. You never know who has cooked the food or where the water came from. In the past I've tried to follow the crowd in this area and asked for very small portions. On a positive note sodas were served at the last proper official meeting I attended. I've managed to avoid drinking sodas (Coke and Fanta) this visit but I wouldn't say no the ‘the real thing’ if offered. 

The Rat's Revenge

For the last three days I have been aware of a bit of a smell in my house. I didn’t sleep very well a couple of nights ago and I’m sure that one of the things that woke me up was the smell. It’s hard to describe it. It was definitely not me and not food that had gone off (although I did locate a green and hairy piece of tomato that had stuck to one of my bins yesterday). The phrase ‘smelling a rat’ won’t mean a lot to anybody who hasn’t smelt one. Once you have smelt a dead rat it takes on a completely different meaning.

Yesterday James, our security guard, kindly crawled around in the roof space of the house to see if it had sneaked up there to pass away. Not a sign. I then turned the house upside down as far as I could but still no rat. I was becoming more confident that the rat had either been removed by some other scavenger or the smell had disappeared when I chucked the rotten tomato out. Unfortunately this was not the case.

This morning the smell had returned with a vengeance. It was impossible to ignore, especially in and around the kitchen. I decided it was time to consult the expert rat catcher - Janet, who originally put the poison down. As soon as she walked in she said “There is a dead rat”. Good to know my senses hadn’t been playing tricks on me. Janet poked around the cupboards, as I had the previous day and then made a start on the kitchen. The gas rings I cook on are on a table in front of a fireplace which we have put a board across. (To prevent bees from swarming in the kitchen). I removed the board the yesterday to see if the rat was behind it. As the body had been decomposing for twenty four hours since my last search it didn’t take us long to decide that the rat was up the chimney somewhere. James to the rescue again.  Unlike me James was able to stand in the chimney space and locate the rat (I’m sure it won’t take you long to work out why).  I’m not sure what the unions would have to say about sending security guards up chimneys but James is, fortunately, a very helpful and obliging guy. When I returned from church he told me that he had found “a very big rat” halfway up the chimney. It’s now adding to the nutrients at the bottom of one of our old pit latrines.

It being Sunday the saga of the rat got me thinking about a good sermon illustration about the problems our bad habits and wrongdoings cause us. Horrible smell…. Trying to pretend it’s not there…. Hoping it might be somebody or something else…. Eventually having no choice but trying to do something about it…. Being unable to deal with the problem yourself…. Needing a friend to help you. I’m sure you can join up the dots. Any pastors, budding preachers or Sunday school teachers please feel free to embellish. It would probably make for quite a good school assembly as well. Especially if you could bring in the offending item as exhibit A. Children like a good object lesson, the more graphic the better.

Pruning

Yesterday I reported on a discussion I never imagined I would have. Today I spent some time pruning which, as my wife Judi would tell you, is somewhat uncharacteristic behaviour. I have, in previous blogs, reported on various DIY tasks which I've done over her (especially electrical repairs). Back in the UK DIY doesn't usually figure very highly on my radar, partly because I’m not very good at it and partly because I always find other things to be busy with. Over here in Kenya I find myself driven to these tasks through the necessity and mother of invention route.

Outside the house I live in over here there is a large water container which collects rain from the roof. When we first started our work in Kosele being able to collect water in this way was essential as we did not have a bore hole. Nowadays the water is used for washing clothes. Next to the water container there is a rose bush. The roses, being from Kenya, are as you would expect, very nice. Unfortunately it hasn't been very well tended over the last few months. Consequently new shoots from the bush have grown over the top of the water container making it very difficult to get at the water. I spotted this a few days and thought, as no-one else seemed to be bothered about it, that I would take the matter in hand. So, armed at first with a pair of scissors, I made a start on pruning the rose bush this morning. As usual my initial choice of tools was not really up to the job so I ended up resorting to the trusty multi-tool penknife that I have (star of some of my most ambitious electrical repairs) and set to properly.

There seemed to be a lot of shoots to prune once I got going. I’m not sure if it’s just the kind of job you inevitably get carried away with or not. It certainly seemed to be the case that the more I snipped away the more there was to snip. It soon became apparent that some of the older branches on the bush needed to be removed as well. It’s amazing how effective the little saw on a multi-tool can be! The really worrying thing about this burst of activity was that it was quite enjoyable. I am now very worried that I might become a ‘potterer’ as I get older.

This anxiety has been compounded by the pleasure I got from my follow on pruning activity. At the other end of the house, outside one of the bedrooms, there is a nice green bush. The leaves are a lovely dark green colour and it creates a bit of privacy. As bushes do it has grown a bit unevenly, with new shoots sprouting out at the top, creating the impression of a very bad haircut. Buoyed by my success with the rose bush I thought I would try my hand at improving the appearance of the bush. The scissors proved the most effective tool in this case. As I snipped away I began to think that the rose bush had been an easier job. It had definitely needed a fairly dramatic pruning. Adopting the same approach to the green bush would, I thought, create a real eyesore. So I snipped carefully. The precision of my snipping wasn't really helped by the African bees which buzzed round my head. These bees are huge and very noisy. They live in holes which they drill in the wooden eaves of the house. Unlike our goat (see previous blog) I think these bees were being quite active in some kind of courtship ritual. Fortunately they left me alone as long as I ignored them.

As my pile of clippings from the bush grew bigger I began to think about “The Constant Gardener”. A very good film about medical drug trials in Kenya. It made me wonder if there is something about Kenya that turns middle aged men to the eccentricities of gardening. I was conscious of fitting a stereotype which I have found comical in the past. I am a bit concerned that I don’t really care. The bush looks quite good now, if I say so myself.

My new found enthusiasm for this type of gardening has plenty of scope for future indulgence. Just beyond the house is a small area of ground which has been planted with hedges fairly recently. The hedges have been laid out to form the letters H & K. I couldn't help noticing the letters seem to lack a bit of definition at the moment. I wonder if our local hardware shop sells secateurs.

Discussion I never thought I would have [Part 1]

Our management team meetings have been very productive so far. We finalized the farm plan this afternoon so will now swing into action to make it happen. When we got to AOB in the meeting Duncan (our farm manager) chipped in with the “What are we going to do about the billy goat?” question. In a previous blog I mentioned that this goat has been a bit if a disappointment so far in the making baby goats stakes. Following observations by Duncan it would seem that the problem still remains.

It’s surprising how long you can carry on a discussion about this topic! The issue is fairly straightforward. We have been planning to breed good quality kids by crossing local she goats (which are hardy and disease resistant) with an ‘exotic’ goat (in our case a Toggenburg breed). The idea is that we produce quality kids which will be bigger and stronger than the local variety and therefore command a good price. Goat milk was also included in our plan as a useful by-product of the breeding program. Without some breeding activity this plan is, obviously, all just so much theory.

The obvious solution was to complain to the guy who sold us the goat. Duncan has tried this but he is proving elusive. Requests for him to come and discuss the situation have been met with assurances that he will come and talk about the problem with us. His definition of soon and ours are, I think, miles apart.

We could just sell the billy goat, ideally without losing any money, and buy another one. Unfortunately this would not be possible in our local markets as the exotic breeds don’t do very well. To get a better price would involve going to a market in a town about forty minutes’ drive away. A better alternative, according to Duncan would be to hang on to the goat until December, fattening it up for the meat market which is pretty good at this time. As we produce all the fodder we need and have had minimal vet’s bills so far that seemed like a viable plan.

Unfortunately this plan didn't resolve the breeding question. Our two nanny goats are, apparently, at just the right age to start breeding so we need to get on with it. Two alternatives were discussed. Hiring in a ‘stud goat’ or artificial insemination (AI). We discussed the pros and cons of each option for a while. We decided, in the end, to opt for the live breeding choice as we thought AI might prove costly. This kind of technology is also, on the whole, not very well advanced or reliable around our area.

At this point Isaiah offered the idea that the billy goat might take a bit longer to mature as it is an exotic (pedigree) breed so suggested we give him a bit more time to prove himself. This seemed at least plausible as this breed of goat is quite large when mature and ours isn't yet. We added this option to our list. It should be easy enough to find out. The Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI) has a facility in Kisii (a town about forty minutes’ drive away) and Isaiah has some personal contacts there.

The possibility that the billy goat just didn't fancy breeding with our two lady goats wasn't considered. This factor doesn't seem to affect any of the goats that are kept by our neighbors but you never know. Our goat’s exotic temperament might be the cause of the problem. If it’s good enough for Pandas I don’t see why goats shouldn't exercise breeding choices.

Decision time. We thought it was worth leaving it a bit longer for our goat to prove himself on the grounds that we didn't have much to lose in doing this. We’ll continue to harass the guy we bought it from (who is some kind of vet) but I don’t hold out much hope on this front. I’m not sure what the goat equivalent of a ‘pig in a poke’ is but I suspect the conversation would head off in that direction. Isaiah is going to talk to his KARI contacts to see what our options are for breeding should the billy goat just turn out to be a dud and, eventually, a Christmas dinner.

“Does anybody have any more business?”

Mary, our manager, had been a bit quiet in the last part of the billy goat discussion. The meeting had run on for some time (it’s a serious and time consuming business deciding what to plant and where to plant it). Everybody was ready to call it a day. Duncan’s item with the billy goat had looked like the last item of AOB and a firm conclusion had been reached. Except ……..

“I have a relative who is very good with goats,” said Mary.

Mary now has an extra item on her to do list. I await the next round of the billy goat saga with interest.