ET come back later

I had to take a trip up to Kosele this afternoon to see the local Children’s Officer, accompanied by Mary our manager. It was the first time I have really left our place since arriving a week ago so it was nice to get out for a bit. The visit to the Children’s Officer went well, if a little unpredictably. While we were waiting for our appointment we noticed a couple of young girls, also waiting, without an accompanying adult. The Children’s Department in Kosele has the unenviable task of protecting children from all sorts of threats to their health and welfare on a miniscule budget. If I was the Children’s Officer in Kosele I would either spend a great deal of time ‘in the field’, (ideally a very big, isolated field somewhere), or barricade myself into my office so that none of the pressing demands in the community could make their way in. It turned out that the girls were sisters and had run away from home, for very understandable reasons. The oldest was probably 9 or 10. The Children’s Officer found out more about their case though a couple of phone calls and, in the absence of any other suitable provision, asked if we could care for them until they could be returned home. What can you say? The girls came back to our home and will probably spend a couple of days with us while the Children’s Officer chases up the case. Children do, of course, run away from home in the West, but I would be surprised if they did so as frequently, or at as young an age as they do in Kenya. The current dry, hot spell is adding to the burdens of our already overstretched community. The Children’s Officer told us that the increasing hardship brought on by the weather will add to the number of cases presenting themselves at his office each day. It’s hard to imagine living like the people in our community do. The closest I can get to understanding it some days is to compare it with the rural tragedy that Thomas Hardy wrote about so often and the grim social problems that Charles Dickens catalogued. It really is another world. People shouldn’t have to live like this.

Today has been another classic ‘one extreme to another’ kind of day. Having left the Children’s Department with our two new guests we had to stop in Kosele to do some photocopying. We drove across the ‘village square’, (managing to avoid the bicycle repair business located under a tree), and parked up outside the photocopying shop. From the front passenger seat, looking to the left, I saw a largish room containing a pool table. The room had obviously been provided to serve some useful social purpose. There were an interesting collection of posters on the wall advertising local community projects. Inside the room two youngish men were playing pool. Community development has many strands in most parts of the world, but I wondered, as I waited for Mary to bring the photocopying back to the Landrover, what the two little girls in the back made of it all.

From a ‘getting things done’ point of view it’s actually been a good day today. We employed a new teacher to replace last year’s Standard 8 teacher, who has found another job in Kisumu, (the largest town that is anywhere near us).  The only blip on the horizon came in a text from our friend who had travelled to Nairobi this morning to pursue our applications for work permits. I’m afraid our initial optimism, (see yesterday’s post), has faded somewhat as it would appear that our file has been ‘misplaced’. Our friend said that he will contact us in a couple of weeks when he hopes to have better news. Guess I will just have to wait patiently for final confirmation of my alien status.

Only a few fainted

The boys got off to High School this morning at 10.30ish. They were finally enrolled in school at 4.30 p.m. According to Mary, (our manager who drew the short straw for the long day and went with them), “some boys fainted in the line while they were waiting”. Not ours I hasten to add. Duncan, (our farm manager who is an ‘old boy’ of the school that the boys are now attending), told me that each year about 400 new students are enrolled at the school. Hence the long wait to get in. As if that wasn’t bad enough he also said that the dinner queues were ‘quite long’. I guess its all part of growing up in Kenya. Probably character forming stuff. I just hope that the better qualities, (like patience and thinking about the needs of others), win out over the ‘law of the jungle’. They are all good lads. I’m sure they’ll do the right thing and be stronger for it. TIA.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be moving into our new school buildings until Wednesday at the earliest. More progress has been made but there are still a few outstanding ‘last finish’ jobs, (like making sure the off cuts off glass used for the windows are all tidied away). We have a meeting with the contractor tomorrow and I’ve prepared an ‘agreed actions’ schedule to fill in. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Ian, Hilda and I are developing a growing optimism that we will receive our work permits this month. The friend who is helping us to chase them up sent a text today to say that it is now time to pay for the work permits. We haven’t received official notification of this yet, but our friend will be travelling to Nairobi on our behalf tomorrow to, hopefully, take the next steps. Once the necessary payment has been made to the officials in the immigration department it should only be a short time until we are issued with ‘alien registration cards’. Being an official alien will be an interesting experience. 

TIA

Seven days have flown past and I’m mostly pleased with our progress so far. I had hoped that we would be moving into our new classrooms tomorrow but it looks like we’ll have to wait at least another day. A classic TIA, (This Is Africa), situation. For those of you who are puzzled by TIA it’s an acronym from the Leonardo DiCaprio film Blood Diamond. It’s a great movie if you haven’t seen it. TIA means that you can’t expect things to happen in Africa the same way they do in the West. This has its ups and downs – most noticeably in relation to meeting deadlines and attention to detail. Having waited this long to finish off our school building project I guess another couple of days isn’t the end of the world.

Tomorrow we will be sending our first students off to High School. The boys, (Tony, Kevin, Victor, Ben and Nicholas), are suitably excited and apprehensive. Attending High School means that they will have to be boarders at their new school.  We have managed to buy all of the things that they need to take with them to their new ‘home’. I’m sure the pink melamine cups will be fine! Fortunately, (for us at least), the school is not very far away, in Oyugis, our closest town, so we will be able to support them in their studies by visiting at parents days and being on hand to sort out any difficulties they may have. Many High School students travel a great distance to attend decent High Schools and don't see their parents or guardians very often. The school our lads will be attending, (Agoro Sare High School), has a good reputation and we are as confident as we can be that they will do well there.

I’m hoping that the coming week will be equally encouraging for our Agriculture College students. To foster a sense of collegiate identity we asked the students to design the college uniform and they have come up with a great proposal – practical, smart and green, (in colour). We’ll need to get the local tailor in to measure them up. Assuming the school building handover happens this week we will be able to make their classroom a more suitable base for them. In anticipation of future success as goat breeders we will also, probably, take them on a field trip to one of the local livestock markets.

As we all settle into our new routines I have noticed a worrying personal trend developing – getting into a ritual! So far this is limited to setting out the soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, bottle of water, nail brush and towel in the same place every night in the shower, (always using the same shower cubicle). Our showers are attached to the side of the house that my room is in. They have a wooden frame and are covered by a thin sheet of metal. They don't have a roof so you get an amazing view of the sky at night while you are taking your shower. The shower ritual is, to be honest, a fairly minor obsession and is entirely practical. If you arrange the soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, bottle of water and nail brush any other way they just fall off the wooden beam supporting them and you have to spend five minutes scrabbling around trying to pick them up off the floor. I don’t see myself slipping into the “Who moved my cheese?” mindset any time soon but you have to be sensitive to the early warning signs.

Pain in the neck

I’m sure that skeletomuscular disorders brought on by overusing a computer aren’t very common in our part of Kenya. Today I’ve been working on a website for our Agriculture College students and I think I might have overdone it a bit.  It’s a bit of an obsessional thing when you start getting into it – (fortunately Pizza and Red Bull aren’t an option over here so I can’t really go for the full on web designer approach).

I’m sure I’ve blamed my Dad for a number of things in the past without any justification, but I am absolutely sure that he is largely responsible for my hoarding instincts. Fortunately my hoarding is almost entirely electronic these days, (unlike my Dad whose garage is home to a cornucopia of amazing tools, gadgets, fishing rods, home brew, fixatives, fixtures and fittings that are testimony to a lifetime of inspired ‘stashing things away’). Not to mention the loft full of books! To be fair to Dad his hoarding instinct has meant that he’s always been on the money when the proverbial ‘rainy day’ has come or anybody has needed that specialist tool for an otherwise impossible job.

I digress. Back to the web site. Having made a living as an ICT teacher for a number of years I’ve witnessed the phenomenal growth of the Internet and Information Technology as tools for learning. Despite the more grandiose claims that have been made about the educational value of computers they have certainly opened up a whole new world of learning for anybody who can get on to the world wide web. Unfortunately you really need a fast Internet connection if you want to make the most of the vast quantity of books, audio and video files that are freely available if you have the patience to drill down to the fiftieth page of a Google search. So far I’ve managed to collect about 1500 video files, 4,000 audio files and 7,500 text files, (PDF). Nearly all of them are directly related to our work in Kenya – a combination of resources for our church, school, agriculture college and staff training.

I have a dream, (honest), of rural schools in Kenya that have access to these fabulous resources. On laptop computers, running on solar power. Viewed through a website. At fast broadband speeds. At present not very many of these schools have computers or solar power. Or the skills to design websites for learning. Or a fast internet connection, (despite explosive growth in mobile network coverage in rural Kenya, the Internet is still accessed via a phone SIM, making it nearly impossible to download large audio, video or PDF files).

We’re working on a solution. The website I’m designing will run from the hard disk of our laptops and can be shared with other schools by simply transferring the entire website to their computer(s) via a portable USB hard drive or large capacity memory stick. With the help of our friends from Cisco we are hoping to run the website on a wireless network around our school site, (using the same, simple, router technology that most of you use to run wireless networks in your homes). These simple systems will make it possible for some of the poorest pupils in Kenya to access the same high quality learning resources that better off students in the West take for granted. We hope to have the prototype running by March. Once it’s up and running and the bugs have been ironed out we’ll be able to start offering training to other teachers in the area. After that it’s just a question of helping them to obtain the computers .........................

Growing concern

The week-end looms after a very busy week in our school and college. The week seems to have passed quickly which I’m taking as a good sign. There has, as usual, been a lot to do and I think we have made good progress on our various plans and schemes. It’s been especially rewarding working with the new college team – students and teachers.

 The papers today have continued to speculate on the future shape of education in Kenya. The letters that readers have sent in offer fairly overwhelming support for the proposed changes. It’s interesting to note the widely expressed feeling that.

 “To date Kenyan children, almost from nursery school, are burdened with an overwhelming curriculum that places emphasis on rote learning and cramming for exams, rather than on creativity and nurturing talents.”

I seem to remember similar sentiments being aired throughout my past life as a teacher in the UK.

As I type there is a breeze stirring the air. This is a welcome break from the very hot, dry weather that we have been having all day and throughout the week. (Apologies to UK readers who are going through a cold spell). As we get further into February the weather will become more critical for our area, as farmers will be planning to plant seeds at the end of the month.

The current hot spell, (which has lasted all of this year so far), is not unusual but does come at a cost – literally. The price of sukuma wiki, (kale), has nearly tripled. As ever this places the largest burden on the poorest people. Sukuma wiki, (Swahili for "stretch the week," or “push the week”), is a ubiquitous Kenyan dish. Nutritious and tasty, it is a way of "stretching" out kitchen resources. It is traditionally served with Ugali, another Kenyan staple, made from maize flour. The price of maize has also risen steeply exacerbating the burden on members of our community and creating real hunger.

As our college students continue preparing the land on our farm for planting we will be keeping a keen eye on the weather and praying for rain by the end of the month. Having celebrated our farming success following the harvest in December 2011 we, like all the other farmers in the country, face the coming growing season with a mixture of expectancy and anxiety. Every new growing season brings you back to the start of the farming cycle, with its attendant rewards and pitfalls. We are fortunate in being able to experiment on our farm in a way that our neighbours can’t. They have too much at stake to risk a crop failing.  We have every confidence in our methods of farming but are, like every farmer, at the mercy of an increasingly unpredictable climate. It is, for us, less of a life or death challenge than the poorest members of our community. None the less we will still be working very hard to maximise our harvest. Every farmer faces the same challenges every year. The climate is a great leveller.

Stepping out

Being at the cutting edge of education is always an exciting place to be – as long as you are the person who is planning the new moves. It’s less fun if you are on the receiving end of any changes, as we are discovering with our new Agriculture College venture.

In Kenya it is every primary school students’ dream to get to High School. The prospect of starting a new, and therefore untested, course like ours is a bit of a worry for some of the students. We have been busy explaining the benefits of our new course to some of the students, (again), and reassuring them that it will lead on to great things.

Starting a new college is a bit like launching a completely new product – you invest a lot in the research and design, plan for as much as possible and hope that the punters will be enthusiastic. So far it’s been hard work with a couple of them but I think we are getting there.

We have been assisted in promoting the college by the Kenyan government. In another of our serendipitous coincidences the national newspaper, (the Daily Nation), published an article today which announced the Kenyan government’s plans for “a major departure from the current [education] system”. The government is proposing a radical shake up of education in Kenya to be implemented from September 2013. The newspaper article goes on to give details of two new types of school that would be introduced if the proposals are accepted:

“Talent schools will offer courses in performing and creative arts such as music, drama and games besides the common courses. Vocational secondary schools will focus on artisan and trade courses in addition to the common academic subjects. Some of the core subjects are citizenship education, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, information technology and languages.”

The timing of the announcement could not have come at a better time for us. Our Agriculture College curriculum puts us at the forefront of educational innovation! Being able to share this fact with the students this morning helped us to head off a potential motivation wobble for some of them and lent an extra shine to our promises of a brighter future.

It remains to be seen how long it will take for educational reform to be achieved in Kenya. The proposals pose some serious funding and planning challenges. I really hope that they happen sooner rather than later. However it pans out we will continue to push forward with our plans for changing the students’ experience of secondary education in our bit of Kenya. Tonight I’m very optimistic that our students are less apprehensive about their prospects and that we will all enjoy working on the cutting edge together.

Much to do

One of the great things about being in Kosele is that no two days are ever the same. This is a great antidote to the whole ‘daily grind’ mentality that it is easy to get trapped in but it does mean that, no matter how hard you try, finishing the days to do list is almost always impossible. The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that it is a waste of time writing one in the first place so it would be best to just let stuff happen. The two extremes of this planning spectrum represent the worst of the West, (to do list slavery), and Africa, (Hakuna Matata – no worries). Somewhere in the middle there is a sane, productive place where heart attacks hardly happen and the really important stuff gets done. I'm really aiming for that place this year, as I will be in Kenya for a fairly long stay this time and have a lot to work on.

Our three goals this year are to make sure the new Agriculture College gets off to a good start, to continue making our primary school an exciting and challenging place to learn in and to set up the most productive farm in our district. Fortunately I have a great team of people to work with and we are all committed to being successful. We were encouraged by the harvest that we brought in at the end of December last year and by coming second in our Zone in the primary school KCPE, (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) exam. Our candidates did us proud and set a high standard for the Year 8 pupils who will be taking the exam this year. Good progress has also been made on our new school buildings, (we should be moving into them on Monday 6^th) and on the Visitors Centre, due to accommodate the first team of visitors from February 18^th.

At this point in the year there are always tough decisions to make. We have received a number of applications from pupils who want to come to our primary school and expect to receive a requests to join the Agriculture College once word gets round that it is open. These decisions are always hard to make. Nearly every application comes from a ‘deserving case’. The level of poverty in our area is very high as is the demand for education, (especially at secondary level).

The High Schools in Kenya start the new school year next week, giving rise to a flurry of fund raising and assistance seeking activities by family members on behalf of prospective Form 1 students. Nearly all of the book shops and school suppliers have got some special offer on for the students who will be starting their first year at High School and for the next week or so public transport will be packed as the next crop of High School students heads off to study.

Five of our young people will be starting High School on the 6th. This will mark a special time for us as we venture out into new territory. They will be going to boarding school, (most good High Schools in Kenya are boarding).  Having looked after most of them for the last ten years it’s a bit of an advanced case of ‘the children leaving home’. Still, we are very proud of them and are confident that they will achieve a great deal in their new school.

So far eleven of last year’s Standard 8 class have started in our new Agriculture College. It’s early days yet but the teachers are very positive about the new courses that we will be running in Agriculture, Enterprise, Maths, Science and English. In two years time these students will be taking International GCSE exams. As with any new venture we have a lot to prove if we are to establish ourselves as the course that the majority of pupils want to take after finishing primary school – hence the busy year ahead. Must remember to keep that sane place in focus.