Getting back to normal

We had a fun time first thing this morning harvesting our green grams, (mung beans). All the lower school pupils trooped down to the bottom of our farm to gather up the crop. Green grams look like miniature pea pods. Each pod contains small green seeds which are cooked and served with rice. We have to harvest en masse occasionally so that a crop doesn’t spoil and go over. The green gram harvest takes a few sessions. We are really at the tail end of the harvest now and trying to avoid the remainder of the crop ‘bursting’ and going to waste. Being out on the farm first thing is a nice way to start the day and I think our young harvesters had a good time.

The borehole guy arrived this afternoon and the borehole is now fixed. As suspected there wasn’t much wrong with it. In fairly typical fashion he seemed to pretty much look at it and it worked. There is a possible fault with the electricity supply from the generator and a chance that the sensors at the business end of the pump indicated a shortage of water in the borehole. Either way we now have full tanks everywhere and the equipment has been serviced so overall a good result.

The district mocks finished today. All went smoothly and we should get an initial idea of how well our pupils performed tomorrow. The official results will take some time to process. First indications are that there has been an improvement in overall performance with one or two individual surprises. I wait with bated breath – it would be nice to see some of the pupils who are usually in the middle ranks have the encouragement of doing better than they expected. As a bit of a reward for studying hard we let the children who live here watch a film tonight. We have a very eclectic collection of videos and DVDs. The children haven’t watched The Sound of Music for a while and clearly relished the idea of the hills being alive with it today.

The whole KCPE process is a very long, drawn out affair lasting the whole of the year. The pupils will be put out of their misery in November when they finally sit the exam. Madam Nyangwe, (the head teacher), Mr Isaiah, (Agriculture College lecturer) and I had our first meeting today to discuss ways of making sure our Standard 8 pupils are well prepared for the KCPE exams at the end of the year. One of the questions we considered was “what are all the other schools in our zone doing?” The answer would probably send pupils in Europe into shock. In a typical primary school in Kenya the Standard 8 pupils will start their studies at 6.00 a.m. and finish at about 8 in the evening. They would be expected to attend school on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and to attend ‘tuition’ for two weeks, (daytime), in the school holidays. They will typically follow this pattern for most of the school year, starting in January. We are considering our options!

District Mocks

Apart from a flurry of activity first thing this morning making sure that we had enough desks and chairs for the visiting pupils I was pleasantly surprised by the district mock exams today. They did not end up causing as much disruption as I had feared. The only, minor, problem occurred at lunchtime when we had to serve the visiting officials their chicken dinner and looked like running out of suitable plates to serve their meal in. A quick scrounge round the visitors’ centre saved the day and I think the whole programme went off to the satisfaction of all involved. We should have it nailed down to a really slick operation for tomorrow. I am still unable to see the point in running exams in this fashion but there is really no point losing sleep over it as there is nothing we can do about it.  Our pupils seemed confident enough after it was all over.

The water situation is still not resolved. The service engineer should be here tomorrow, according to my latest information. I hope so as we have had no rain today. The timing of the rains is always critical out here in Kenya. I think we may be at the turning point when rainfall becomes less frequent. Good for ripening crops, charging solar batteries and tourism. Bad for keeping clean and feeding the five thousand if the borehole isn’t fixed soon.

I would, again, be grateful to anybody who is up for praying for my wife Judi. Assuming no more delays because of low blood counts she is just over half way through her chemotherapy treatment now. She is trying hard to stick to her normal routine but I know it is very challenging some days. When I last heard from her she said she was feeling well. I pray that she manages to stay that way until her next chemo treatment on July 12^th.

Battlestar Galactica

It has been a good day in Kosele today – despite the bore-hole guy not turning up. It has also been a very long day, (it’s actually now Tuesday as I am typing), so I’m now well past my new regime bedtime. In the interests of making sure I don’t just drift into previous bad habits and actually try and claw back some of the sleep deficit this will be a short post tonight/this morning.

Highlight of the day was a successful Skype call to my wife Judi back home who is having a good day today, having endured what sounds like a couple of chemotherapy induced horrors for the previous couple of days. It is hard focusing over here at times knowing that Judi is having such a rough time but I know it would be frustrating for her if I wasn’t here working on our next steps for this year. It was great to hear her voice after sorting out an initial connection problem. This involved setting up a new account for her, (as I couldn’t remember the password I had originally used for her account), troubleshooting by short messages in order to discover that the microphone didn’t work on her laptop and finally using our daughter Ellie’s laptop, (and Skype ID), to eventually have a conversation lasting an hour and three quarters.

Having been unable to establish basic mobile phone contact at all predictably when we first came to Kenya ten years ago it is incredible being able to have a long, uninterrupted and very cheap chat using Skype. I am, admittedly, a late adopter as far as Skype goes so I guess for many of you Skype isn’t such a miracle. (In my defence this is because I never found a need to use it in the UK and it has only been realistically available over here in the last few months). Suffice to say it has revolutionised our communications and means that Judi can be involved in our day to day operations.

I do have one minor concern. Despite the amazing clarity of the connection for most of the call I think that threatening aliens have got designs on Skype and are using it for their own imperialistic ends. Last year I spent, (to be honest quite a lot of), time watching Battlestar Galactica with my son Tom. For those of you who haven’t watched it I would recommend it. Those of you who have will be familiar with the sound associated with the Cylons, (the ‘baddies’), as they hove into range on Battlestar Galactica’s monitoring systems. (It sounds like a particularly malevolent static). My call home today was definitely interrupted by this sound on a number of occasions. I hope that those with responsibility for planet Earth defences are on the case. If not we should all be very worried.

Back on the chain gang

I can hear the sound of Pretenders fans struggling to remember the words already!

Follow the link for a reminder.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzWNY1zwrjY

As I have blogged previously Sundays tend to be a fairly relaxed affair in Kosele. Despite the imminent district mock exams for our oldest primary school pupils next week (Tuesday and Wednesday), all of the children in our home seem relaxed and in good spirits. The district mocks are, unfortunately, a necessary evil as part of the year long run up to the real KCPE, (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education), exam in November. We will be joined by two other schools’ Standard 8 pupils. Exams will be sat. District statistics will be compiled and I am fairly sure chaos will break out at regular intervals as the mock exam process unfolds.

We enjoyed a couple of nostalgic moments today. Moses, an old friend who was with us when we first started our work ten years ago, came to the church service this morning and was, I think, surprised how much the children have grown since he last saw them a couple of years ago. It was nice for the children to catch up with him again and he spent a few hours with them teaching them some new songs to sing in church. He has known nearly all of them since they were very little and they were very happy to see him. We wish him well as he heads back to Uganda to, hopefully, drum up some trade for his vehicle servicing work there next week.

Our second look back to the past reminded us of the hard work involved in making sure of an adequate water supply before we had a bore-hole. The technician did not turn up yesterday to repair the control panel for our bore-hole pump and we did not have much rain last night. This resulted in empty water tanks for our showers and for our drinking and cooking water. Before we had a bore-hole our water was delivered by a very old tractor pulling a bowser and we had to put it into the main water tank by hand in buckets. This job took our well practised team about forty five minutes. We filled the tanks today by setting up a bucket chain with all of the children. Buckets were filled from the large water tanks on the end of the classrooms and the visitors’ centre and passed down a long line of initially puzzled, then very willing helpers. It took us about an hour to put enough water into the tanks to make sure all the children could have showers and empty about sixty five buckets full, (about six hundred and fifty litres of water), into the drinking water and cooking tank. We had to dash for cover a couple of times to avoid short sharp bursts of rain but should, at least, have enough water to make sure everybody can eat and drink tomorrow. If the technician doesn’t arrive in the morning we will have to do the same thing all over again. An influx of at least fifty more pupils to sit the district mock exams on Tuesday and Wednesday could make the situation a bit more challenging. Still, on today’s evidence the kids are up for it and, as I type, I can hear the start of heavy rainfall on the roof. Reassuring evidence that God does listen to our prayers.

Two - Nil!

Our friends Ian and Hilda said good-bye to their visitors yesterday. Their son David and his wife Yvonne traveled back to Scotland – eventually. Like our inbound visitors they experienced a significant delay to their flight from Nairobi airport. I really hope this isn’t the start of a trend. It could make timing our visitors’ flights a bit tricky.

David would have been very proud of our football team this afternoon. He coached them during his visit and they had an extremely successful afternoon at the local “stadium” today – played two won two. (Both on penalties. It was just like Euro 2012). As ever it was a highly entertaining afternoon for many reasons.

The stadium is a large area of grass about twenty five minutes walk up the road to Kosele from our place. As previously blogged the road is in an ‘interesting’ condition just at the moment. Strewn with potholes which are currently full of water. The ‘river’ running down the side of the road creates a couple of deepish fords at different points and is host to a lot of insect life. The stadium is, fortunately, at a higher level than and slightly away from the road so it actually has a decent football pitch. When we arrived, (at about 2.45 pm), the pitch was home to a number of sheep and cattle.

David had set up a match between our school and the local primary school in Kosele. It was a shame he had to fly home yesterday and so was unable to see it for himself. We were accompanied to the stadium by our school’s coach, Mr Richard, who mustered everybody together once we reached the pitch and set the team off on an impressive looking set of warm up routines. I’m not sure if the main aim was to intimidate the opposition or make sure the lads were well honed and match ready. Either way it looked very professional. I did, at one point, worry that they might wear themselves out before the match. Our school pitch is about a quarter the size of the pitch at the stadium and the boys aren’t used to playing on a big space. (As it turned out my concerns were absolutely misplaced).

While the boys warmed up our young visitors were a big hit with the local children – especially the little ones who quickly launched into a frenetic game of chase the ball around with one of the footballs we had brought. All credit to Jessica, Daniel, Alex and Peter. They were brilliant with the children, playing games with them, learning to count to ten under the willing tutelage of some of the more confident kids and coping very well with being the centre of attention.

While this was happening funny things were happening to the goalposts. (Two tallish poles, more commonly used in house building stuck into holes on the goal line). The pitch looked a bit wide so it didn’t seem unreasonable to move the goal posts to reconfigure the pitch, (using the width as the length). Willing hands lifted the poles out of the holes they were in – and then carried them away to hide them in the bushes! I was a bit mystified by this until our teacher, Mr. Richard, explained that “they are Kosele’s posts”. Apparently we weren’t playing Kosele Primary School as originally planned. As most of the Kosele players attend the Seventh Day Adventist, (SDA), church, which meets on Saturday, not Sunday, he thought that the lads wouldn’t be available to play so had arranged a match with another school, Saye Primary instead. The Kosele boys had obviously finished church duties by the time we arrived at the pitch and had turned up for a practise anyway, bringing their goal posts with them. Mr. Richard suggested sending some of our lads back to bring our posts, but this would have meant the match started at about 4 o’clock. Instead we decided to have a three way competition with the three sides that had turned up, (us, Kosele Primary and Saye Primary).

The first match was our lads vs. Kosele, (winners to then play Saye Primary). Looking at the size of our players and the size of the Kosele team I began to wonder if they had played a few ringers from the village side. Because of our late start it was decided that the matches would be twenty five minutes each way. I have to admit I’m not really a huge football fan, but it’s different when you have turned up to watch your own kids. Ours were brilliant. They played with a lot of enthusiasm and held Kosele to a 0-0 draw. As there had to be a winning side, (to play Saye), a penalty shoot-out was arranged. The first Kosele player ballooned his kick over the crossbar, (or at least what would have been the crossbar if there had been one). We scored. The next Kosele penalty was brilliantly saved by our keeper, Calvins. We scored again. Calvins saved again. We won. Much jubilation.

Twenty minutes we kicked off again, this time against Saye. The teams were a bit more evenly matched this time, as both fielded a couple of older lads to make a more competitive game. I had to admire our lads’ stamina. They played their hearts out until the final whistle. It was a very free flowing match with good attacking moves by both sides. Saye scored the goal of the tournament with an amazing shot from close to the half-way line that left Calvins, our goalkeeper stranded. Our guys had the better run of play in the second half scoring two goals. Unfortunately one was disallowed so the game ended in a 1-1 draw and was settled by the now ubiquitous penalty shoot-out. There was a tense atmosphere in the crowd that gathered around the goal mouth. Calvins was, once again, an absolute standout and we won. Even more jubilation.

At almost any fairly formal gathering, (even at a football match), it is difficult to avoid being asked to make a speech if you are an attendant Mzungu, (white person). Our coach Mr. Richard gathered all three teams together and asked if I would say a word. He kicked off the end of tournament formalities by celebrating the fact that the matches had all been played in a good spirit of friendly competition and congratulated all of the players. These were very appropriate sentiments – it was a great afternoon. I then said how much I had enjoyed the matches and congratulated everybody involved. This was followed by introducing our four young visitors, who then had to introduce themselves. One of our visitors, Jessica, was a big hit with the lads and they asked her to say a prayer to round off the day. I don’t think I have heard such an appreciative response to a prayer for a long time.

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Entirely and uniquely Kenyan and something I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

Everything happens eventually

Today there has been very little rain so we have had a chance to dry out a little. Our school field looks a bit less like a mud bath now. The bank came though with the money, (see last night's post), so we were able to pay the man from the borehole company to arrange a visit to service our control panel. Quite when he will turn up is open to speculation but we are hoping that it will be tomorrow. As This Is Africa, (TIA), I'm trying to develop an approach to timing that is kinder to my blood pressure so am working hard at not fretting too much over the situation. We do have lots of water so it's not the end of the world if the borehole is not serviced until the beginning of next week.

A new team of visitors arrived today, (eventually). They had an early introduction to “African Time” as their flight from Nairobi to Kisumu, (the nearest airport to our place), was delayed for two hours. They finally arrived in Kosele at about five thirty pm to a rousing welcome from our children. It's the first time I've seen them do a conga style handshake as part of the welcoming visitors song. It was very funny.

The next four weeks look like being very busy. Our visitors are all up for helping in whatever way they can. Two of the guys, Alex and Peter, have brought touch rugby equipment with them and will be coaching the children. This will be a completely new activity for all of them and I can't wait to see what they make of it. It probably won't do any harm to tell them a bit about the Kenyan 7s rugby team, who are competitors on the world stage. It would be great to sow the seeds of a new generation of players in our school. We are also looking forward to some intensive coaching, especially in maths, for some of our older pupils and students in the agriculture college as well as art and crafts sessions for the younger children.

My daughter Ellie and her boyfriend Andy will be joining us half way through July and will add to the mix of activities for the children. Ellie is keen to do some basic self-defence sessions with the girls. We are really keen to do our bit towards improving the life chances of young women. Girls and women have a very tough time in a community like ours. The daily grind of keeping a home, feeding a family and simply staying safe in the community present challenges that would make most of us in Western countries despair. A few self defence skills and a good education won't guarantee our girls a brighter future but should give them a decent head start.

Never a dull moment

Life is never dull in Kosele. There’s usually something out of the ordinary to make the day more interesting or challenging. Today our borehole has stopped working. I’m sure it’s only a temporary setback but it’s more than a little inconvenient. (I had a rather bizarre spell check training experience when I first typed the word borehole into this installation of Word. It didn’t recognise borehole and suggested brothel as the only alternative. Makes you wonder what they put in the pizza at Microsoft). I digress.

The borehole issue has some far-reaching consequences if we don’t get it sorted out fairly quickly. (This would make a good scenario in a job interview). Feeding about 200 people twice a day means we get through a lot of water. The water we pump out of the borehole does not need to be treated before we drink it, which makes our feeding programme possible. The main tank we store the borehole water in is empty. Without the borehole we can’t refill it which makes cooking and drinking water a bit of a problem. There is, fortunately, a Plan B.

We have the capacity to store 48,000 litres of rainwater in large tanks on the end of our classrooms and the visitors centre. They were originally installed for irrigating our farm if there is a drought. These tanks are currently full thanks to the extravagant amount of rain that has fallen recently. It should be safe to drink and cook with so we shouldn’t have to shut the school as long as the engineer fixes the control panel very soon. (I did have a look inside the control panel but apart from re-setting a trip switch and checking that the generator was pushing out mains power I though it best to leave the repair to the professionals). To add to our woes the recent computer problems experienced by UK banks means we will have a cash flow problem if a transfer I made before travelling out to Kenya is delayed. This could make paying the technician an interesting negotiation.

You have to be an optimist to work out here. It can be very exasperating solving some of the problems but it’s always satisfying when a plan comes together. One of my key tasks while I’m here this time involves stepping up the training for our senior management team. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble in finding real day to day challenges to bond together over.