Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too

note: the title is from the movie Zoolander for those in bewilderment.

I arrived in Kenya a few weeks ago but not without a minor heart attack in the process. I took a shuttle from where I was staying with my friends in South Africa to Johannesburg, where my plane was due to leave. After a four hour or so ride filled with quality South African morning talk shows, we arrived at an airport. In a half asleep state I looked around and saw signs littered with “Tambo International Airport”. It reminded me a bit of the airport when I first flew into SA, but I figured there was no way it was Johannesburg International Airport; we must have been to one of the other airports in Jo’burg. The shuttle moved on and right as we left the airport I started getting a bad feeling. A really bad feeling. I looked down at my ticked and it said my destination was “TB”, presumably short hand for Tambo. I got a strong feeling that I had booked my ticket for the wrong airport and that with one and a half hours until my flight I was going to miss it. My ticket was neither changeable or refundable, I had a connecting flight that I couldn’t easily change. Things were bad. I asked the driver if we were going to Jo’burg (I meant airport) and he assured me that we were. Well sure enough we arrived in Jo’burg… but not at the airport. I hopped and said “I know this may sound like a really dumb question, but are we going to Jo’burg International?”. He respond with both a look of pity and suppressed humor and told me that was the airport. As it turns out Joburg International is called Tambo International. Luckily he was turning around and going back in the airport so he agreed to take me for free which was really nice. I arrived at the airport about an hour before my flight (a mere 2 hours later than I was supposed to) and raced to the gate to catch my flight. I guess the moral of the story would be to learn the name of the airport you are flying from… something we never learned in high school.

Anywho here I am now in the amazingly beautiful Shimoni, Kenya. It boasts only 2 roads and is actually smaller than Falls Church if you could believe such a place to exist. I’m here with an organization called GVI who runs several programs from here. There is a Marine program which studies the local marine life as well as a forest program where they take data and observations of the surrounding forest and it’s inhabitants. Undoubtedly the most important, the one I’m doing, is community. Normally volunteers do a 5 or 10 week expedition in which they rotate between forest, marine and community but I elected to just do community for 9 weeks. Community is typically done on Wasini island with the local village and school (when I say local I mean the camp where we stay shares its fence with the school grounds), but at the moment there are no other volunteers here since there is a 2 week break between expeditions. I spent a week or so teaching on the island but since there is no one is on the island, the staff, interns etc are all on the mainland. This leaves me as the only member of community and I’ve been placed with a teaching position at The Shimoni Base Academy. The school is only 2 months old and seems as if it was built and thought of in less time. The school consists of 5 grade levels (each with a varying amount between 5 and 15 kids) and only 2 or 3 teachers. As a result the kids spend most of the day in the classroom doing what is apparently learning. The first time I walked in to introduce myself I popped my head into a classroom just to say hi and was immediately asked by one of the staff members if I wanted to teach that class. Feeling a bit surprised I declined and said I would start teaching the next day. So I looked at the next section in Standard (standard=grade) 5’s text book, went back to base and made a killer lesson plan. I walked into school the next morning and sure enough there was already a teacher in there. This after I explicitly said to the principal the day before that I was going to teach the class. I was then ushered into the standard 1 classroom and given their textbook sans lesson plan or anything. With only a basic TEFL (teaching English as foreign language) training course, I went in ready to rock and roll. The result was quite the opposite. I manage to scrape through the 40 minute class but it was in no way my proudest teaching moment.

From there on things have been going much better. I’m teaching 3 classes of an hour so a day in either English, maths, socials studies or science. The kids are really well behaved and for the most part are really excited to learn. Both GVI and the school have been interested in me doing clubs etc with the school so I arranged with the principal (principle?) to have lunch one afternoon. I showed up at the school to meet him, and sure enough he wasn’t there. I asked the secretary where he was and she had no idea. I got his number and called him only to be informed that he was “very far away” and would “be back tomorrow”. This from the man running the school. So the next day we met and he was actually a really nice guy, obviously with punctuality not being his strong suit. In the end we figured out that I’m going to be teaching adult English classes 4 or 5 times a week, which I’m really looking forward to. I’m also going to be starting a reading club, so the kids can learn to read good, along with an environmental club. So that along with regular classes is my plan for the next few months and I’m really excited about it.

Obamarama is out of control here. I fear wearing my Obama shirt in public for the barrages of “Obama!” I face from every single person I pass by. The local food here is really really good- the fish is fresh caught and coconuts cost only the equivalent of a US dime! My mom’s coming to Kenya this week for work stuff so she’s going to come visit me for a weekend so it’ll be super nice to see her and get all the delicacies from home she’s brining (in that order ofcourse!) Thanks to everyone who’s emailed me or posted comments - it’s really nice hearing from everyone. I’ll try to update in a week or so but if the meeting with the principal has taught me anything, its that things in Africa can be quite unreliable at best.