Week Three

This week we had the opportunity to see each other’s twinning schools. We noticed that each school is very unique and each has a very different atmosphere. The atmosphere we noticed is strongly reflective of the staff of the school. The children were writing exams so we were not able to spend a lot of time at each school, but we were there long enough to enjoy the time with the children.
Exams are a very significant part of the schools in Kenya, and the schools are very competitive with one another. If a student does not rank well in primary exams they may not get into their preferred secondary school. The exams are the pinnacle of the term. Schools who are successful were very eager to show their success to us.
We began working on one of our community projects this week with an introduction of the OLPCs (one laptop per child), to the upper primary students at Gathukimundu. These were received very well by the students as they were extremely excited to have the opportunity to work with computers. We will also be training the teachers at the school so they are able to provide support to the students when we leave the computers there.
We visited Nyeri City over the weekend where we went to a hotel pool and took in some sunshine. It was a definite change of scenery and it was good to see a different part of the district from where we live. We were invited to attend mass at St. Peter and Paul Kimondo Catholic Parish on Sunday morning, and the people were very welcoming. Although most of the service was in Kikuyu the structure of the service was very similar to that of a Catholic church in Canada, so we were able to follow. The music was a lot more vibrant and energetic with drums and rhythmic instruments that really added to the experience.
We are sad that we only have one week left with the students, but look forward to our community projects in the following two weeks.