Today is July 24th, our last Sunday in Kenya. Hard to believe, time has really flown. Just as we’re starting to get the hang of things around here, we have to leave. Last week was spent going in and out of Kibera to the school as well as taking many trips to the public library and our trusty coffee shop the Java House. Our goal for our time at the Kibera School for Girls was to create numerous resources and an informational book on Kibera for the teachers to use when they implement their new unit on Kibera next academic year. We had really been working hard on finding credible sources for the book on the history of Kibera as well as designing and formatting resource sheets, such as note-taking pages, brainstorming webs, etc. We also took the school’s new social studies curriculum and used it to create a sharing schedule that would correlate to the themes of the new curriculum. Apparently, show and tell in each class is a disaster, so we hope to help them re-vamp this. We were pleasantly surprised when we sat down with Jordyn at the end of the week to show her what we’d done and she said, “Wow, you guys have been busy.” Heading into our last few days in Kenya, we will be working in the classrooms to help the teachers with show and tell. We really want that time to be meaningful for the students, so that they can learn more about one another, and form a community in their classrooms-, which is a goal of the new social studies curriculum. We will also be teaching and observing lessons in hopes that the teachers can not only learn something from us but that we can learn some skills from them.
Our friends from the farm, Vivian and Mercy, came to visit us on Saturday. We had planned to meet them at the National Archives in the city center of Nairobi at 10 am, 3 hours later we welcomed them off of their matatu and strolled around the city. We asked if they had suggestions for a place to eat and they took us to Club Bettiez. It seemed like a fun place to go at night, but being that we can’t go out at night, we’ll take what we can get. We treated them to lunch for coming to visit us, and we are now happy to be called their “American Sisters.” They hung out with us for a few hours, but had to go back to the farm. They’re hoping to come send us off to the airport on Wednesday. We’re so excited to have Kenyan friends! Today we spent souvenir shopping and walking around different markets. We are getting SO PRO at bargaining, and we’re very proud.
The last couple of weeks have gone by so quickly. We are finding that we’ve become more or less comfortable with the way things are here in Kenya. We’ve become accustomed to the cold showers, having to buy every drop of water we need to drink, the slower pace of life, and the delicious, yet different, food. Hmmm….all the more reasons to come back! Only for longer next time!
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