Q&A

Hey hey hey,

A while back michelle sent us a bunch of questions she had about our school so while i was thinking of it i thought i'd answer a few.

Q: What age is secondary school?
A: Thoeretically 14 to 18ish, but in reality it's as low as 12 and as high as mid-twenties. The older one's can make it akward sometimes for us... Being that they're the same age as us.

Q: How much does it cost for them?
A: For a full boarding school it's around $300 for the whole year. Yea i know... Pretty cheap for americans. Yet, many can't afford it here. Families here can make anywhere from $500 a year up to around $5000/yr for government teachers. If the corruption was better the government would be able to subsidize even more. Instead millions of AID dollars from britain get pocketed away every year.

Q: Is boarding school the norm?
A: For high school, yes. Almost all.

Q: Is there a girls school nearby?
A: Not with our name exactly, but there are several in the nearby area. We have other PCV's at some of them even. Traditionally if the family is poor they will send the boys first and the girls later if at all. This is improving though.

Q: Are teachers mostly male?
A: At our school it's about 7 females and 19 men. That's not unusual, but you also see almost all men in some places. A fellow volunteer we know is at an all girls school where she's the only female teacher besides the principal. Could you immagine... In a country where student-teacher affairs are common, but rarely prosecuted...

Q: Will most of your 600 boys attend university.
A: every year we have about 125 graduates and we usually have about 4 to 6 which qualify for government loans for university. There are perhaps another 5 or 10 who's parents have the money. That is 3 to 5% is typically. There just aren't enough universities or loans available so the competition is fierce. It's like saying you need to be in the 96th percentile on your ACT's to have a shot.... that can be tough for many. They also have to wait a year due to back-log.

Okay, thanks for the questions. I'll write more soon.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Thanks mom and dad! We got your package this weekend when we went to the post office weekend and found your package waiting for us! The art supplies will be great and my boys are excited about the basketball video.

Some of the chocolate chips are already in my belly as i made some chocolate chip cookies last night :)

A note to those in the future. when you "declare" the contents of the package try and label as much as possible "school supplies". This will greatly reduce the customs fee on our end. -- Thanks!

Mastercard

Price of colored pencils - $1.50
Price of a ream of paper - $3.00

Watching 10 Kenyan adolescent boys pick flowers and draw them in pastels... Priceless.

-Mandy

Pictures from April Break

Hey peoples. I finally got around to sorting through our pictures from April vacation and i thought i'd post some of them on the blog. I'll also write a blurb about each in no real order.

1. Mandy and me visiting with our friend Bournice and her family. Bournice is one of the school's secretaries.

2. A monkey getting some food at the camp we stayed at in Uganda.

3. Cute pic of trash pit wanting to be invited in our house soooo bad.

4. We went to a teachers house for lunch and took a picture of her kids in the Tea fields.

5. Mandy's lovely hand plucking tea. Two leaves and a bud is their motto.

6. Two massive slugs decided to do some sort of courting ritual on the outside of our house. Aren't they cute?

7. Picture of the nile from the resteraunt

8. Another pic of the nile.

9. Mandy sitting with Bournice and her family.

10. Some of our PCV friends hanging out in the Adrift resteraunt/bar

11. Mandy, me, Domonic, and Sonya in Kisumu before leaving for Uganda. Sonya lives just across the hill from us in Bomet.

12. Me and Bournice.

13. nice view of the bungee tower on the nile... What a rush!

Thank You Dastech!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! We got your package at the beginning of May and we've been loving it!

For those of you who weren't involved in this massive care package, we recently got a big box of goodies from our friends in DASTECH (dow's agro group).

Above are a few pictures of us, the contents, us enjoying the contents, and Mandy's Art Club enjoying the art supplies.

in no particular order, here's some info about the pics:

1. Mandy basking in the goodness of American food. "the doritos may be gone, but the memory lives on"

2. Mandy glugging Charlie's Maple syrup and wearing her new tiger's sox

3. Me sniffing Mukund's dark chocolate goodness

4. Mandy enjoying some Chocolate pudding... Hmmm that was a nice idea

5. The rest of the pictures are from Mandy's Art Club today. She brought the supplies and explained them to the class, but wasn't sure what to do with the pipe cleaners. Then they did a practice activity on the board making a bunny in order to prepare for a larger World Map project, but when Mandy turned around they had proceeded to make the the bunny out of pipe cleaners! Then they just went crazy and started all sorts of things. They started off with words, went to pictures, and when she told them how to make 3D stuff they made a Bus and a House. We want to emphasize that we don't know a lot about art or teaching art, but if you have any ideas like that please let us know. The kids had a blast and it's great to see them finally get some creative outlet.

FYI - the package actually sat in the post office for 2 weeks because we were out of town, so in case your wondering, it got here in about a week! Oh, and completely intact!

Ants and Houses

Here is a short video I took over the weekend. Let me know if you can't watch it!