Tales of Teacher Bethany and Other Short Stories.

I realised i havn't really written much about just what I'm up to and after all it's the little ins and outs of life here that make it what it is... so i thought i'd tell you a few short tales!

So i've been teaching/helping out at this pre-school called LCC-K (Limuru Children Centre Kamirithu branch i think it stands for, i guess anyway seeing as it's in Kamirithu. Thats been great fun. The idea of teaching freaked me out at first but it's actually really fun! One day i taught the kids colours with balloons which they loved. At the end after they'd done the colour by numbers i'd made for them the teacher decided i had to choose the best four pictures and those kids would get the four balloons as a prize (2 had already popped). It was so funny, the first kid, Kelvin i think it was, had full choice out of these 4 balloons. he comes up almost bursting with excitment and looks at the balloons and chooses not one of the 3 bright red, yellow or blue, fully blown up balloons but instead the tiny scrawny white one that the teacher had rather unsucsefully blown up! But he was so proud of himself! The kids all call me 'teacher Bethany' but they say Bethany with a soft 'th' like in there or that. I arrive in the morning in the car and they all run to the fence and peer through the gaps, beaming faces, waving hands chanting 'Gari gari!' (car). As soon as i get through the gate i'm greated with handshakes from all sides and cries of 'how are you!' 'How are you' seems to be programmed into every kid here from the moment they can speak. You just drive down the road and any children who see you shout it at you, that and 'mzungo' (white person). There was another funny time, this time at the other pre-school, Twinkle Twinkle Nursery school. I was just sat there with some of the girls and one starts to say every word she can think of in english with a few you's and me's and and's added in here and there. She just sat there for a good 5 or 10 minutes chatting complete nonsense very conversationally as if she was telling me about her weekend or something, she just talked like it was a real conversation but just like 'tap, water, me house and cup and you, you dog, car, hand. Me hand yes. Yes you dog me hand.' I don't know if that sounds as funny as it was at the time!

Another thing i have recently started doing is going on home visits with Care for Aids. Care for Aids is a really great project out here, i won't go into how it works but i go with the 2 workers to visit their clients in their homes. This is a pretty cool experience, you get to see the real kenyans, how they really live. Each home is different and each person has a different story but generally running throughout is a joy and peace and in many cases a trust in God in circumstances that in England would give you amble excuse to completely break down and give up on life. The same thing is evident in the women down in Kibera slum, they come to the biblestudies and sing and smile and tell you things that are happening to them that blow your mind. And the people at Jikaze, the Internally Displaced People, people who lost their homes and jobs and family and friends and everything in the post election violence in 2008. They have such joy still, and such satisfaction though they live in mud huts with no water, no electricity, barely enough food. We were talking today with Carmen about poverty and I thought about it in a different way to how i ever have before. Poverty is not necessarily the lack of decent material things but can be the lack of decent relationships and things. And so though many of these people are in poverty in a material way, they have so much more than many westerners in other ways. They have a joy and peace and satisfaction that i think many westerners will never have.... i hope that makes sense, its got me musing anyway.

Another place i have speant a lot of time is In His Image, the babies home. I've loved this place, you can't help it the babies are so delicious! It's been so great to see how the kids have developed in the past 3 months (I've been here that long already!). There are ones that can now push them around in their walkers, and the two older toddlers (the other 2 are gone now) are beginning to speak more. They are so much fun those two big boys! I miss Mark and Becky who have gone, Mark to be adopted and Becky to a great Uncle. But Stephen and Daniel, both 2, are still fun. The other day i arrived around 10.30am and went into their room where they'd just had a nap and they went crazy. Stephen was doing sumorsaults in his cot, i've never seen him so excited! So i took them outside to run off some steam! Daniels favorite game is to stand on the other side of this little hedge and we throw a ball back and forth to each other. Stephen preferes picking up the gravel and throwing it, sometimes at the car, a habbit i'm forever having to try and stop! The younger babies are all so cute too, except when they throw up on me. One once was sitting on the edge of my lap and was sick straight into my flip flop and i'd very literally put my foot in it before i realised! But for the most part it's an absolute joy being there!

I think i shall stop there... for now! But being here has been so great, i've loved every moment of it (except the times i was in bed feeling awful) and it's certainly given me a lot to think about and taught me much and gotten me out of the little bubble that was my life before! I can't believe i've only got three weeks left now! It's flown by so quickly but feels like i've been here forever at the same time! I know i will be back sometime though, back somewhere doing something and i can't wait!

Easter in Uganda!

I don't have time to do this trip justice but i will do my best to give you a little flavour!
I left home ridiculously early friday morning, arrived in Uganda about 8.30am which shows you how early, though the flight is only 45 minutes. The whole experience, airports, visas, being picked up by an unknown driver was so unscary compared to when i came to Kenya! It was funny, the contrast between then and how relaxed i felt about it now!
So i arrived, found the driver with my name and went off with him for the hour and half drive through Entebbe where the airport is, through Kampala and out the other side. Entebbe is right by the lake and from the plane you could see the vast flat greyness that is Lake Victoria stretching out into the distance boardered by the luscious green of Uganda.
I love first impressions and Ugandas was interesting. Very very much like Kenya,or the Kenya i have seen anyway. Just replace all the cows standing around with donkeys, change the odd word in the advertisements which just like here are painting brightly over all the buildings, swap the trucks piled with bananas with trucks piled with tea and take away most of the palm trees and greeness and voila... you have Kenya. Same shacks and tin rooves and piled high bikes and bright pink Zain buildings and muddy potholes and vegetable stalls and chaos! Though actually Kampala is less developed and smaller than Nairobi as well.
Finally we arrived where Becca lives and she appeared! 'BECCA!!' *hug* 'Your hair has grown!' and it has.. it's really long.
You can imagine the talking and the catching up, it was strangely not at all strange to see her, in fact it wasn't even strange that it wasn't strange it was all completely normal like i'd just seen her last week not 2 and a half months ago!
After a bit of a catch up we took the taxi-bus as they are called here, (matatus in Kenya, sort of minibuses that are the public transport. Deliciously cheap, mostly crammed too full, will stop anywhere anytime...) into Kampala and went to 'Garden City' the nicest shopping mall in all of Uganda probably. Had some food, used the internet, spent forever in the super market looking at lunch boxes! Generally just talked a lot! Went home and talked some more!
Saturday morning at 11am saw us just having finished breakfast having a chat with Mo, one of the other girls who lives with Becca, who suddenly says hey lets go to Jinja. This wasn't at all what we had planned, Jinja being a town about 2 hours away by Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile. However it was an opportunity not to be missed so within 5 minutes we'd reversed our ideas and went of to Jinja. It was just 2 quid for the taxibus there, and in fact we got a bigger bus back that was only 1 pound!!
On the way me and mo were crammed into the back 3 seats with a lady and her two 10 or 11 aged girls. The girls were sweet, they kept talking about us and their mum would translate! They thought we were beautiful and wanted to look like us and wanted us to take a photo of them!
We got to Jinja and found some tiny 'restaurant' as they like to call them where 1 pound paid for us to have a soda and chapati each and used the rather unpleasant loo outside, though i have seen worse! Then we found ourselves bodabodas, sort of taxi motorbikes, and rode down to a tiny village by the lake where some guy took us on his (slightly leaky) boat over the source of the nile! He took us across to a little fishing village and showed us round which was pretty cool. The kids all came and followed us round, i guess it's not too often they see 3 mzungo girls. It was cool to be in a genuine place and see them and their fish and things! The guy also got me a piece of Jack Fruit from someone because i'd never had any. It wasn't the best thing ever i have to say. Once back we went down the river a little way and found a restaurant and had dinner sitting by the nile watching the sun go down!
The bus back to Kamapala was funny. Me and Becca were in the back and Mo was on a sort of fold down seat in the isle in front of us. A little while into the journey she turns round and says 'what is that noise? Sounds like a dog...' a while later, 'I think it's someones ringtone...' It wasn't until some people got off and she moved back to sit with us that we noticed this chicken that had been sitting right under her feet the whole time! I don't know if it sounds that hilarious but we were crying with laughter and getting some funny looks from everyone else on the bus! Everytime the chicken sqwarked after that we were set off again. Turned out actually there were 3 of them, when he got of he just picked em up by their feet and carried them off like they were a plastic bag!
Sunday we went to a massive church service, it was.... interesting. They did some awesome singing and dancing but we were slightly dubious of some of the preaching! Several people from the school where becca has been working took us there and then out to lunch afterwards. Me and becca left early though and went home and had a 2 hour nap!! Once again we managed to talk all evening! Helped along by beans on toast provided by me and mini eggs from Becca!!
On Monday we went to Entebbe. Entebbe is another town about and hour away from Kampala where the airport is. We persuaded a hotel to keep my bag for me and went down to a Wildlife Sanctuary. After having been on safari it seemed pretty tame but it was fun anyway. The highlight was probably lunch, fish and chips African style. The plate arrives with literally a whole deep fried fish, head tail brains and all!! It was tasty though... And we went and paddled in Lake Victoria and some guy offered to take photos of us for us and took hundreds from every possible angle it was pretty funny!
And then came the sad moment we had to part and i zoomed off to the airport on a boda boda, enjoying the last of the heat and sun and beauty of Uganda! Entebbe airport... it's even more enthralling that Nairobi's. There are about 5 shops and an overpriced cafe and not even anywhere to get lost in to pass the time! But i survived and got home and wished i could go back again!
I feel like i've put loads in at the beginning and then rushed it all at the end, i always seem to do that sorry! Its because i run out of time!

Mombasa!

So I arrived at Chesire bright and early 8.30 Sunday morning raring to go! The bus was coming at 9 and the girls were excited. Andree and Ruth (a volunteer with another program who knows Andree and came along) got the girls singing and drumming and dancing. My worries melted away as the excitement caught on and I started to feel good about this trip!
An hour later when the bus still hadn’t arrived the excitement had started to wear off and an hour later still when we were broken down just at the end of the road I was beginning to have doubts. After half an hour of having no clue what was happening we managed to get started again just to stop in Nairobi for 2 hours having something fixed! Finally over 3 hours after setting out we were actually on our way!
After that we stopped only to pick up extra passengers (despite having ‘hired out’ the bus – any excuse to make more money) and for one five minute loo break.
The journey stretched out into an endless monotony of endless miles of road and dry bush. Around 6.30 we arrived in Voi where we picked up more extras (though where they put them I don’t know, there were already more people than seats) and were harassed as usual by guys trying to sell us warm sodas and biscuits through the windows. One tells me I ‘look so smart’, everything is ‘smart’ in Kenya, your clothes, your necklace, you sandals… It made me laugh anyway, trying to flatter me into buying something, typical!
From there we headed off into the evening and the girls began singing again. And as I sat there watching the sun fade to pale orange in the west and the hills and trees deepen into silhouettes and listening to the song of the girls I felt suddenly blessed to be in this country and with these girls and suddenly the past 8 hours crammed in the same sweaty seat didn’t seem to bad after all. And so we drove on into the ever growing humidity, the girls still singing as the darkness took over and the stars came out in their thousands.
Finally after over 10 hours on the bus we arrived at our destination – a dingy scruffy little hostel place that did not deserve grand name of ‘California Dream Hotel’. However for 600 shillings a night (the equivalent of 5 pounds) including 3 meals we could not complain. The shower and fan worked and the room was not full of bugs and what more do you need!
Monday morning we got up, had breakfast and took the girls to Fort Jesus. One of the sisters (the school is run by nuns who came too)managed to wangle us in cheap and the girls had a tour round the place which they were very attentive to, English girls would had wondered off half way I think! It was there they had their first glimpse of the sea through the cannon holes in the walls. Some of them could not seem to tear themselves away I guess it was like nothing they’ve seen before. One girl Maggie was there for so long, and saw a boat, another great cause of excitement – ‘teacher teacher!! Look!!!’ – pointing through the gap with a look of amazement!
We went back to the ‘hotel’ for some Kenyan pilau for lunch and then, the highlight of the trip, took the girls down to the beach. It was the most amazing thing. The beach was nothing special, it was one of the only places close by that was free and not owned by a hotel. But they had never seen the sea let alone gone in it! They all came and stood by the edge and gradually one by one we persuaded a few to get in and then suddenly they just took off. They lead each other in and went in deeper and smiled and laughed and bent down to touch it. Maggie was just jumping in circles laughing to herself! We got some to sit down and float with us holding them. It wasjust such an experience to see how happy and excited they were. Ater a lot of persuasion - colleta was sure she would drown - we got the two girls in wheelchairs out and sat them in the edge where they loved it too and were the last out!
That evening Andree, Ruth and Jess (another English girl they know who happened to be in Mombasa) , went out for a meal to the most beautiful if pricey restaurant and ate delicious fish! It was so good after two months of none!
On Wednesday we took the girls on a ferry just over this stretch of water and back. It was a grubby dull car ferry but they had never been on a boat so anything would have been fun! In the afternoon the sisters took the girls shopping and to some place where they had a bead making workshop or something – I don’t really know what they organized it, so us English girl went to the beach again and actually went and sat in the back of one of the hotels and used their pool! We bought water off them for the privilege!
Then the journey home – pheuff. We were doing fine, left at 10 and seemed to be on time until we got to Nairobi. There it was raining and the bus being old and shoddy leaked all over me and to make things better we got stuck in Nairobi traffic and took 3 and a half hours to come through!! 11 and a half hours on a bus with again one five minute loo stop is not something I want to repeat in a hurry!
But the trip was defiantly so worth it! I was talking to some of the girls on Tuesday evening and they were all just so happy to have come. I will leave you with the words of Colletta - ‘imagine me, sitting on the sea! Imagine me riding on a ship! Oh it is a miracle! I will never forget this all of my life!’ And if that doesn’t make it worth it I don’t know what would!

Long time no write sorry!

So I haven’t written in ages and there is far too much to tell you!

Last week was good. On Wednesday we took 11 ladies from Power Woman Group out. We had a picnic and our bible study in a gorgeous park in Nairobi. You should have seen how excited they were to go somewhere, I think they literally never leave Kibera and Kibera is not the nicest place to never leave.

On Thursday afternoon we brought Becky and the 3 boys from In His Image to Brackenhurst to play at the play park there. They also don’t get out much at all so that was fun!

What else has happened! Nicole and I went for a horse ride in the tea fields and countryside on Saturday, which was nice =) Just had a relaxing weekend. Made a roast dinner on Sunday! Strangest roast ever though. Phil and Debora put so much spice on the veg and Debora made ‘gravy’ that was yummy but nothing like gravy! We also put lemon and garlic in the chicken, which was absolutely delicious! Moon left on Friday night and Nicole on Monday, which was sad, I’ve missed them this week.

This week has absolutely flown by! I’ve taught two maths lessons to 5 and 6 year olds, which I really enjoyed. It’s funny to think how much the idea terrified me at the beginning! They count in English and the teacher is there to translate so it’s fine. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time at the babies home, a baby was sick on my foot and in my flip flop the other day. Lowlight of my day! The highlight was telling phil about it he was SO unimpressed!

I’m sorry, I can think of so many things to say when I’m not sitting here writing this! I hope it’s enough to say that I’m still having a good time and loving being here! I’ll try write something more exciting next time!!

(I wrote this on Friday and something happened to the internet and wouldn't let me post so here it is now!)

The Masai Mara!

So last Saturday me and Moon set off at 7am for the Masai Mara. It was about 4 and a half hours there. It was funny, the road across the rift valley was really very good, then after a couple of hours we turned off onto an okay road and then eventually off onto just track if even that!
We arrived to this luxurious amazing camp! The tents were just out in the bush, up on stilts with en-suit bathrooms!! We had lunch (were served it, 3 courses!) and went off on our first game drive. Within an hour we'd seen elephants and lions! Elephants are awesome, my first thought was wow they are huge!! And so graceful and beautiful. The whole place is beautiful i wish i could upload all my pictures!
On Sunday we went on an all day drive and went to the Mara river. There we saw the hippo in the picture with her less than 1 day old baby! She was pretty wary of us and even came charging towards us at one point but we were up this bank so it was fine. And we had a guide with a gun...
Back at the camp i took a bath and we had our three course dinner before going to bed with the random sounds all around us! 6am the next morning saw me lying awake listening to the loudest birds i've ever heard and some other strange sounds that i later worked out to be the monkeys and baboons. When we walked to breakfast the baboons were running around on the ground and the monkeys were in the trees throwing things at them!!! Breakfast too was an experience.. 'welcome to breakfast. For starter we have fruits, enjoy your fruits!'
There happened to be 3 christian guys staying at the same camp (most people were old, though there were only 10 at most other people there!) who were volunteering at a mission hospital not so far from here. Its cool to meet other travellers im getting better at talking to strangers too!
On the Monday morning we went out early and saw these two amazing lions. They were just walking so calmly and majestically past the cars so so close.
On the way home we gave a lift to the chef of the camp who was going to Nairobi and some girl we picked up at the gate who is living in the Park doing research on hyenas so she told us some pretty interesting stuff!!
That feels like a pretty poor blog, i wish i had the time to write more!I'll try tell you all the other stuff i have to tell soon!

The kids of Kenya!

I love kids. I love small they are and how happy they are and how they can laugh at anything. I love how they think and their curiosity and their capacity to learn. They are unique individual masterpieces its fascinating! The kids here are awesome.

Its funny, when I’m with the babies at In His Image it doesn’t make me sad because they are so cute and amazing! Though if you think about it and look at say Daniel (in the pic), the most delicious little toddler and think that his mum got to the state where she just dumped him it is incredibly sad. Most they get when they are babies but Daniel they got a few months ago when he was aout 1. Nicole was wondering the other day how much these babies mum’s think about them. To dump your baby can’t be easy, to be so desperate that you do that must be horrible. I also wonder how it must affect the babies having not one constant mum but about 6 or 7 different ladies. It must affect them somehow?

And the other day we were at Limuru Childrens Centre and the director was telling us some of the kids stories. One boys was found trying to pull his drunk naked mother off the streets, another watched his father kill his mum, 2 other girls live their because their mum is a drunkard. And it’s weird to think, looking at these smiling kids, what must be underneath. What do they think? How can they comprehend it? The smallest girl there is having a court case at the moment and Patrick, the director said last time they came home from court she was so upset because her mum hadn’t been there and all she wanted was to see her mum.

Yesterday I taught my first lesson at LCC-K, the pre-school branch of Limuru Childrens Centre. I think it is primarily to feed to kids but obviously they need to be educated too. They took about half an hour to draw 4 lines on a piece of paper with a ruler to split it into 9 parts. They just have so little resources they just sit and copy teacher, its so different to england where kids are painting and cutting and sticking and have so many toys. They are so much fun though, it’s amazing how much you can play with a kid without needing to say anything. You just chuck one up in the air and they all come running wanting the same! They all drink ‘Uje’ (some kind of porridge) mid morning and then all clammer for seconds. I looked at it and thought im not sure I would want seconds of that, it looks pretty disgusting. But then it came to me that this is their breakfast and these are growing kids and I felt rather... something to have thought that. What a western thought!
It gives you a lot to think about though, being here and seeing things first hand. In the slums especially it seems such a contrast, the beautiful children and the pitiful surroundings. I wander what they see, what they think about it. Or are some of them too young and they’re just kids playing like kids, making the best out of what they have.

4 weeks down, 12 to go!

So another week has flown by and I’m still loving it here in Kenya! I was just on my email and somehow the weather in Reading was showing up and it said highs of 4 degrees and I thought wow it’s good to be here! The sun is still shining, though its been a bit more cloudy the past few days.
So what have I been up to? I was ill Monday and Tuesday, the funny tummy finally caught up with me but it could have been a lot worse so it’s ok, got it out the way! On Wednesday we went to Kibera to the Woman’s group again. We visited a couple of the ladies homes and it is exactly as people tell you, like 5 people living in a shack that’s only about twice as wide as a double bed and a couple of feet longer. They literally just had half there house as the bed, in which all 5 sleep and the other half as the living area. the ladies were telling us how they'd been able to buy furniture through money from the Power Woman's Group. The slums are crazy, a million people packed in to these tiny houses, living on top of each other with the sewage running down the middle of the street, though you can't really call it a street, it's more an alley between houses. the how place is pretty much built on a rubbish dump.
Once again (after going to buy lunch, 3 of us ate for the equivalent of 3.50 and Debora was saying that café was expensive!) we did a bible study, and once again the ladies all hugged us and thanked us greatly for being there.

On Friday morning we visited LCC-K which is another pre-school. Me and Moon are going to be going there this week and hopefully start doing some teaching. The kids are awesome, they come and grab you and talk to you and you wish you could speak Swahili!
On Saturday morning we went to Jikaze to do another food relief and after all the bagging up stuff was done we were talking to some girls that were there. One of them was 12 and had such good English! There was another with her baby sister on her back, she was only 7 and had to look after her. (she is in the pic on the right, the girl on the far right, the white lump is the baby on her back! And that's me moon and Nicole) They were asking how old we were and i think they thought Nicole and I said 80 becuase they were like 'wow!'. Actually they said 'guy' which I assume means like 'man' or 'gosh' or the equivalent, from the contexts in which i've heard it. Several little girls came along tooand decided they liked me so I spent a happy half hour or so having my hands fought over and chucking them in the air and tickling them. They were so gorgeous! Carmen, Moon and Nicole ( she is another volunteer who came on Friday night, she’s from Canada) left but I decided to stay a bit longer and got whisked off with the kids miles through the camp to where they were having a kids program thing, run by Grace – the lady who comes to translate at the woman’s group. They sang some songs, which was cool! (They sang that Jabulani Africa song, for those who know what that is - Han do you remember our crazy dancing!) And then went outside to play games. I was just sitting being jumped on by the little girls who were too small to play when Phil and Megan came to find me because we had to go. Hopefully I can go back and stay all day one time though. It was just so amazing, being there with this awesome scenery all around and these awesome kids playing with you!
As we were driving down into the Rift Valley on the way to Jikaze, looking at the vast view over the valley with mount Longonot in the distance Phil said to me ‘once Africa gets in your veins you can never get it out again.' I said ‘I’m good with that!’ I can feel it seeping in and I love it!