BLOG #12: School Visits and Mathare VBS

Dear Family and Friends,

* Updated 8/13/10 with pictures! Scroll down to see the different slideshows and videos of the day!

I really really wish I could post pictures as I write this, but that's not possible. I literally have time just to log on and type all this as fast as I can on our blog, then logoff. Each day has felt like 3 entire days... it feels like I've been here over a week! The whole team feels the same way, just a constant feeling of exhaustion... yet, we are still loving each moment here. We are still unfortunately missing our bags, but we think we can pick them up hopefully tomorrow...

On Wednesday and Thursday, we continued doing more school visits. The best way I can explain it is that I feel like our team has been an "assembly" for each school. A team from Deliverance Church brings all the musical equipment and has a worship team that sings songs with the kids, then all of us lead several active songs from our VBS curriculum, then Eight Count performs and dances with some of the kids, the other team acts out a skit inviting the kids to join this summer VBS program, and we conclude by passing out flyers and meeting the kids personally. They seem to really enjoy giving high fives, touching our skin, touching our hair... just curious about us. Each school visit has been about an hour long. We've been to five schools, three of them were public schools and the other two were private. Wow, what a huge difference. The private schools were clearly more disciplined and had probably 30 kids per teacher. The public schools had 60-70 kids per teacher, therefore discipline was very difficult. It was difficult to see the public school teachers carrying sticks that were used to hit the kids in order to get them to stand in line or be quiet. Their interaction with us also varies depending on the school. At the private schools, they are very respectful and understand personal boundaries, whereas at the public schools, some students are rowdy and their excitement ends up into chaos. Overall though, we have loved the school visits. The whole team is learning and growing with each visit. The Kidzone members are learning the Eight Count dance, and the Eight Counters are learning the Kidzone songs too!

Click here to see a short video of highlights from our second day of school visits or you can go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U37Lr7G14Ys



On Thursday, a few of the members also went to Mathare. I went with the group to Mathare and experienced serious carsickness. It should have only taken us a half hour, but instead it took one hour and a half because of traffic. When there is traffic, no fresh air comes in. All you smell is the fumes from other cars mixed with thick dust and dirt. Plus, there are so many potholes on the ground that the road is bumpy and constantly a stop and go feeling. I was breaking into a cold sweat... It was quite painful.

When we arrived, we went to the Mathare Worship Center, which is a center that started out opening it's doors to children who were just wandering around during the day and not going to school. They brought in teachers to start their own type of school, and they also help to empower the people in Mathare to improve their lifestyle. For example, they provide services for people to learn about savings and loans, or helping women learn skills such as beadwork and sewing so that they can earn a living. They reach out to the community by feeding meals, providing day care, and giving health care services such as dental work or hospital visits. The leaders at Mathare Worship Center are truly amazing. When we met with them, we worked together to plan what our VBS will look like for Saturday...

On Saturday, the whole team came to Mathare and it only took 30 minutes to drive there (Thank GOD!), so that was a great start. We got there at 8am and helped to set up all of the programs for the day. The kids started arriving, and at 9am we started a whole-group sing and dance session led by Grace Kim and Terrence. We taught them different songs with movements and then afterwards, we split up into 3 rotations. One rotation involved a bible storytime and lesson with Theresa and Steven, another rotation was a craft with Alina and James, and the final rotation was learning a dance by Eight Count. We split the 3 groups by age group (preschoolers and kinders, first through third, and fourth and up). Every half hour we would rotate the kids so that everyone went to each station. At the end, we met as a whole-group again and finished with all the songs and dances. Overall, it was a success! They had never done something like that before, and the kids really enjoyed all the activities. It was probably harder on all of us because of all the dirt in the air. For example, Tim was coughing non-stop throughout, and many of us just got congested with "black nostrils" (really).

After our whole morning, it was 1pm and the kids were given lunch... it was only 5 crackers!!! I was shocked to see that... We also had brought Halloween type candy to pass out, and so they got one of those too. I wish we had brought 100 bags! We then went into a room to meet all of the HIV positive kids and we met one of the volunteer ladies who tries to take care of these kids. It was so sad... I had been dancing specifically with this one girl earlier in the morning (I even had video-taped specifically her), and I saw her in the room of kids who have HIV =( Also, when we were meeting them, I remember watching these 2 brothers eating a tiny (Halloween-candy size, remember!) Snickers bar that we had given them. They were sucking on them as if they were a lollipop. Each lick, they would look down at the chocolate, or the peanuts, and it was so obvious they were cherishing the candy bar. It humbled me to think that during Halloween, kids get HUGE bags of candy going door to door... and here these kids had one candy, and spent half an hour to savor it.

We had an opportunity to also walk around Mathare and visit one of the homes to see what that looked like. None of us took any pictures from this point on, so we can only describe our experience. Kids were everywhere as we had been told, and there is trash everywhere. It looks exactly like the picture I posted in my first blog - tin roofs and tiny corriders to walk in between homes. When we were walking, it was hard to look up and look around me... I honestly had to look down most of the time to watch where I was stepping... hopping over trash, waste, puddles, I don't know... but it was hard to look anywhere else but the floor. We went into one of the homes... there were 12 of us in the room and we were all squished together, it was 6 feet by 8 feet. They said that some families had up to 10 people in the room! The lady had a clothesline and clothes hanging to section off her "bedroom" in the room... otherwise, there was a bench and just... stuff. That's it. They shared that each family had to pay rent each month, and some could pay for electricity if they wanted to, but it's actually stolen electricity. They have a public bathroom, but they had to pay 5 shillings for each visit to a bathroom.

Click here to see a short video of highlights from our third day doing VBS in Mathare! Or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caht-GTiA9k



There's so much to document. I guess what all of you want to know most is that all of us are well and having an amazing time. We do need prayers for health and avoiding getting sick, and just being able to adapt to the environment (air) in Kenya. It's a LOT of pollution, and none of us are used to it. Overall though, we say hello and we will post more when we can!!!

Love,
Team Kenya