Report Card Weekend

This is report card weekend. School in Kenya is divided into three three-month terms. This past week has been Final Week. John especially has been swamped with >marking (grading) exams. Do the maths. Each class at St. Anthony’s has 85+ students. There are four classes. That’s 340+ students. He reported about an hour ago that he has marked over 4000 questions. It took him about 20 hours to finish mark his exams. He will be so glad to be finished and be able to think about something else.

Here are a couple of examples from his Form I (freshman) maths exam:

1. A large scale farmer uses ½ of his land to plant maize (corn), 1/5 for grazing, 1/3 of the remainder for horticulture and the rest for beans. If he uses 20 hectares for horticulture farming determine how much land he uses for beans. (Worth 4 marks/points)

2. Matthew bought a suit for sh 2400. He is going to resell it and marked it a price that after allowing a 10% discount he would make a profit of 20%. Calculate the marked price. (4 marks)

3. A cylindrical tank whose diameter is 2.8 metres and height of 80 cm is initially empty. Water whose volumn is 985.6 litres is poured into the tank. Determine the fraction of the tank filled with water. (4 marks)

I’m luckier. I only have to mark (grade) my own students. That’s 148 exams. My exams don’t have to be marked until we return to school in September. However, I must have the Oxford Dictionary on the desk beside me as I work. It is probably the best money spent since we have been in Kenya. If fact, I have two: one to use at home and the other is kept at school. There is a real difference between American English and British English not only in word usage but also in spelling. I am constantly having to double check to see if what I think is an error is in fact correct. Here are a few spellings that I need to count as correct: realised, colour, travelled, practise, mould, offense, labour, and foetus.

Here is an example from my Form I exam:
Read the following story. Fill in the blanks so that the story makes sense. (10 marks)
Ogre Stories
There are many ___________________ narratives that depict ogres. Ogres are ___________________ characters who disguise themselves to deceive foolish and gullible _____________________. These evil characters do __________________ things like killing people and ______________________ them up. Ogres have nothing _____________________ in them, and indeed they never change their evil nature.
Ogre stories present the contest between ___________________ and evil in the world. As we have said, ogres disguise themselves as good and well meaning, but in the end their _________________ nature reappears. Their aim is to destroy. In some stories they kill and get away with it. Yet in others, the ogres are eventually _____________________. Such stories reassure us and show that good ____________________ over evil.



Maths answers:
40 hectares, sh 3200, 1/5

English answers:
oral, evil, people, evil, eating, good, good, true, destroyed, triumphs

Everyday Necessities

Several weeks ago I showed you our house. I thought today I'd show you things in our house that are different than homes in the United States. These are things that we couldn't do without.

We don't have near the electricity problems that Katrina has in Nigeria. However, it isn't unusual for the electricity to go out a couple of times a week. Tonight for example while I was cooking supper we lost power for about twenty to thirty minutes. If it is daylight it isn't a problem. However, if it is dark, it is really dark. This is a rechargeable lantern that puts out quite a bit of light. We keep it in a special place so we always know where it is at. There are also several flashlights kept in strategic locations in the house and candles with matches in every room.

If we would drink the water here we would get sick. There is bacteria and other impurities that our bodies aren't used to. That means that we might get sick if we drank tap water. That problem is solved by having a water filter for drinking water and for brushing teeth. It works by the simple process of osmosis and gravity. You fill up the top compartment with tap water. Inside is a clay filter to get rid of the impurities. As time goes by the water passes through the filter and into the bottom part of the filter. Now it is drinkable water!

There are four dogs on the compound for security reasons. Copper and Dino are two that are outside all day long. They are quite tame and friendly (to us). Dino is the father of Copper. Copper is younger and more energetic. John feeds her our bones and scraps of meat. She really likes that. Due to the treats and warm concrete, she hangs out near our house during the day. We often hear her tail hitting our door at night. It's not a bad thing to know that there is a guard dog right outside your front door!

We don't have and don't want a hot water heater. We don't have room for one and they are too expensive to run. However, we have three small ones that give us hot water just when we need it. Each shower has a hot water heater on the top of the shower nozzle. About three to five minutes before you want to take a shower, turn on the switch outside the bathroom and you've got a warm shower. Likewise, we have another larger hot water heater in the kitchen above the sink. We plug it in while I am cooking. Again within three to five minutes there is hot water. Boy, is it ever hot! What hot water isn't used doing supper dishes stays warm overnight and is still lukewarm the next morning.

This is high malaria season. Since it is the rainy season, there is a lot of water sitting around. We take a drug to prevent us from getting malaria every day. In addition we sleep under mosquito netting. Our bed has a special frame for the netting so it isn't right in our faces when we go to bed. It's almost like sleeping in a canopy bed.

Click here to see a few more pictures of things that make our lives a little easier.

Sunday Walk

We go for a walk on Saturday and Sunday mornings. John gets plenty of exercise during the week since he usually walks two to three kilometers every day to and from school. I on the other hand don’t get much exercise. Walking in our neighborhood gives us a chance to explore and learn more about our new home. We try to take a new route each time we go. This morning we took our camera along to show you what we see in our neighborhood.

This road is a mirum road. It’s the next best thing to being tarmaced (blacktopped). I don’t know what it’s made of, but it sure doesn’t hold water. Even after a heavy downpour there are no mud puddles. There might be an area holding water for a few hours, but it is soon gone. On this type of road you don’t have to worry about getting stuck. The road to John's school isn't nearly this nice. He won't let me take him all the way to school because he's afraid I'll get stuck.

Click here to see more pictures. We are surrounded by hills. The Cherangani Hills are to the north east. To the north west is Mt. Elgon amid the Cherangani.

All houses and most building are located in compounds. There is a wall surrounding the compound and usually a hedge of some type. It’s not at all unusual to see cattle, goats and sheep eating grass along the edge of the roads. I’ve had to stop several times on my way to and from school to wait for them to cross the road. The shepherds are good in that if they see cars coming, they will try to get the animals to move over. At times there is no person with the animals. In that case they seem to be local animals with long ropes tied around their necks. They must belong to a compound nearby and are out grazing for the day.


Notice the lady walking with her small child in this photo. If you look carefully you will notice that she is carrying firewood on her head, a baby tied to her back, and a shopping bag on her arm. How does she do it?

Homes in our neighborhood run the gamut from large, multistoried homes for several families usually owned by Indian Kenyans, British colonial homes built in the early 20th century, modest stone homes similar to ours, to small homes built out of timber, corrugated tin, even mud.