Home Science Practical Exam

The Form IVs at St. Monica's have been taking mock exams for the past two weeks. The mocks are practice KCSE exams. They will take four mock exams before they take the actual KCSE exam in November. One of the elective classes at our school is home science (home economics or consumer sciences as it is now known in the States.) I was TOD (Teacher on Duty) this past week. One of the responsibilities is to walk around the compound making sure students are in class, doing inspection, etc. On one of my rounds I noticed that the home science room was busy so I stopped in to see what was happening. They were doing their practical exam.

Their task was to use three different preparation methods: frying, steaming and boiling to prepare food for an invalid: porridge, fried ground nuts and cake. They fried the ground nuts (peanuts), boiled porridge and steamed the cake.

Several days before they had taken the written portions of the exam. On the written portion they had to write the recipes, make a shopping list, etc. That day they were following their own instructions and doing the actual cooking and serving. This is the improvised oven they used to steam the cake. Down at the bottom they lit a charcoal fire. On the bottom rack of the oven they placed a pan of water and the top shelf was for the cake. Some of the cakes were baked in muffin tins, bread pans or round cake pans.

I talked mostly to the teacher during the exam as I felt I shouldn't be distracting the girls while they were taking the exam. Once the food was prepared the girls had to decorate the table and create their own centerpieces. Teachers were then invited to sample and help grade their work. I didn't take pictures during this time because I didn't want to risk the possibility of lowering their grades so I didn't get a picture of the beautiful presentation of their food. I must say the cakes I tasted were much, much better than any other Kenyan cakes I've eaten. They couldn't believe I had never tasted porridge before. They make theirs from fermented millet.

Now the exam is over, the teacher has left, cleanup is almost completed and the girls were able to make mandazi(similar to donuts)as a treat since they didn't get to have any of the cake that they baked.

Student Council Elections

We had a first at St. Monica's this past week. We held an election for Student Council members. First a little background.

A prefect is a student monitor that helps the administration run the school. At St. Monica's their responsibilities include twice weekly inspection of the dorms and classrooms, reporting students who are late to preps and/or class, reporting student misbehaviour, supervising the dining hall and dorms, and all other activities. If a teacher wants anything done, they talk to the prefect about it so that it is taken care of. In the business world it would be a middle management position. These prefects have responsibilities, but also privileges. In the dorms, they get to sleep in small rooms with only about 6-8 girls in an enclosed room whereas all the other students sleep in a huge open area with at least a hundred other girls.

There are prefects for each classroom, each club or religious society, each dormitory, the dining hall, science laboratory, home science room, library, staff room, sanitation, entertainment, games, plus the Head Girl and Deputy Head Girl.


In order to bring schools into the democratic process of governance, the Kenyan Department of Education has decided that there will no longer be prefects in schools. That basically involves simply a name change from prefect to Secretary. In the past, the faculty and administration decided who the prefects would be. Here is where the major change came into play. No longer are the Secretaries, School Captain and Deputy School Captain to be chosen by the teachers, but they are to be elected by the student body. These secretaries, the school captain and deputy captain make up the Student Council. What a huge change!

First, a list of qualifications for each position was posted that included minimum grades, form level, conduct/behaviour, etc. Students had to write an letter of application to the Deputy Principal if they were interested. After these letters of application were received the deputy principal met with the teachers to weed out the list. We came up with the Short List of final candidates on Tuesday. The staff meeting where we discussed this and developed the logistics of the election took literally all of Tuesday. At 2:00 on Tuesday afternoon a school assembly was called where the short list of candidates was announced. Candidates were allowed to campaign from 3:00 until 5:00 Tuesday afternoon. The election was held on Wednesday.


Voting was done in the classrooms. The class teacher had an other teacher to help as they were the Election Officers. Our job was to pass out the ballots and supervise the voting. We were given two ballot boxes so students voted for two offices at a time. After the voting for those two offices was done, students were selected to help oversee the counting of ballots. Miss Irene and I emptied the ballot boxes as the students made sure they were entirely empty. Then one of us opened the ballots as the students announced to the other teacher who made tally marks on the board to record the votes. This was done in the presence of all the students in the class. After the votes were tallied, a note was written with the class results, again supervised by the student observers, then taken to the deputy principal. Then the next round of voting could begin..

It took all morning to complete the voting. After lunch, the results were announced. The new prefects were sworn in and assumed their duties. The reason that the election was done at this time was to release the Form IVs from all responsibilities as they spend the final four months of their secondary education preparing for the KCSE. It is felt that they need to devote all their time and attention to exam preparation, not school supervision.

I'm happy to report that four of my Form II East students were elected prefects! I think they will all do a good job in their new roles.

Hopefully by educating students as to how fair and transparent elections should be held, the elections of the country will follow suit.

Madaraka Day

June 1st is a national holiday in Kenya, Madaraka Day. It is the day in 1963 where Kenya achieved internal self rule five months before achieving independence from England.

The Young Catholic Society members at Weaver Bird chose to use the day to plant trees to honor Madaraka Day as well as Environmental Awareness Day. They bought about 50 trees to plant around the playing fields (soccer, volleyball, field hockey, etc.)


John is one of the YCS sponsors so we went to help plant the trees and I went along as the photographer.

We started out with only one jembe to dig the holes. It was causing problems as the metal hoe part kept working itself loose from the wooden handle. The students would stop work and find twigs to insert as a wedge to help hold the metal piece in place. As the morning progressed two more jembes were found that help things to go considerably faster.


Students worked in teams to dig the holes, plant and them water the trees. It is a special thing here to have your snap (photo)taken. Most of the kids wanted to have their snap taken. We told them that we were there to take photos of the tree planting. If they were working perhaps they would be in a snap. What a motivator! The work went much more smoothly and quickly.

We also used the day as an opportunity to talk about other ways to take care of the environment, namely picking (up) trash. It seems to be a real problem here that people throw trash wherever they are. Students are trained in the academic areas (classrooms) to use rubbish bins, but once they are in the field or in the dorms, the anywhere is fine. It happens in public areas too. Every morning shop owners are busy sweeping the area in front of their kiosks or stands to get rid of the rubbish.

Hopefully the Weaver Bird students will take pride in their new trees as they water and take care of them. Some of the varieties were quick growing cyprus so especially the Form Is and IIs will see a huge difference in them by the time they leave school.