Blood Donation

Yesterday St. Monica's had a blood donation drive. I knew that they had held them yearly but had never had a chance to participate. John and I decided we wanted to be donors so we stopped by school after doing our weekly shopping. I apologize for the quality of photos. We didn't have a camera so we used John's phone. The pictures are of a poor quality, but you can get the general idea.

We understand that the majority of adults in Kenya don't give blood. They are frightened of the situation. If a family member is need of blood, sometimes they will donate for that family member, but it is not common practice to donate to a blood bank. Therefore, there is an acute shortage of blood in Kenya. According to statistics, every 10 minutes someone dies because of a lack of blood. We thought it was a perfect opportunity to lead by example.

The blood banks here do blood drives in schools nine months of the year. The regional blood bank came and one of the nurses gave a talk to the girls about blood donation and answered any questions they had. They were hoping to be able to get 200 pints of blood from our girls and staff.

The rules for donation here are a little different than in the States.

You must be 15 years of age and weight 50 kilograms (110 pounds). The first step was to step on the scales to see how much you weighed. Then just as in the States, you start by filling out a questionnaire about your general health status. They asked pretty much the same questions as what we were used to. Then a nurse tested a drop of blood for your hemoglobin level. The next lady put the sticker on your questionnaire and handed you the bag for your blood. That was it. No private interview and further questioning.

There were two chairs with arms that John and I used being the first in line. We were in the physics lab, so they used the twelve lab tables as beds for the majority of people. There were three technicians in the room who drew the blood and watch to see that everything was going all right.

Just like in the States, after finishing, we got a bottle of soda and some biscuits (cookies). That was a real treat for the girls as those foods are outlawed in school. They only get to have them when they are home between terms.

Peeking in the window to see what is going on. They are mostly my Form II East class!

In Turkanaland

Last October John O'Donoghue, a fellow MKLM, had the opportunity to travel with a five member media team from the Maryknoll Society. We went to Lodwar about an eight hour drive from Kitale. While we were there we attended a confirmation at an outstation in Lorubum and went to Kakuma Refuge Camp. Here are links to post I made about them:
Lorubum Confirmation and Kakuma Refuge Camp.

Nine months later the Maryknoll Society magazine published two articles about our trip. The title of this issue of the magazine is "In Turkeanaland". Some of you may have the actual magazine, but for those of you who don't here's the link. I remember the young woman on the cover!

This is Michael Ball, one of the reporters interviewing Father Luke who runs a Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre at Kakuma.

The article titled "Famine in Turkana" by Kathy Golden was written at the confirmation. I danced with the women as the processed toward the church. You can see a picture of John O talking over the fence. Actually, that photo was taken at the airport and they were discussing soccer!

The other article titled "Guided by a Saint in Kenya" is about Don Bosco, a program run here in Kitale by Russ. You can see a picture of him!

On page 19 I have a similar photo of the kids at Kakama Refuge Camp singing to us in the chapel area!

Wedding Planning

There are two types of weddings here: traditional and church weddings. A traditional wedding is the most common and is the way it has been done for hundreds of years according to traditional ethnic practices. A down payment of the bride price (dowry) is paid to the bride’s family after a period of negotiation between the uncles of both parties. During the wedding the clothing is traditional as well as the ceremony. Years later after the entire bride price has been paid, some couples elect to have a church wedding. Our understanding is that you cannot have a church wedding until after the total dowry is paid. This can take years.

At our staff meeting in April, Mr. Oduri, a Kiswahili teacher, announced that he and his wife were going to have a wedding. At first I didn’t understand and thought he was telling us that their daughter was getting married. It wasn’t until fellow teachers were congratulating him and praising him because most men don’t honour their wives by getting married in the church that I realized that he and his wife were getting married. It is called solemnizing their vows. I’m guessing he is in his late 30s or early 40s. I’m pretty sure that they have a child in secondary school. (You don’t ask questions about people’s families so I really don’t know much about my coworkers lives outside school.)

Immediately after the announcement, several of the men volunteered to be his agents in the planning of the wedding. Oduri said that it is customary that the jumuwia (small Christian communities that meet weekly for Scripture study and prayer) does the organization since it was part of the church. He thanked them for their offer and said he would be happy to have them working with his jumuwia.

Several weeks later Oduri asked me if they could use our car, a Toyota Hilux, saying, “I need a beautiful car to escort my beautiful bride to the church.” We are happy to oblige.

Last week we were invited to an organizational meeting at Oduri’s home along with three fellow teachers, all men. On the way we were taken by the church and then on to Oduri’s so we knew the way. It was in interesting experience and gave us additional insight into Kenyan culture. That's Oduri on the left in the black and grey jacket with the big smile on his face.

There were elected officials in charge of the meeting sitting in front of the room. They had brought in chairs that were arranged in rows facing the head table. Two men were obviously in charge with a woman secretary taking notes. The primary purpose of the gathering was fund raising for the wedding. People would bring money up to the front of the room and give it to the chairman. Do you see the man in the yellow jacket?

He is the one leading the applause. Depending upon the size of the donation, he would lead organized clapping in appreciation. There are all kinds of Kenyan clapping: ascending, descending, hearty claps, flowers, etc. Then the secretary would record the amount in her book.

Odrui told me that I needed to announce the donation of the use of our car for the wedding. Of course we were applauded. Then the question was asked, “Does that include the fuel?” My response was, “Of course! You can’t have a wedding without the bride!” You should have heard the laughter and following applause. I guess normally that is a wedding expense, fuel.

After the fund raising part was over, committees reported on the cake, transportation, decorations, invitations, etc.

Then as with any gathering, tea was served. First is the handwashing. Someone comes around with warm water in a pitcher, soap and a basin. She pour the water over your hands so you can wash. Mugs were passed out and plates of mandazi (fried bread similar to doughnuts) and fried ground nuts (peanuts) were set out. Soon, a lady came by with the chai (tea made with milk)to serve us. Now it was time to socialize and visit.

We had to park the car about half a block away and walk the final distance. I thought you might like to see the path that leads to Oduri's house.

Look at his beautiful house!

The wedding is in two weeks. We are looking forward to joining in the celebration.

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.

Funerals

Yesterday I went to my second Kenyan funeral. It is a really big event here. Everybody goes, not just close friends and relatives. We had two girls lose parents last week. The principal made a point of saying that she wanted at least 20 teachers and 30 – 40 girls to attend each. I hadn’t planned to go to either funeral as neither girl was a student of mine. I had even forgotten that one of the funerals was yesterday.

However, all of a sudden it was obvious that I was expected to go. Teachers were gathering their things and getting ready to load the school bus. A couple of teachers were telling me that I ought to go while others were telling me that they expected me to go. It always takes people longer here to get around to go places, so at one point I decided to stay. I even sat back down at my desk in the Staff Room and resumed working thinking no one would miss me. I thought the bus had left. Then my phone rang. It was one of the teachers asking where I was. The bus was waiting for me to leave!

The funeral was for Eunice’s, a Form IV’s mother. Eunice is from Kitale and her mother was a well known person, very active in the parish life of Immaculate Conception, the cathedral. She was one of the leading members of the choir and her small Christian community. The Sunday before they had mentioned her and requested prayers for her. She had suddenly taken ill and transported to Nairobi for treatment. She died while in Nairobi. Eunice’s father passed away when she was a Form I student, so she is now an orphan. She has two older siblings and a younger one.

Usually funerals are held at the home of the deceased. However, the homestead was extremely small, so the service was held in the cathedral. That was highly unusual. We arrived about 11:00. The emcee was recognizing groups of people as they entered. Shortly after we arrived they announced the presence of St. Monica’s. Then our principal and one of the teachers had to go forward to speak. Our girls were asked to sing a song.

Politicians use funerals as an opportunity to campaign. Of course, they are given a chance to speak. Much of it was in Kiswahali so I didn’t get all of what was said. I do know that one of the politicians promised to pay school fees for the children so that they could finish their education. You should have heard the clapping. My fellow teachers laughed and said it will never happen. Funerals are a place where all kinds of promises are made and very few carried out. I asked them if most Kenyans realized they were empty promises. They said, unfortunately no.

Before the funeral started our girls sang again while there was a viewing of the body. Caskets here are made with a window in the top half for viewing. There really wasn’t any choice but to go forward with the procession. My fellow teachers thought it was strange that I didn’t really want to go. There was an offertory box for contributions by the casket that would go to the family to help pay expenses. I understand it took about $800 to bring the body from Nairobi to Kitale for the funeral. That is an overwhelming amount for a Kenyan. It took a couple of weeks for them to be able to raise enough money for that.

At one point the priests were ready to start the Mass, but the politicians were still talking so the politicians made the priests wait! Because this woman was so active in the church, there were five priests officiating. It was a typical funeral Mass as we know it. St. Monica’s girls served as liturgical dancers, readers of the Scripture and servers. At the end of the service I realized that I did know Eunice. She had brought extra English work to me even though she isn’t in my class and we had spent time going over it together.

I haven’t seen a hearse here so I’m assuming they don’t have them. To transport bodies they are tied in the back of trucks or on top of vehicles. In this case, it was tied on top of a jeep. A funeral procession then went to the home. People are buried on their own homestead rather than in cemeteries. It is seen as a huge tragedy if the family doesn’t own land on which family members can be buried. Our school bus joined the funeral procession. We even passed a bunch of vehicles to get directly behind the car with the family. Then we even passed the family and the casket. Due to the narrow road, we had to park the bus along the main road and walk about a kilometer to the house. At that point it started raining.

At the homestead they had erected a couple of tarps for protection and a couple of tents. Kenyans sense of personal space is very different from ours. They squeeze into the tiniest of spaces. At that point I got separated from my fellow teachers yet I kept close to some St. Moncia’s girls. I was able to find a space under a tarp, but still got dripped on during the heaviest downpours. I didn’t even try to get close to the grave site for that part of the ceremony. The choir sang for at least an hour at this point.

After probably an hour and a half, huge kettles of food were brought out. The family is expected to feed everyone that attends. The food is usually served by close friends and distant relatives. We had cooked cabbage Kenyan style, rice and beef along with hot milk tea.

By then it was after 4:00. We called Eunice to come out so we could have a small meeting with her. Since it was so crowded, we moved out onto the road. Teachers and students formed a circle with Eunice. Again, the principal, counselor, head of the PTA, and one of the teachers talked. Along with other words of consolation and advice, they encouraged her to return to school as soon as possible. Naturally we closed with a word of prayer. Then it was time to load the bus and head back to school.

Another different thing about Kenyan funerals, photographers are there to take pictures and offer them for sale. I had seen pictures taped on the bell tower at the cathedral for sale. I had assumed they were pictures of the deceased. Then later on the fence outside the home compound had pictures for sale. It wasn’t until one of our teachers bought a photograph that had her in it that I realized they were taking pictures of the crowd to sell!
I must admit I learn quite a bit about Kenyan culture during the day. It also gave me a chance to visit with some of my colleagues as well as help support our school and Eunice.