Day Three

The morning started off with a curious experiment; I found it frustrating that I kept having to repeat myself 2-3 times in order for people here to understand what I’m saying so I started talking with a British accent to see if people would understand me better. Lo and behold, it took me only once to ask the waitress for hot water for my tea as opposed to the two-three times it has been for the last two days. So the rest of the day was spent getting back In touch with my British accent (for those of you who don’t know, I lived in England for two years before coming to America and I did at one point have a British accent) with the natives, and I’m pleased to report that I can now at least make it sound like I’m some sort of pompous imperialist brat—although I do experience sporadic bouts of my unconscious self taking over and “correcting” my English back to Standard American.

Breakfast was quite forgettable; we were served scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage with a choice of powdered hot chocolate or OJ as beverage. I decided to take a slice of toast, garnish it with scrambled eggs and then let calorie mate take care of the rest. After breakfast was over and done with, we were drive 7km away from Bondo to the church that Parent 2’s NGO was funding/building where we checked out the land, church building, workers, and other boring Christian stuff that I refused to partake in but was forced into doing because I was the designated interpreter.

After the boring formalities were done and over with we headed out to fulfill the second item on the day’s agenda: school visitations. The NGO expedition group is apparently supposed to put up some sort of event for two primary schools (The Kenyan education system is as thus: KindergartenPrimary School (Grades 1-8)  Middle School (Grades 9 -12)  College/University) so they were scheduled to visit those two schools, meet with the students, faculty, etc.

But before we get to the boring touchy-feely heart-warming stuff, a few interesting facts compliments of my new friend: (our driver who’s been driving us from point A  B  C for the last few days)

The Republic of Kenya is home to some 42 different ethnic tribes, with the Kikuyu being the biggest denomination and the Luo being the local tribe in the Bondo region. Although the Republic of Kenya officially recognizes English and Swahili as its spoken languages, each of the 42 tribes speak a language which is as similar to each other as “English is to Mandarin” according to the driver. The education system mandates that the children be instructed in their native tongue until the third grade, and then taught both Swahili and English in school from third grade onwards. So in theory, all children of Kenyan descent should be at least linguistically intelligent as they are exposed to three different languages and are forced to put them into use from such an early age.

Another interesting fact about the tribes is that since Kikuyu are the most numerous out of all the tribes, they naturally have the most members represented in government, or apparently they did until last years’ elections. The Kikuyu domination was apparently brought to an end last year when a representative from the Luo tribe was voted in as Prime Minister; The prime minister was apparently dethroned by the President, who was of Kikuyu descent, but sworn back into power after the people cried foul, albeit in a joint-power resolution where the power would be shared by the now-Luo Prime Minister and the Kikuyu President, in a way similar to the Mugabe-Tsangvirai administration in the nation formerly known as Zaire.

Another sad product of tribal rivalries lay with the fact that the Luo and the Kikuyu were historically and politically bitter enemies with every Luo politician always leaning anti-Kikuyu in terms of administrative affairs In government. But since the Kikuyu pretty much ran the government with their superiority in numbers, the Luo tribes and the provinces/districts they represent were always targets of systematic government “neglect” probably in spite of their opposition to the Kikuyu-driven government. Prior to the Luo Prime Minister being voted in to office, development and governmental spending/support in Luo territory was almost non-existent—right after the Prime Minister was sworn into office, however, construction began immediately in paving roads to his hometown of Bondo.

While we’re still on the subjects of celebrity politicians who inspired massive improvements in their previously undeveloped villages, Barack Obama’s Kenyan relatives apparently live 21km away from Bondo; if numerous news reports are to be believed, the city of Kisumu (which is about 45 mins away) experienced a huge boom in tourism starting last year as it was revealed that the now-President’s family were among its residents and after it was revealed that the then-Senator himself actually visited his family there two years previous to his triumphant entry into the White House. The house of his extended relatives is currently a popular tourist attraction, and has been supplied with electricity and paved roads ever since Barack Obama assumed office in 2009.

Coming back to what actually happened during the day: the first school we visited was a Primary School which was built atop an area which was formerly covered in bushes, which apparently served as the namesake of the school, as it is named after the Swahili word for “bush”, “Thim.” When we approached the school on our 4WD, a storm of kids dressed in uniform came rushing toward us, trying to shake our hands as if we were some sort of celebrities; but then again, this pattern of “welcome” from the natives is something that’s been happening pretty frequently over the past two days, which made me wonder if shaking hands has any sort of formal meaning in Kenya—now when I shake hands with one of the people here it feels as if I’m just waving at them, but whatever.

Thim Primary School is apparently ranked 2nd out of a 100 or so Primary Schools in the Bondo area, but it Is also one of the most poorly funded out of all the Primary Schools—the school only has six government issued teachers and two P.A. hired teachers instructing over 300 children from grades 1-8. The school has also faced many challenges in retention as some families were not making enough money to even send their children to school, or simply because they didn’t have enough supplies or resources altogether.

What was impressive about the school was the fact that they used solar panels to store energy that they now use to light their classrooms on cloudy days or whenever they hold classes at night. The school also embarked on an impressive agricultural project of growing their own food when funding for school-issued meals were cut short, but this project was also scrapped later on due to lack of funding and poor farming conditions in the Bondo region, where rainfall has been very sparse for the last 2-3 years.

After the first visitation was over we headed to our “guide’s mother’s house” where we were served a buffet-style lunch which included tilapia stew boiled with tomatoes and lentils; pasta with no pasta sauce; boiled lettuce salad; slightly salty mashed-potatoes and other food that contained meat that I couldn’t eat. It was also here that I was officially introduced to Ugali, which is a staple of Kenyan cuisine eaten with every lunch and dinner—Ugali looks very much like mocchi or Korean rice cake, except it’s made of maize and flour as opposed to glutinous rice. One more thing that I noticed which seems to be a part of every Kenyan meal is hot sauce and ketchup; no matter what meal was put forth on the table, hot sauce and ketchup always seemed to be a part of it.

After lunch we visited yet another school where they made the girls who go there serenade us for like five minutes which was damn awkward; then I had to interpret yet another meeting between the NGO people and the Board of Directors of the school, after which we headed home for dinner.

I do realize I’m not doing much justice to the school visitation part of this story, but we’re supposed to go back on Wednesday for the school event that the NGO is putting up so I’ll write more about it then.

Until then, Beruru!