expecting rain

Spotty internet connection in Meru so far. And by spotty, I mean it’s been down for over a week. A practice in patience.

They say the long rains will start soon. Every day there is a long ritual hopeful gaze up in the sky, wondering if today will be the start. Instead, the wind kicks up the dust and the cows chew up the final few patches of green. This year, they will be thankful for El Nino, as it attempts to repair some of the damage that four years of drought has done. As my host mom says, “When Kenya has rain we are happy, when we don’t, we suffer.” An insightful comment on how they maintain a very delicate threshold here dependent on the unpredictability of the weather.

I am also in holding here. I arrived in Meru last week and have been in classes observing the ins and outs of the Kenyan style of teaching. Finally received my assignment yesterday to teach 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders English and maybe some Christian Ed. Music is also a must, as they sing almost incessantly here, in every class and are anxious to learn some new songs. They are thrilled that I play an instrument and so by outing myself, I may have incidentally been contracted to teach every student piano lessons. Yikes, we’ll see how that develops...

I was surprised myself at how excited I became at lesson planning. There is so much I can do with these kids because they are so bright, dedicated, eager, fun, and hard-working. The second graders I observed were practically leaping out of their seats to answer grammar questions. You’d have to pay most kids in the U.S.

A little bit about the school. It’s a primary school which ranges from preschool to 8^th grade and is partly a boarding school (all the rage in Kenya) and partly a day school. Students start as early as 6 am and “end” their day around 5 pm (boarders go until 9 pm). It’s a private school so leaves some room for some additional religious education. It also hosts a fair number of orphaned children who are on scholarship. Children are heavily structured, but incredibly happy. I knew I had arrived in good hands when the children welcomed me out of my van with a song and dance of “Jambo Bwana.”