A day in Bombolulu

Its been one of "those" days -- really quite a profound day. We started the morning at school - we had 3 classes to teach: Maths, English and Creative Arts (art/ music/ drama etc). Pretty straight forward, as we had planned for all classes.

As it turned out, our class started school at 6.30am (yes, thats right!) and when we got in (8.00 am) the kids were still writing notes from the previous class. Our 40 minute Maths class got reduced down to 10 minutes.






Background information:

Our school is located in a slum area, called Bombolulu. The kids get one meal at school - and that is most likely their only meal. They wear the same clothes everyday - usually without any washing (ever!). Uniforms are periodically donated by a local company, and the new kids simply wear what they have.

Yesterday, one of the girls in our class refused to partcipate in a class activity as her dress was torn. At home, thats not a big deal. Here, it is a big deal as that is the only dress she has. We spoke to the headmaster about getting her a proper uniform - which he kindly organized on our behalf. This morning, she came to school with a big smile on her face. She had a crisp new uniform, and she finally fit in.


At lunch time, we tried Ugali (Kenyan meal made from corn flour), which is totally tasteless. Think: a big blobby cake of rice with no salt or taste. We ate that with cooked cabbage. I never enjoyed cabbage so much!

After lunch, we decided to visit the home of one of kids from Grade 6. Last week, his mother got talking to us and invited us over. We went to a very basic home. The family had 3 kids in our school and a mother who was struggling to feed them. They hadn't eaten in a few days. The father was away with work and had not been heard from for months. Luckily, we took over some food, drink and some money - which we left for them. We sat with them for a while, looking over photos and talking about their past life. When we were saying our goodbyes at the front door, there was a man standing there waiting to cut off their electricity as the bills had not been paid. Just so sad....

The last event was "debate class" at school. Class is a bit of an ambitious description - it basically involved the the whole school sitting under the tree for the debate. The school had just started a debate class to help the kids express themselves. There is really a big disparity between the social position of men and women in Kenya. The debate topic was "Father is better than Mother". Yep - that really was the topic! I couldn't believe it at first. The boys were debating for the topic and the girls were debating against the topic. It was so funny to watch the kids argueing their topic. They said things like "father is the head of the house, so he is better", and the girls said "the mother gives birth, so she is better". It really was hilarious getting an insight into how the social structure works here. In the end, the girls won. A little bit of social justice done!

Now, am off to dinner. It's been a strange and sad, but good day.

~liz