Catch Up!

Thursday 25th October

It's my last day on project tomorrow... as if I'm leaving in 2 days!? I'm gonna miss the people here at Marafiki so much, and the kids I've buddied with, and the matatus! Not gonna lie tho, I'm looking forward to not having beans and rice for lunch everyday - I'd be so ok with not eating beans again for a few months!! 😅

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty quiet - exam time so not much to do! Went through finding answers to some of the papers to make our mark shemes, marking papers....teacher stuff! Tuesday afternoon was good tho, i got an hour in an actual classroom with actual kids! We revised for their social studies and CRE paper, Class 5, it was just me in there too so we had a good giggle at the same :) I was so happy to be back in the classroom they were laughing at my energy I think! Fun fun fun

Had a small victory on Wednesday too - one of the Mama's daughters at Dada's, she's called Jasmine, is unsure of msungus in general and has been scared of me the whole time I've been here. I said to Tora on Saturday (when Jasmine was running away from us and looking at us with terrified eyes when she saw Tora for the first time!) that before I leave, I'm determined to get a wave from Jasmine. And on Wednesday I did! She saw me from the doorway and gave me a small shy smile and hid round the corner, then ran back into the doorway, smiled and gave me a quick wave and when I waved back she grinned and dodged back into the room again! Win! I was so proud, my work here is done :D



**update**
I just want to be real for a second too - obviously not everything is always rosey and perfect here, and of course my month has been full of challenges, like outreach today, as well amazing times. I find it quite hard to put into words the things I've found difficult - I don't want to be judgemental or ungrateful etc etc and of course a lot of these things are so much bigger and there's so much to consider for all of it, but here is one of my attempts at wording some of my personal thoughts, feelings and reflections:
One thing I did find hard this week (and struggled with over the course of my time at Dada's) is the amount of punishment that seems to be happening - I don't know if it's because it's exams so they're being stricter on discipline or if they're punishing kids for not getting a certain mark in different subjects or what, but I just hate it. The teachers have strips of plastic or a stick from a tree, and they never do it in front of me but I can hear it down the corridor or see kids at lunch winicng or fighting back tears or hear the younger ones cry out - I hate it, it makes me sick and angry and upset but I just don't know what to about it. And I don't know how to comfort them, especially when the kids I'm sorta friends with or closer too don't want to look at me coz they're in pain or ashamed or teary, I hate it. That's the harsh truth about schools here still, I almost forget about it and then it comes back. I want to ask Gorick or someone, why do you hit the children - but again I don't feel that it's my place to challenge them in that way, yet i also hate staying silent.
I got asked today at outreach "is it true that in UK you don't punish the children?" - I said that in schools we don't beat children anymore and I feel that it actually does more harm than good, so we discipline in different ways. I find it so difficult, and like I know it happened in my country and not that long ago, some of you reading this will remember it I know! But for me I just, i can't imagine ever beating someone at school as a punishment or for discipline for something like not getting a certain grade or for a minor mistake, or how it must feel for those kids - it actually really upsets me when I'm there, which kinda then makes it harder to  articulate too. I'm an angry-crier so I know it'd be doubly hard to have that conversation with Godrick or Felix or Everlyne, especially when i feel so strongly about it. Feel guilty for letting my nervousness prevent me from speaking up tho, I feel like I owe it to the kids to say something... It's horrible - literally beats them down and doesn't help give them the confidence or encouragement to try and do better, it just adds to their anxiety and pressure at exam time of not only getting a good mark, but a good enough mark to not get beaten afterwards. The ridiculing and taunting from some of the teachers gets to me too - I don't know, just a very different environment and one i struggle to reconcile with the jovial side to the teachers I see as well. One I don't agree with and feel powerless to challenge right now.
But anyway, that's where I'm at with that. Ups and downs - some things are less easy to accept as "just the way things are in Kenya", this is a big one for me.
So many things become normal here and the poverty and daily struggles is just how people live everyday. Me and Corrie were talking about it the other week and were agreeing that if you start to think about it all it's just so big and weighs you down, so while we're here we just try and focus on the positives and the small things we can do to help individuals and bring that little piece of positivity - and that's what I aim to do everyday. It doesn't make the bad things go away or make them ok, but it helps tip the balance in favor of a good day over a bad one, and that's all I want. To make one person's bad day, bad moment, into a better one that ends with a smile. And hopefully I've been able to achieve that, even if it is just one person. Thankfully, I feel that I can say that I have.

Back to catching up.



Todayyyy was (my last) outreach!

It was a really interesting one too. We went to a rehab centre for recovering addicts, just to kind of see how it all works and spend some time with the people there, maybe run some activities - it was kind of daunting but actually went quite well I think! We were able to sit in on one of their classes that they do in small groups, I was with a group of fairly new patients and we were discussing some of the "basic tools for recovery" and Character Rebuilding. Was an interesting discussion for sure, and hearing what people from the House think about the center and their preconceptions and things, and even how the things we were talking about can apply to life in general. Food for thought for sure (try saying that 10 times quickly!).

Then after lunch we did some activities - difficult with usual Kenyan disorganisation but we got there! I ended up doing some origami with a group of maybe 10. We made flowers and bees - they seemed to really enjoy it! Seeing their faces light up when you do the last fold and it suddenly looks like a flower was so nice, i was really nervous about facilitating and activity with a group of adults, some of whom didn't have much English, but yeh i think it went well! Then we had a bit of time left so they asked me loads of questions about England and what I do - one of the women, Susan she was called and middle-aged i think, was asking me loads about the education system in the UK, whether it was true that we fed our cows yellow food or if we had mash potatoes, about teaching religion... all the things! About rehab and addiction in the UK as well - was really interesting to hear the things they wondered about! They were all shocked I was 19 too, asking me about what I do here and at home, it was fun :) In a different kind of way.

Oh! Also survived my first boda-boda ride today! The little motorbike taxis, 2 on the back plus the driver, and coz it was raining they had umbrellas on too! I was only slightly terrified, it was actually surprisingly comfortable and secure...glad i got that part of the Kenyan experience before I left!
(TMI alert - also plucked up the courage and had my first ever squat-loo experience, desperate times call for desperate measures right?! Literally just a hole in the ground in a rickety shed at the back of the rehab compound - I survived that one too! What a day 😂)

Feeling a lil sadly about leaving, still got all the mixed emotions - ready to come home but don't want to leave!!

I'm so tired too, early night for me I think!

Love to all the family, looking forward to seeing everyone soon! xxx