First Day on Project

Tuesday 2nd October

So today was my first actual day at the Dadas Community Centre and Orphanage - I was thrown straight into it and feel a bit dazed after my day! I hope I did ok, I guess there’s no real way to tell but feel like it went alright...mad!

Che came with me this morning to show me the way, we had a 15 minute walk to the main road to catch the matatu to Dadas - I now realise that my matatu experience yesterday was missing one thing...really really loud Kenyan music! I quite like matatus, they’re good fun. It’s about a 20 minute ride from Gardens to the V.C.T, where Dadas is, so quite a nice, easy journey for 40 KSH (Kenyan Shillings). 

Dadas is actually much bigger than I anticipated - there’s a little courtyard as soon as you enter the gates that is surrounded by concrete buildings that make up the orphange and classrooms. To the left was the classroom building - I think it was in an L shape and had maybe 3 floors with 2 or 3 decent sized classrooms along the corridors on each floor. I only saw parts of it and wasn’t looking at the building too much - I’ll have to pay more attention tomorrow! It’s all open plan, no glass in the windows or doors so there are little birds swooping in and out and wind blowing through the rooms and things, the windows are long and highset though so it’s not too disruptive. I didn’t go into the other buildings but I think the kitchens are on the opposite side to the classrooms and I think there’s a smaller building directly on the right as you enter that looks like it’s for the younger kids. I think the small ones are on the ground floor and as you go up the stairs you move up the ages in the classes, from what I could tell!

But anyway, I was really nervous and had no idea what to expect. When we arrived I was greeted by one of the teachers called Felix, very smiley and cheerful, he was stood near the gate laughing and watching the other teachers and a few of of the older classes - maybe 20 kids, boys and girls - who were in the middle of moving a huge plastic tank that they use to empty the toilets in (this one was empty, thankfully!) from one end of the complex and aiming to get it to the roof on the other side, about 3 stories up. It was mental, they were all lifting it together, over their heads and passing/moving it along the walkway which was jussssst wide enough for it to fit! We ended up rolling it through the gates and then had to lift it back over the wall a little way along to get it to the building we needed to lift it up. It was great to see them all working together and enjoying the challenge. We managed to get it over the wall and the next task was lifting it up 3 stories! Half of us ran up the stairs and climbed the ladder to the roof while the rest stayed at the bottom to lift the huge tank to help us get started. We threw a rope down and the teachers attached 2 large planks to it and then slotted it into the tank so it stuck in the opening at the top, it’s how I would’ve done it too! Then we pulled it up, it was pretty smooth until we got it to the top, then it kinda got stuck when we got the top edge up against the wall...so it was sticking out perpendicular and wouldn’t budge! Took me and 5 of the adult teachers - all men - to grab it and lift it over the ledge. It was bloody heavy! Felt kinda proud tho, representing the girls lifting a big heavy thing! A load of the girls were watching from the corridor below and were willing me on, it was quite sweet and I secretly wanted to prove a point by getting proper hands on, we can do it too girls!

The main teacher dude was helping organise that and get it sorted - I’m not quite sure of his name (he is a little bit intimidating, he’s also very smiley but I think coz he seems like the boss man, I’m just a bit nervous around him!), and then he took me down to the temporary staff room that’s also a classroom, their proper staff room is being referbished, and then he started teaching his math class of 9 pupils and Felix asked me what I could teach.

I was a bit taken aback, Che had left by this point and he had said the first day is usually just observing and working out what you can do to help - apparently not! I just said I’m happy to do whatever they need, I’d probably be best doing English but I could do maths, science, and Felix said PE too. (Che had joked with Felix when we arrived and briefly said what I was here to do that I can teach sports as well, coz I forgot to mention it, “look at her, you can tell she is physical!”. I think he means physically fit, which was nice - thanks Che!)

So yeh! Straight in at the deep end, Felix disappeared for a few minutes and then came back with an English text book, gave it to me on an open page and said “so you’ll be teaching these 3 sections, ok?” .... sorry what?! I genuinely asked said to him “what as in right now, today?!” And he was like yeh of course! So with about 5 minutes preparation, off I went to my first class!!!

I almost didn’t have time to worry about it...almost! I just really want to do a good job and it was like proper teaching, I think this was class 7 so I’m not sure how old they were, maybe 11-13..? I’m not sure, but yeh there were 9 of them in there, all looking to me to teach them! We started with pronunciation - words with different sounds and then using pairs of rhyming words to fill in the gaps of 10 statements, and then indirect speech - I mean even I find that difficult so it was a challenge, I hope I taught it ok! We just worked from the textbook which is all I kind of had to do and couldn’t plan - or figure out on the spot!- how to make it more interesting... I don’t know, it was good though they seemed to get it, I just hope I did ok! 

Then I went to do a PE session with classes 7 and 8, both classes of 9 so a decent group, on the small ‘field’ in front of the complex. It’s about the size of a basketball court I’d say, with the dusty, orange surface you’d imagine to be in Kenya! It was fun, we played bulldog (classic) until Felix came and joined us, he brought a football so then we played that, class v class, for maybe 40 ish minutes until lunch time. It was good fun, I’m not the best at football and haven’t played in years but I was a solid defender, Felix and a few of the kids were very skilful and I think were a little surprised I wasn’t totally useless! Football is veryyyyy popular here so they were quite into it, i did feel like they were laughing at the Msungu a couple of times tho!

I do find it a little bit weird having no clue what they’re saying - and I’m a bit paranoid coz I’m nervous! It’s fun picking up words and things though and hearing bits I recognise - I love languages.

I helped out with serving lunch to all the kids, there are maybe 200+  in total I think, from maybe age 3 to 15, it was a proper little procession line we got going! Rice, stew, spoon from me then off the kid went! I think the proper name for it is ugali - a staple in Kenya. It’s a sticky cornmeal porridge-y rice type thing, and we had a lentil type stew with it, it was decent! 

After lunch I took another class, with equal preparation - here’s the book, off you go! - with a slightly younger class. We did order of adjectives and then punctuation, again using activities from the textbook but I had to write it all on the chalkboard this time as there was only 2 textbooks for the room of 23. Again it was quite fun but quite stressful, I hope I did ok! They also seemed to be getting it and were very eager to get me to check there work, “teacher! Teacher!” And waving their hands in the air.

We finished the tasks I was set about 30 minutes before the school day ended I think, that’s what the main guy said, so I made sure to mark all their work and then we played some games! 

We did heads down thumbs up, which they loved and knew, then they wanted to do Simon Says so we did that too - then I tried to teach them a rhythm game (the frying pan game Zak!) where you pat your knees, clap, then click each hand and repeat that rhythm, and as you do that you go around and say someone’s name in the rhythm and a number. They have to respond and it passes round - it is quite difficult and there were too many of them to make it work so I taught them a slightly easier version of a similar game. We stand in a circle and each person has a number, you do the same rhythm and on clicks say “ *your number* to *someone else’s number* “,  and it passes around like that. It took them a little while but then we started to get it, it was fun! 

At the end of the day too I hung around a little bit and was chatting to 3 of the older girls in class 8, maybe 14-15, not sure.  They were really sweet, 2 of them were really chatty and were telling me I was “so beautiful”, not gonna lie it lifted my spirits a little! We were chatting about where I was from and how old I am, how long I’d be staying, what I want to do when I grow up, siblings,hobbies etc, and I asked about them too - it was really lovely. They really liked my hair, they wanted to feel my plaits and especially my undercut! 3 boys in my first class noticed it too, they were giggling and I asked what it was and they said “your hair at the back!?”, they told me it meant I was naughty, like a bit of a rebel I think they meant too, it was a fun lil interaction as I was teaching them. :) Walking to PE too a couple of the girls ran and put there’s arms around me, asking my name and sometimes touching my hair and things. I enjoyed having those little moments too as well as being a teacher, I’d like to get to know them or at least connect with them a lil! I’m getting a few names, Susan is quite quiet and Monica is very chatty, I picked up a couple of names I think in the football game...it’s good! The girls after class too were telling me about some of the traditions and tribes and languages and things too, teaching me some things which I think both parties enjoyed too! 

All in all, a full-on but good day - I feel very much out of my comfort zone but trying not to let it overwhelm me and just do the best I can!!

The matatu back was good too, Dan who I hadn’t met yet  came to pick me up instead of Che - of course, he’s super nice too, we had a good lil chat getting to know each other briefly on the walk back. He’s from the Massai tribe and does a lot of the safaris to the Massai Mara with Voluntours, the sister charity to Marifiki that does all kinds of excursions. We had a slight mix up on the matatu in that Dan said to me it was 30 KSH, I thought it was 40 but gave 30 to the man in exact change, and Dan gave a 50 note. He didn’t get any change and asked about it, and the guy explained it was 80 for both of us so together, we’d paid enough so he hadn’t given change. I went to get another 10 KSH coin out and Dan and the guy said it didn’t matter, it’s all sorted - I thanked them and the driver was saying things like “ see, you should marry this man, he is good to you, a good Kenyan man, will you marry him? He is a good African”. It was very funny. I was warned that I would probably get a lot of proposals whilst I am here, just because - this was my first one! Indirectly, but still. Funny funny.

And that’s about it for today! My shoes are very orange from dusty football but apart from that, I’m all good - just a lil sweaty. I didn’t take a jacket this morning and Che was shocked, it was about 15 degrees already, and I knew it would be  in the 20s during the day! Crazy Kenyans. 

Ready for a chilled evening before seeing what tomorrow brings!

Lots of love to the family and everyone back home xxx