Confession of a Wild Teacher

Forgive me everyone for I have sinned. It has been 2 weeks and 6 days since my last blog…

This is what I have done:

1) I attended a huge AIDS awareness event for youth in a small town called Karagoya, which is on the way to Mt. Kenya. Martin, who is the friend that climbed Mt. Kenya with me, was one of the leaders in charge of the event. It was called a “Chill Day.” In the schools, the code word for AID's Awareness is “Chill,” which means to be abstinent in order to prevent the spread of AID's and other unwanted consequences of sex. Their “Chill” hand signal is the peace sign, which, as you might assume, means that they are granting “peace” to or “chilling” their desires. The “Chill Day” consisted of a bunch of clever and exciting games where the different schools in attendance competed against each other. Each game had a specific theme that was supposed to teach the students a lesson about abstinence and the benefits of self-control.

This picture shows the students shouting their team yell before they began one of the games.

When the students moved to the next game, they sprinted and shouted:

Here's me giving the top award... with the "chill" sign:

 2) Then, Martin and I did the unthinkable: we climbed the 17,000 feet summit of Mt. Kenya. The climb was a thrilling three day adventure through rain, ice, snow, hail, glaciers, bog, swamp, paths turned into creeks, and indescribable sights. What makes it even better is that we were trekking through ice, snow, and glaciers on the equator! Here is the story of the trek in pictures:

Below is the park gate to the Mount Kenya National Park, so this picture marks the beginning of our ascent by foot:

This is a picture of our first day trek, which began with rain on an extremely muddy road. However, the day cleared up and turned out to be beautiful.

 This is the sign outside of our lodge on the first day (note, I am covering up the 10,000 feet):

This shows us resting after the first day hike--Martin, the friend travelling with me, is the one in the middle who is covered with sweat. The guy to the left is our porter. The guy to the right... he, as you can tell, is a native Kenya:

We had a relaxing first evening by the fireside with some vegetable soup and rice (or "lice" as our guide pronounced it). We were totally not roughing it on the first day...

The second day! The path of the first half of our hike was a creek:

Here is a better picture of the path/creek:

Here is the picture of the second half...you can't tell from this photo, but this area is a bog. This means that below the tall grass, the ground is covered with 2 or 3 inches of stnading water.

Here is one of the bog plants. At night time, this plant closes up like a cabbage. If you look to the bottom left, you can see a little sliver of the standing water:

Here is another bog plant:

Closer to the end of the second day, we reached an area where we started to see rockier terrain that gradually became something like what you would see in west Texas:

Here is west Texas in the middle of Africa:

Here is another one of the outlandish plants.  Below is the Teleki Valley, which leads to the final ascent of Mount Kenya:

This is a picture taken in the Teleki Valley. I decided to cool off in the near freezing water after a long second day:

A beautiful mountain creek:

Martin reflecting on the end of the second day:

The sign outside of our second lodge. The final ascent is behind the clouds off to the left:

We began our final ascent at 2:30 in the morning, so that we would be on top of the mountain by sunrise. Yes, that is a head lamp on my head:

The final push! This is our peak:

And we are there!:

This is the sight from the peak. To the very bottom right, the solid white patch is a snow covered glacier:

More of the sights from the peak:

Superman!:

We reached the peak at 7:30 AM in the morning. Then, so we wouldn't have to pay for another day of climbing fees, we rushed down the mountain. However, we hiked through falling snow, hail, and rain, which turned into creeks, then rivers, then ponds, then veritable lakes. This was our path through the bog on the way back. We were soaked from head to toe:

Finally, after hiking from 2:30 AM until 6:30 PM, that is 16 hours of hiking, we finally arrived back to the park gate:

3) A mere week and a half after my strenuous Mt. Kenya adventure, I ran my second half-marathon in the Nairobi Standard Chartered Run for Sight. I started with a great start, running the first half of the race (6.6 miles) in about 47 minutes. However, the second half was a long, miserable stretch that gradually inclined almost the entire way. The incline, however, wasn’t my difficulty… it was my shins. I have been running for some years now, and I have always had slight trouble with my shins. However, because of the vigor of the run, because my shoes are probably a little worn out, and since the race surface was a concrete road (my usual running surface in Kenya is a dirt track), my shins became completely shot. They gave out all of a sudden when I was at the beginning of an incline after about 7 or 8 miles. However, even when I ran downhill, the pain radiating from my shins made it feel like I was running up a steep incline. Despite this setback, I gritted my teeth and forced my legs forward stride by stride. The second half took a full hour, leaving me with a time of 1 hour and 47 minutes, which, I suppose, isn’t too bad for a rookie…

Here's me putting on my race number at the beginning of the race:

This is George, who is my friend that volunteered to be the photographer (and to run with me whenever he wanted to):

This is at the start of the race!:

This is a video taken during the final few minutes before my shins were shot:

Here we are at the very end, with me about to collapse...

4) Last Saturday, my students and I gathered together at our school to participate in a school beautification day, which was led by one of the national banks of Kenya. We planted trees and bushes, cleaned out classrooms, fixed a broken fence, and removed a mass amount of dirt on our sidewalks. Here are some pictures from the day:

This is a picture of me with my students at the work day:

I had to use a machete to help dig the holes for the trees:

5) All the while, teaching has been progressing well! Last week, my students had common exams in Math and English, and they did incredibly well. The tests, unlike the usual tests that my students take, were aligned to their ability level. This means that the tests weren't too easy or too hard. When the students received their tests back, many of them shouted with glee seeing that their grades went from a 20% or 30% to a 60, 70, 80, or maybe even 90 percent. I feel like all of our hard work is starting to gradually pay off…

Despite all of these things, I have no regret, no sorrow, no sense of guilt for what I have done…

Perhaps it sounds like I have been “busy.” I hate that word—it has a connotation that life has been miserable and stressful. Instead, I have been “fully engaged,” I have been “utterly alive,” I have been “thriving” –anything but miserably busy. If I have learned anything of value over the past three years of my life after college, it is this: to live life with true abundance, I need to experience the diversity of beauty that God has woven into every corner of this world; I cannot let life pass me by without reveling in its beauty, without jumping at the innumerable and novel experiences that present themselves to me each day. Hence the reason for the above stories…

However, despite all of my extraordinary experiences, I look forward to my trip back to the United States for the month of December, when I will be able to see my first baby nephew, along with my friends and family. Secondly, I look forward to devouring a juicy steak without bones and grizzle and enjoying mama’s homemade lasagna.

The Summit!

Sorry for not writing for some time, but I've been busy living it up in Kenya over the past few weeks.

School seems to be getting better and better each day, as I am starting to figure out how to adjust my teaching to my Kenyan students, and I think they are starting to be comfortable with my speaking and my method of teaching.

However, next week is our midterm break, which means that we have off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This past week, I thought to myself, "I need to do something crazy with my days off..."

I discovered it...

I am going to take a five day trip to climb Mt. Kenya, which is the tallest mountain in Kenya and the second tallest mountain in Africa (it is second to Kilimanjaro). We will be braving snow and ice and glaciers--but what makes it even better is that it is snow and ice and glaciers on the middle of the equator!

I am traveling with a (physically fit) ex-seminarian who is now a youth pastor in a town outside of Nairobi. We are actually going to a Catholic youth's sports day at the base of Mount Kenya today, and then we will start our trek up the mountain tomorrow. We will have a guide and a porter who will ensure our safety as we climb the relatively dangerous summit.

Pictures, video, and stories will abound upon my return--therefore, stay tuned to the blog!

On my next blog, I will also post pictures of my trip last weekend to "Hell's Gate" and Lake Navaisha. Hell's Gate is one of the places where the Tomb Raider was filmed, and it is a gorge with jagged rocks shooting out of the ground. It is like a mini-Grand Canyon, African-style. Lake Navaisha is filled with Hippo's, Water Bucks, Water Buffalos, and a host of other animals that swarm around the banks. With "Hell's Gate" and mountains looming in the background, along with the overwhelming presence of animals, Lake Navaisha is indescribably beautiful!

Teaching all day everyday!

From 4 AM until about 5:30 AM, Nairobi is filled with the sounds of the Muezzin, which are the men who sing chants on megaphones at the Mosques in order to call the devout Muslims to prayer. This morning, I was awoken at 5:15 AM by the singing; and, since I normally wake up around this time during the week (it is now a Sunday), I decided I would get up and write you a blog about my teaching:

Now that I have acquired the necessary resources (like textbooks), my students and I have gotten down to business. Due to the motivation of my students, I am able to do a lot with them. We are having large group tutoring sessions from 7 AM until 8AM every morning, and just about every student attends. Instead of forcing them to come, they show up willingly and express their appreciation with phrases like "May God bless you." This is completely opposite from teaching in Houston, where the students were sometimes adamant about not learning. On top of the morning sessions, we work for a half day, from 8 AM until noon, on Saturdays. Why so much teaching? I will tell you why. Try to solve this problem:

In the circle below, the triangle is an equilateral triangle of sides 7 cm. Find the area of the shaded part. Then, you want to fill the shaded part with paint. If the paint costs 39 shillings per square meter, find out how much the painting would cost.

This is an example of one of the questions on the freshman final math exam that they are expected to pass each year. If a student that finds it difficult to calculate the area of a circle is confronted with such a problem, the immediate reaction is to give up. If the problem above was an example of one of the hardest questions tested, it would be alright. However, their final exams are limited to only questions that are at this level. Furthermore, the end of the school year is in November, which means I only have two months before they are tested. Since my students are incredibly behind, they fully understand that it is business time.

Most of the questions in our textbooks are also at a similar difficulty level. Therefore, I typically write my own lessons with my own problems that are “scaffolded.” As you might assume, “scaffolded questions” are problems that start off fairly easy and then progress into more challenging ones. Since the school doesn’t have a copy machine, I use your donations to purchase my own copies of the guided examples for the students each day. Once I finish guiding the students through some of my example problems, I then let them go to the questions in their book. This is the same for math and English. However, I like to experiment with my teaching, so I often try to change up my lessons—which means this next week might be completely different.

Here are some pictures of the school:

Above is a picture of the students in their Friday morning assembly. The assistant principal is stating that the girls should be very thankful for their lunch, which consisted of a mixture of corn and beans called "Githeri." Note that the building looks fairly new--the government just gave the school money for needed renovations, although the government hasn't given us money for a sufficient amount of textbooks. Even if you are learning in a new building, it is difficult to learn how to read English if you don't have an English book to read.

 Here, some of the students are leading the singing of the national anthem.

This is the Christian praise team leading some songs. The Christians lead the prayer on Friday, and the Muslims lead the prayer on Monday.

Here is a picture of some of my students during a break at Saturday school. Kenyans dress very professionally, especially the teachers, which is the reason why I have a tie on. Also, their uniforms may seem fancy, but all Kenyan schools require them and many of the students only have a couple pairs of the uniform.

These are some of my students outside of their classroom (the students stay in the same class all day, and the teachers come to them). I told them to wave to "America."

Here is a picture of me with the secretary and the person in charge of the school "strore." The store is where all of the books and other resources are kept, and the person that runs the store also has to keep records of the students.

The week before school started, I asked my friend Charles to give me a tour of Kibera, which is the largest slum in Africa (and it happens to be in Nairobi). Since it is the largest slum, the chairities and other NGO's have focused on it. Therefore, many of the residents in Kibera are very well taken care of, and many of them are self-sufficient since they have started their own businesses within the slum. The slum that many of my students come from, which is known as Majengo, is not like this: it is a very dangerous slum filled with prostitution and frequent violence. I will send pictures of Majengo later. For now, here is Kibera:

Above is Charles, who is a Franciscan brother who is still in formation.

Finally, I don't always teach--I need some time to relax! This is a picture of Joseph and I at a gospel concert. Joseph is one of the students that came with me to Mombasa, and I still hang out with him from time to time.

From Tourism to Teaching

My days as a tourist in Kenya are over!

On Monday, September 13th, I happened upon my purpose for being in Kenya: teaching. In the few moments of silent reflection that I have found over the past week, I have had a resounding feeling of joy and excitement about the opportunity I have been given.

I have some 70 Kenyan freshman students who are incredibly motivated, incredibly disciplined, and in incredible need of education. The vast majority (perhaps all) of my students come from extremely humble backgrounds, with many who live in one of the most deplorable slums in Kenya (Majengo) and many who are immigrants displaced from the instability in Somalia. And, after giving my students a diagnostic to give me a picture of their academic level, I realized that we have plenty of work to do. Indeed, a number of the students are still struggling with their basic multiplication facts even though they are freshman in high school. It is difficult to find the correct value of a variable in an Algebra problem if you calculate that 9 x 6 is 56. Furthermore, I looked at their end of term exam from the previous term (we are now in the third term of the academic year in Kenya), and the average score of the students was a 31%, with the highest scores in the 60's.  

After giving the students some needed motivation talks, we are on a mission. In one term, our goal is to boost that 31% up to a 60%. That may seem unrealistic, but we have a plan. As I said before, the students at Pumwani Girls Secondary School are known for their discipline and their motivation. For this reason, the students readily agreed to after school large group tutoring Monday through Thursday and for a half day of school on Saturday. They were actually excited about this offer, because it is typical for students to have to pay for tutoring, even in large group.

This Saturday, I only told about 15 students to attend the half day, as I wanted to focus on the students that are struggling with their basic multiplication facts. However, I didn't just have 15 students... I had about 40! We didn't even have enough chairs for everyone to sit... but the half day lesson was extremely productive. We went from drilling basic facts to 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication, to 3 digit multiplication, and all the way to decimal multiplication. That may seem like a lot, but 3 to 4 hours of class can go a long way.

I have a quick story about the first day of class. Before I begin, note that one of my first English lessons this next week will be on correcting the pronunciation of "L" and "R," although I didn't know that lesson was in my syllabus yet...

During an introduction activity where each student discusses their aspirations to the entire class, I heard one of the Somali students say "I want to be a pirate." I stated with surprise, "that is an interesting aspiration, can you describe a little more about that?" The students laughed--not at the awkward aspiration but at my response, especially my suprised facial expression. After the laughter, the students stated that the girl doesn't want to be a "pirate," she wants to be a "pilot." 

Before I close, I want to note three things:

1. For those who have not received thank you letters, your letters will be on their way this week from Kenya. It has taken me awhile to write them, because so many people have been incredibly generous (so there are many to write) and because I have been rather busy. Along with those thank you letters, I will send to everyone a paper that I prepared as documentation for writing off your donation on your taxes.

2. For the 70 students, we only had 11 English textbooks. Therefore, I used your donations in order to supply the students with the necessary texts, although it only cost about $200 for the books... I thought this was a worthy investment of the money.

3. Next weekend, I plan to write a blog that will include pictures and video of the students. I expect that it will be a very interesting blog!

Thanks again for everyone who has donated, which made this beautiful journey possible. Your financial assistance is helping me supply these students with the best education that I could possibly give!

The Surge before the Storm

Why have a plan when having no plan makes things so much more interesting?

My original plan for the month of August was to spend every waking moment doing the following:

1. Making lesson plans and other classroom preparations
2. Learning Swahili from a book

That sounds boring, doesn’t it?

Instead of that, in the past couple of weeks, here is what I have been doing:

I went to a final profession of vows for 4 Capuchin Friars (Capuchins are a type of Franciscan). That sounds interesting, but what happened the night before was more interesting. I stayed up until the early hours of the morning polishing off a bottle of whiskey with two Capuchin brothers in their dorm room, discussing the legendary yet mysterious land of America and the land of the Luo tribe of Kenya (which is where Obama’s grandmother came from and these two Capuchins). For those who are worried, we weren’t intoxicated (we woke up the next morning without headaches), but we were behaving like three typical African males: enjoying life with good drinks and good friends. In fact, that seemed to be the resounding theme of our discussion on the land of the Luo—they are known throughout Kenya for seizing the day without ever thinking (i.e., worrying) about tomorrow. For example, you can tell who is a Luo at a bar, because instead of ordering one beer at a time, he will order 8 beers and proudly display them at his table. Or, from personal experience, a Luo might also stay up until early in the morning drinking whiskey with friends, even though he will take his final vows to be a Capuchin Friar the next day at 10 in the morning.

Here is a picture of one of the Luo brothers who is named Charles or, more commonly, “Obama”:

Here is a picture of the 4 Capuchin Friars professing their vows the next day: 

The ceremony lasted for about 4 hours (although it started over an hour late), and the church was so packed that there were almost 50 people who had to stand outside. After the ceremony, the celebration continued with feasting and dancing until midnight.

The day before, Fr. Chris celebrated a wedding mass in the same church. This was another 3-4 hour ceremony, although the singing, dancing, and laughter was so enthralling that the mass only seemed to last for an hour. It is refreshing to see people truly celebrating their faith. At the end of the ceremony, Fr. Chris decided to call the male grandparents from both sides of the families to come up to dance together as a sign of unity. Below is a video of it (wait until the end of it so that you can hear the level of engagement and excitement of the congregation (sorry it is difficult to hear the music…)):

The next week, two college students, both of which work at St. Bridget's Friary where I live, asked me to attend a funeral in the remote area where they grew up. The ceremony was at the home of one of the college students. Her home is nestled atop a hill where you get a panorama of inexplicably beautiful rolling hills filled earthen houses, which are surrounded by farms of coffee, mango, maize, beans, and banana. Here are some pictures of one of the local ladies on her farm:

The funeral happened in typical Kenyan style: with singing, dancing, mounds of simple foods from the local farms, and spirited speeches (although all of this was a bit more somber than a usual Kenyan religious celebration).

Before the funeral, I had the pleasure of eating my lunch with the elders inside of the house. The meal was Githeri, which is a mix of white maize, beans, and a few chopped veggies. Here is a picture of the Githeri (notice that this is what the entire meal consists of):

While eating, I saw the picture below on the wall. Analyze this photograph for a second:

If one does the calculations correctly, 2006 minus 1885 is 121 years. Hmmm? I thought this was absurd. I inquired about the photo, and I discovered that this man was the builder and owner of the home I was in, and he happened to be the ancestor of what seemed to be everybody at the event. Already, this man has 365 descendents from just him and his one wife. Then, I said it is not possible that this man lived to be 121 years. Benedict, one of the college students that I came with and who is a descendent of this man, retorted that he was a farmer who grew enormously strong and healthy with his constant labor. He spent his life producing coffee and other equatorial crops, along with walking hundreds of kilometers to Mombasa with his crops carried by donkeys and cattle in order to sell his produce. The man never even saw a doctor; but, when sick, would simply go to his “shamba” (meaning “bush” or “farm”) and find a few herbs to take as tea. His diet was composed mainly of fruits, vegetables, and grain, but rarely did he eat meat. He lived as a servant to his family, with simplicity and faithfulness and without a drop of alcohol, yet he was constantly jovial. For these reasons, he lived to be 121 years.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe he actually lived to be 121 years, but what does matter is this man lived an incredible joyful, fruitful, prolonged life, and the reason why he lived so long is because he lived so simply and humbly—remaining content with just his basic needs being met and with constantly serving his family with strenuous manual labor. If I have discovered one thing in Kenya, it is this: it does not take much to be happy—in fact, too much will make you unhappy. It sounds like Stephen, who I think should be taken as a hero and a model, completely understood this. 

Here is one last story. Last Thursday morning, I left Nairobi for a small rural town known as Kithimani in order to attend an ordination. I was told by Fr. Christopher that we would be returning the following day. By now, I have learned enough to know that we would NOT be returning the following day.

We arrived on Thursday immediately after the ceremony, which is something Fr. Chris actually planned and which meant we were there only for the feasting and the dancing. That’s exactly what we did. Here is a picture of me dancing/posing with the kids:

Here is a video of Fr. Daniel, the newly ordained priest, and the rest of the congregation dancing: 

That night, we decided to stay until Saturday for Fr. Daniel’s first mass, which would take place at his parents' home. This left Friday to be used as we pleased, so we traveled to Masinga dam, which consists of a massive hydroelectric facility used to help power Nairobi. Here is a picture of us at the lake (Fr. Daniel is the one on the phone... I am the one in typical American attire...):

The mass on Saturday was an all day affair. Fr. Daniel, Fr. Chris, and myself drove to the house where the mass would be held. Two hundred meters outside of the house, we were met by an energetic crowd who took Fr. Daniel out of the car and danced and sung around him in a procession all the way to the vicinity of the house, which is where the place had been set up for mass. Here is a picture of the procession:

If I discussed what happened at Fr. Daniel’s first mass, it would just be a broken record of what I have said before (singing, dancing, and spirited speeches...). Instead, I will just say that I met a few children and played with them throughout the duration of the event. Here are two of the kids:

After lunch, Fr. Chris decided he would sneak out of the event, so that the people would not demand that he stay until the next day in order to continue the celebrations and discussions.

Fr. Chris and I left the event with his sister’s son and daughter. Therefore, we had to take them home. Once we arrived at the house, his sister and her husband, Patrick, were there. They told Fr. Chris that I should stay with them tonight, so I could experience a night with a rural farming family, and then I could go back to St. Bridget by public transportation. I thought this would be nice, but I hadn’t begun lesson planning yet, so I tried to come up with an excuse. I utterly failed… and good thing, too! I ended up staying Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, because they kept on adamantly urging me to stay, and I couldn't resist.

For those three days, I went without electricity, without running water, and with 100% pure Kenyan, organically and locally farmed, delicious home cooked food. They even slaughtered one of the chickens running freely outside for me, so that it could be cooked immediately for my lunch!

Patrick, the father of the family, is a teacher; but, as typical of most Kenyan educators, is only paid 20,000 shillings a month, which is a mere $250. This means that Patrick must also farm on his 8-acre shamba in order to provide for the simple life of his family. Here are a few facts about this Catholic family: they live in a house built by their own hands with bricks made out of the dirt from around their house, they still use bulls to pull their plough, they drink fresh milk from a couple of dairy cows, they eat fresh eggs from their several chickens, they eat meat only about once a week, a large percentage of their grains and vegetables come from their shamba, they have never owned an automobile, they have an outhouse, they bathe with a bucket and a sponge, and they are incredibly close due to the fact that they cook and eat every meal together, clean the house together, farm together, play “football” together, and sit around their lantern at night and talk and pray together.

Imagine spending three days with such a family! How could one pass up such an opportunity?

Along with participating in all of the daily activities that I discussed above, I had the opportunity to visit the school where Patrick teaches at (and where his son and daughters go to school), to attend mass at the local church, and to travel around the local area to visit some friends.

Here is a slideshow of the visit. Note that it starts with the mass on Sunday, then goes to the visit to my friend's house who was back home from her studies to become a nun in Germany, and ends with photos of Patrick's house and family:

The surge of traveling and experiencing Kenyan life is coming to a close, as I am gearing up to start teaching at Pumwani Secondary School next to one of the slums in Nairobi. I suppose now it is time to start planning for teaching; or, better yet, should I even plan at all?