New Year's Resolutions

After an exhausting 37 hour transit from Houston back to Nairobi, I arrived safely at St. Bridget’s Friary. However, the same cannot be said for my luggage.

Here’s the story: My first flight from Houston to London was delayed due to the rain in the United States on December 29th. Although my first flight arrived in London an hour before my next departure to Nairobi, a strange series of circumstances prevented me from boarding this next flight. First, there were apparently no “boarding tunnels” available, so we had to exit the plane using the traditional stairs. However, the stairs took a full twenty minutes to reach the plane. Secondly, once I arrived in the main London terminal by means of a bus, I had to go fetch my boarding pass for my flight to Nairobi, because the British Airways personnel in Houston said that I wouldn’t be able to get the pass until I arrived in London.

I finally reached the British Airways desk 25 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. However, I, along with about 10 to 15 other passengers trying to travel to Nairobi, discovered that British Airways had already cancelled our flights. Instead, they moved our departure from 10:10 AM to a Kenyan Airways flight at 7 PM later that day, which, I suppose, doesn’t sound too bad. However, I assume the unplanned change in carriers is what caused the problem with my luggage. Even now, three days after I arrived in Nairobi on December 31st, British Airways and Kenyan Airways are still informing me that there is no record of my luggage. Perhaps this is God’s way of saying I didn’t need all of that extra baggage, and I should have just come with the clothes on my back…

Despite this upset, a strange sense about being back in Nairobi fell over me as soon as I arrived—it is a sense of peace mixed with a sense of excitement. I believe that the sense of peace arose out of the fact that I feel Nairobi is the right place for me to be, because there is so much work to be done. Consequently, the sense of excitement arouse out of the fact that there is indeed so much work to be done. Due to this excitement, I decided on a few New Year Resolutions:

1) I will update the blog every two weeks (at least). I miserably failed at consistently updating my blog last year; therefore, I will change that for this upcoming year. Just for your information, I plan to update the blog every other Sunday, and they won’t be nearly as long as they used to be.

2) I don’t think it is right to attempt to make a bunch of changes to an organization if you are either an outsider or new to an organization. I was both of these last term at Pumwani Girls; so, even though I saw a bunch of “opportunities for improvement” last year, I simply observed the problems and made note of them for later terms. I think that this upcoming term will be a good time for me to gradually try to make some changes. However, I don’t want to attempt to make these changes on my own, because I think I would completely fail in doing so. Instead, there are a couple of teachers who have a similarly way of thinking and teaching as me. We have seen problems in religious prejudice, severely low expectations for academic performance, misuse of classroom time, and discipline/punishment issues. Thus, my resolution for this upcoming year is to act with foresight and diligence with these teachers and the administration to begin to solve some of these issues. My blog will keep track of the results. Some examples of my thoughts are: starting a student council, organizing the Physical Education time that was typically used as a 40 minute break last term, and developing tracking and goal systems to keep track of students’ academic progress and discipline.

3) Last term, I had a habit of coming home to St. Bridget's for lunch and sometimes even taking a little nap (those that know me really well, especially those at Port Houston, know how important the nap is...). However, since my students stay at the school from 7 AM to 5 PM, I feel that I should too. Therefore, I plan to stay at the school all day, everyday, so that I can be there for my students.

4) I need to focus more on what is important. Due to my training from Teach for America and from Houston I.S.D., I have a tendency to dwell on my students' scores, instead of focusing on the students as individuals. The original purpose of education wasn't to teach students how to get good test scores, and I don't even think that the underlying purpose of education is so that students can learn. Instead, I believe that the driving purpose of education needs to be to better our lives: to make us happier, wiser, and more honorable individuals. Thus, I need to make sure that my students are excited about coming to school, committed to God (which I am allowed to talk about in Kenyan schools!), and developing values that will guide them as adults. I have some ideas about how to make these ideals tangible in my classroom, but I don't want to expiate about them right now; instead, I will write about these ideas as I use them in the classroom.

5) I need to see more of Africa! There are so many places that I haven’t seen—and I need to see them.

I want to offer another message of thanks for those who have supported me, especially those that donated to make this experience financially possible. Know that I have been careful about the use of the money, and I plan to utilize even more of the funding this upcoming term to truly change the lives of my students.

p.s. I really enjoyed coming home for Christmas so that I could see my family, friends, and my new nephew!

Here are some pictures of the family:

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!