These pre-visits are to set up weekly in-school education sessions to teach kids in both primary and secondary about various topics related to HIV/AIDS. However, our dependence on electricity put a bit of a kink in our plan. We had divided into two groups with 2 local youth and 3 Muzungu. One group was to visit the Mlolongo schools and the other was to go to the neighbouring town of Athi River. We had a USB stick with a letter and form for us to give to the schools, but when we went to the printers they were unable to print us copies because the power had been out for several hours. Instead, the group going to Athi River took one of the youth, Patrick, with them and got the papers printed out there and he met the rest of my group back in Mlolongo about an hour later.
Once we were all set, Patrick and another youth, Mwende, headed to Mlolongo Primary with myself, Milanne, and Justine. The school is across the three lanes of highway from the centre of Mlolongo. As we crossed the schoolyard, we started to gather a following. It's amusing to see their excitement and curiosity, though some of them seem almost nervous about what we might do next. They follow us and whisper to each other. I can't help but laugh at the ones who boldly jump in front of us or run after us shouting, "Muzungu! Muzungu!". Often, I'll reach out my hand and one of them will press their hand to mine. Their eyes will go big and look of bewilderment crosses their faces.
The schoolyard of Mlolongo Primary is quite vast. It is bordered on two sides by the L-shaped school. The highway makes up the third side, then the last border blends into the yard of St. Augustine, a secondary school. The school looks quite similar to the houses in the slums because the walls are made up of the same corrugated tin. Though fortunately, the schools seems to be in much better shape and at least have a concrete foundation.
We met with the head teacher in the very small secretary's office. As we were waiting for her to arrive, we watched some boys wrestling just outside where we were. Well, at least we thought they were play-wrestling until one little boy started getting beat on. He started to cry and Justine ran over to comfort him. At that moment, I heard my mom's voice in my head saying what she always says when she hears a little kid cry, "Ohhhh. Make them stop crying." Once he felt better, it seemed as though he realized a Muzungu was holding him and went into a fit of giggles.
From what I could tell by the record sheets on the walls of the secretary's office, the school has approximately 800-1000 students in grades 1 through 8. They keep records of their average scores per grade in every subject for the past 10 years or so on their wall. There is a tally of their total overall score followed by a ranking. They consistently rank either 3rd or 4th every year, though I am not sure out of how many.
After a successful meeting with the head teacher, where it was decided we would visit every Wednesday starting next week, we crossed the schoolyard to St. Augustine Secondary. There we were introduced by Patrick to his father, a maintenance man for the school who was in the middle of painting door frames when we met him. There weren't many students around because class let out at 4pm and it was already a quarter past. Though there were still a few kids lingering around in one of the classrooms when I peeked my head in.
The classroom was large with a high ceiling and was filled with roughly 40 wooden desks. The beige walls and concrete floor made the room feel barren. There was a classic chalk board at the front of the room and nothing on the walls. The room was lit only by sunlight coming through the many windows. There aren't any hallways in this school because the doors lead directly outside. I only saw about 5 or 6 classrooms. The primary school was similar, though the rooms were much smaller and there must have been at least a dozen.
We spoke with a woman at the secondary school who was very receptive and we will be making weekly visits there as well. Once we said goodbye, we headed back across the yard toward the highways just as the primary school was letting out. A flood of children in blue uniforms spread across the yard toward the road. Everyday, these kids have to cross the highways of large semis and speeding matatus. I held my breath as we crossed the roads with them.
It was too late at this point to visit more schools before all the teachers were heading home. So we called it a day and made plans to meet at 9am to visit a couple more schools this morning, which we did today. They were also successful in Athi River with Meghan, Andrew, and the two youth, Oscar and Nancy. On one of their visits, Meghan was questioned for long time by the headmaster on Canada. Their conversation went so well that it moved over to a cafe in Kitengela where Meghan and Andrew needed to go to catch a matatu back to Mlolongo. They spent another couple of hours there and didn't make it back to the house until we were all eating dinner around 7:30pm. I'm not sure what type of visits they agreed upon for that school, but seems like Meghan's got an in with the headmaster now, so I'm assuming their goal was accomplished.
It rained again last night so the streets were still quite mucky. It's interesting navigating the streets with such a wet and slippery surface. We longer care about dodging the piles of garbage as they are sometimes our only way to avoid getting a shoe full of brown water and mud. Though it has cooled off, we still seem to sweat quite a bit on our walks but it's more likely that it's from the stress of trying not to wipe out in pile of mud.
John asks:
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't the schools have their own programs to deal with AIDS education?
It's not part of their curriculum I guess. And the teachers aren't trained as HIV educators. I can find out more from Josh.
ReplyDelete