Kenya: Saturday, June 30

Yesterday was one of the hotter days since we got here but another very hardworking day on the foundation of the new library.  This was the first day the homestays affected the amount of labor at the worksite.  So there was more to be done with fewer people. It consisted of wheel barrowing and shoveling from one end of the facility to the other.  When we gathered the rocks they were put into the foundation of the library for the creation of the floor. Soon we will cover the stones and pebbles with concrete to make a sturdy and durable floor for the library. Unfortunately, our streak of soccer games following days of work came to an end with both soccer balls being deflated and the pump being broken. The good news is that now we have fixed the pump and things are looking up, but it was still very much a let down that we weren’t able to play with the kids our own age. I guess we’ll have to wait for tomorrow to play another game, because we are packing for our homestays tonight.  

Chris & Jasper

Photos!

We've been having some difficulties getting a reliable internet connection, so sorry about the lack of photos. Here are a few from days past. Everyone is having fun and working VERY hard. This is a terrific group, and I'm loving working with them. They make BC proud.

Group bonding at Masai Lodge

Digging the library's foundation

Games with children after work

Who doesn't love a cute goat?

Kenya: Friday, June 28

Jambo!! Laura and Izzy in the house! Yesterday we moved 150 rocks in the hot hot sun 250 meters from the pile to the construction site. The rocks were from 50 to 100 pounds and we moved at least 100 more than they thought we could, putting us ahead of schedule. We ended the work day with a soccer game and helping the students study for their finals. The soccer game ended in a tie 0-0 and the kids quizzed us on the questions they were studying and none of us knew the answers. We noticed that the kids were really excited to learn and put a lot of effort into studying their finals and were also eager to start high school, which is far away from their town. [By the way, the teachers' union is on strike, and there has been no formal school since we arrived, making the students' dedication all the more impressive.]

            Today we had a delicious breakfast of omelets, sausage, and juicy fruit. We then headed to the worksite at promptly 7:45am and began work immediately. We mixed cement and covered our trenches with cement and rocks and started building the walls of our library. We then broke for lunch and heard an amazing story from Christopher, Shani’s brother. He told us about when he was a Maasai warrior. One night he heard someone making his way to him and he suddenly woke up. He quietly grabbed his spears and snuck out into the bushes. As he heard the noise get closer, he used three spears to strike the animal, which made it roar. The roar woke up his friends around him and they all ran up into the trees and the animal ran away. In the morning the boys followed the paw prints to find the animal and found that it was a lion! The tradition when you kill a lion is to cut off its tail and put it on the top of their spears, so when they walk back home the whole village knows that someone killed a lion. Everyone sings and dances and praises the boy who killed the lion.

            As we headed back to the work site all the children followed us and slipped their hands into ours. We all travelled together to the site and we finished up our work from the morning. At 4:00pm the students going on their homestay left and the rest of us headed to the soccer field. We brought out the cameras and the kids were ecstatic about taking pictures of us. They day ended well because we won the soccer game 1-0, which was such an accomplishment!

            Now we’re about to get some amazing soup and dinner and head to bed. Goodnight!!

                        Peace out,

                                    Laura and Izzy

Homestays tonight!

Hello family and friends of BCS! I just talked to Rebeckah, the WLS instructor with the BCS group in Kenya and things are going great! They had connection issue with the modem but they will try to blog again tonight. Everyone is happy and healthy and working hard on the service project. They will be heading to their homestays tonight and the group is very excited about this unique opportunity. Please don't hesitate to call with any questions - 303.679.3412.

Erin Lasky
Director of Operations

Kenya Day 3

Jambo! Today was our first day working at the Oloika Primary School. We began our project, which is to help build a library for the students. We woke up at 6:45 and were fed a filling breakfast before departing at 7:45 for the school. After about a quarter of a mile walk through the village, we arrived at our worksite. We were surprised to see that this dry plot of land was full of trees, most of which needed to be removed from the area. We spent the first two hours of our day cutting down and dragging thorny branches across the dusty ground. We took constant breaks where we were able to rehydrate and eat so we weren’t vulnerable to heat stroke in the hot weather. At 10:00, the Westminster Safari Company brought us tea and hot chocolate before the next stage of our project. Shortly after, we dug the foundation for the library, which had to be one and a half feet deep into the rocky dirt. Pick axes were used to loosen the dirt and break down rocks. Shovels would follow to scoop up the debris. In between the tenuous shifts, we had the chance to play with the local children who came to watch us work. At 12:30, we returned to the campsite for a lunch break, and stayed there till 3:00 to avoid working during the hottest hours of the day. We were followed by an eager group of children who casually held our hands on the way back from the worksite. From 3:00-4:00 we returned to the worksite, where we continued digging the foundation. At 4:00 we were given the opportunity to play games with children, such as duck duck goose and football (soccer). After playing, we returned to the campsite for much needed showers (its been 2 days!), and a delicious meal for dinner.  It was an overwhelming experience to see how kind and trusting the community was to strangers they had just met.

Lala Salama!

Kaitie and Samantha

P.S. Happy 18^th Birthday Brittany!

Note from Mr. Clarke: we're having some technical difficulties with our modem out here in the field. We'll try to load some photos soon!

Kenya Day 2

Today (well, yesterday) we woke up at 8:00 to get ready for breakfast. After breakfast we immediately went back to our rooms and packed our stuff to get ready to leave to Shompole. We boarded a bus (similar to the one that picked us up at the airport) and tried to fit 25 people into a bus that comfortably fits 20 (plus 23 backpacks). Fortunately there extra were flip-down seats. Needless to say, it was very entertaining. We drove from the Masai Lodge to a neighborhood in Nairobi called Karen. There, we exchanged our American dollars to Kenyan shillings. After we picked up Shani (our in country coordinator), we got on the bus again and headed south to our final destination of Shompole/Oloika! On our way to Shompole we saw multiple baboons and flocks of cattle.  All the passengers waved to the Maasai and they never failed to wave back. I even gave two of them a high five. We would pass by beautiful parks with lush and colorful plants. We were not bored one bit on the ride. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road and got a chance to step off the bus. We drove further into Masai land and then approached Lake Magadi, an alkaline lake. The lake also had hundreds of flamingos in it that we could practically touch through our windows. After we passed by the lake, we drove on a trail that was sculpted of sand and was hardly visible. At one point, there was so much sand that the van got stuck and couldn’t move! We all had to get off of the van and push the back of it to get it to start again. It was a great team building exercise…but a bit dusty. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves looking at a sign that said “Shompole Road” and then “Oloika Trading”. We passed the school that we would be working at, and children and adults alike heard our bus and came out to smile and greet us. We pulled into the campsite where we were served cold apple juice. The staff at the campsite showed us our tents (which are very confortable), our toilets and showers. After they read us the rules of the camp, we saw a group of children playing on the other side of the fence. Most of us ran up and although there was a thick language barrier (and an actual fence between us) we managed to trade names and strike up a game of volleyball over the fence. Later, we ate a delicious and filling dinner. Though we were all tired, we had an ANCHOR meeting and talked about our reasons for taking this trip. We all went to bed in our very spacious tents and tried to rest up for our first work day the next day!

Greeting from Kenya!

Lucie and Miranda

Kenya Day 1

We have arrived in Kenya! 

After two long flights and one car ride, we reached the Masai Lodge at 4:00 am. At 11:00 am, we had a light brunch and then off we went to visit the Kitengela Glass Factory. We saw some baboons on the way there, and walked across a long bridge suspended only by cables. Some of us were very scared, but we all crossed safely to the other side. We saw glass blowing, mosaics, and we were able to take many beautiful pictures of Kenya's amazing scenery. We then returned to the lodge and did group bonding activities, and had some downtime before dinner. Everything is so beautiful and the animals are very adventurous, especially the Hyraxes, which are rodents, which we dubbed "nuggets" because they were so cute. We are off to Shompole tomorrow, and we are all very excited!

Lala salama (good night!)

Emma S. and Emma N.

Safe landing in Nairobi! We'll blog tomorrow. Until then, lala salaama!

Karibu!

It is Wednesday, June 12, which means we depart for Kenya in a mere 10 days! Packing lists are being checked and re-checked against the growing piles being stacked neatly around backpacks. It's hard to keep track of how many t-shirts you have folded, though, when all you can think about is the adventures that await.

We'll use this blog to both communicate our safe comings and goings and to document our experiences. We'll try to post every day, but there may be some locations where internet is spotty - don't panic if a day passes without a post!

Quick background. I'm Brandon Clarke, Director of Global Education at the Berkeley Carroll School. This is my fourth time leading BC's Kenya program, and this is our largest group to date, with 18 students and 2 other faculty. You'll be hearing from me very little: there will be 20 voices eager to recount and reflect as we spend two weeks experiencing different aspects of Kenya.

Our primary destination is Oloika, a trading post located in Shompole, a Maasai group ranch just north of the Tanzanian border.

We will spend a week in Shompole, learning about the community and how it is navigating the challenges brought by climate change. Shompole lies at the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, a deep trench that stretches from Jordan to Mozambique. The arid climate has been exacerbated by climate change, and the Maasai, who are pastoralists by tradition, have lost most the cattle herds on which they depend. But this remarkable community has developed a number of goals and projects that will help it survive into the future, including significant investment in the local primary school. Education, the elders reason, will ensure the community's continued strength. We will work with local volunteers on a construction project, get to know the school's students, visit with community leaders, and have homestays in traditional Maasai bomas. At the end of the program, we will go on safari in the Maasai Mara, where we'll learn about Kenya's extraordinary wildlife and how it, too, is being affected by climate change. Stay tuned - you're going to read some terrific posts in the coming weeks!