I’ve not really known what to write since the day by day thing will actually get pretty boring now that I’m in some kind of routine. But I’ll try and tell you some of the highlights and lowlights over the last week or so.

I’d not told you about buying Memo’s uniform for her to start school. She started last Monday and so the Saturday before I took her into town so that she could get her uniform. That obviously meant that I was the one paying the transport there and back because the family only just had 2000 Kenyan Shillings (about £20), here a lot of money, to spend on the full set of uniform. We waited for Weldon to come and show us where the shop was and I treated her to a soda as a celebration of going to school at last. When we got to the shop we discovered that it was run by Seventh Day Adventist Christians and so they were in church for the day and the shop was closed! We didn’t know where to look next but eventually found another shop that sold her school’s uniform. She had to get 2 skirts, 2 blouses, 1 jumper, 2 pairs of socks and a tie. We were then told that the total was 2165 kshs, eventually we negotiated down to 2030 kshs and finally got away with just the 2000. This left Memo with no money left to buy school shoes. She thought that she would go without them but I was thinking that it would be a nice present to say thank you for teaching me everything at home and good luck for school. So I decided that I would buy her some shoes. We looked at a couple of the outside market stalls but didn’t find the right thing so went into Ukwalla (a cheap supermarket) to look for them. Memo told me later that she’d never been upstairs in a shop before and so she was a little excited. We found some shoes that were about £5 and we thought we’d go to see if we could find some others in a place we could barter since Memo was worrying that they were too expensive. Ok, for Kenya they were a bit expensive and we probably could have got them cheaper if we worked for it. These ones from the supermarket were at least good quality and should last a long time. So we bought them and the smile on her face was worth the whole thing! When we got home she was so excited that she had to run to try on all the uniform, shoes too. She looked really smart; I wish I’d remembered to take a photo. When mum saw that the shoes had come from Ukwalla she started asking for the plastic bag so that when she goes to the market she can take it to put things in, then she’ll look like she shops there and will seem posh in the village! They were all very grateful that I’d got the shoes. I don’t want to make a habit of being the one to buy things but this once I think it was the right thing to do. Especially since we had to work so hard to get her into a school with the results she got in her primary certificate and with the costs of sending two children to school, I’ve done a little to help and maybe it will be a reminder of me when she’s at school.

That was a long story!
In other news ….. Lucy has arrived!
She’s another volunteer from England who’s going to be here for 3 months. She’s also come to live in the same host family as me and so it’s really nice to have company there too. Her birthday is 12th March so it looks like we’ll be celebrating together, her 19th and my 22nd.

On Monday we started our Peer Youth Education training, where around 25 young people who have finished school will be trained to teach HIV awareness in primary/secondary schools over the next 4 months. On Monday mornings they will be at the youth centre being taught and on one afternoon in the week will be going into a school to practice what they’ve been taught. We hope to work in 10 schools in the local area and send 2 or 3 peer educators to each school. It looks like a good programme and I’ll be really pleased if it works because it will mean something has been achieved here.

On Thursday I also started teaching recorder in St Clares Primary School. I started with the first two notes, crotchets and minims and clapping. There were about 35 students and only 20 recorders so they had to swap and share but it worked out ok. We eventually learnt ‘rain rain go away, come again another day’ and the students did very well, even 3 of the teachers are learning too! This week it’s been half term so I’m not going today but will be back there next week to teach G and F. Those of you who remember me learning recorder in primary school will laugh that I’m now teaching others. Maybe if any of you still have contact with Mr Buckley you could remind him of me and let him know that I’m trying to pass on my very basic recorder skills to Kenyan children! It was actually the best part of my week, I left the school feeling as though I’d done something really good and actually wished I could call someone at home to tell them all about it! Small achievements are great ones here!

We’re also looking to take our football team to play in the national league. This means that we need to look for funding to register the team and players, get uniforms and secure a home ground. It’s a crazy ambitious project but Weldon seems to have got the dream in his head. I just hope that we can get the work done on time and find the sponsors to fund us. I’ve been writing funding proposals for the mobile phone operator (Safaricom) and other companies to see if they’ll fund us but we will have to wait and see.

From March 15th for 2weeks we will be having a work camp where some international volunteers and local people will be working to dig up the eucalyptus trees at the river and replace them with indigenous trees. This is because the eucalyptus takes up so much water leaving the river more of a stream for the many people who rely on it for their water. So that’s another part of my planning at the moment. We need to visit the river with the authorities, local chief’s and elders to make sure that the people understand what we are doing and don’t just decide on the first day of work to come and chase us away!
For those of you who have only been reading to see if I’ve solved the flea problem, the time is now. We treated the room about a week or so ago and everything was good. Even the bites from before were almost clearing up, well I was scratching less a least! Alas, the problem has returned. So we have cleared the room again, this time even removing the floor and putting down powder. So we will see if we’ve got them all this time. Though while the dogs are not treated I’m not sure we’ll succeed but it seems that pet care is not a key part of Kenyan life!

Maybe that’s enough storytelling for today. I’ll just finish by giving you my postal address should any of you wish to send me a letter. Just news about what you’re getting up to would be much appreciated; I think post out here is even more exciting than getting post at university!

Laura Griffin
PO Box 1081-20200
Kericho
Kenya

I’ll put up some more photos another day, should really get on with the long to-do list I’ve posted up on the office wall. No one else is paying any attention to it!