www.outofitinafrica.com: Jambo from Mrs L!

Monday 27th July, 2009

Jambos (that is more than one jambo for those in the know!!), Mrs Litt here, your friendly blogger this week which sees us very excited as we start work on our very own project in Shimoni. As many of you who came to our fundraiser and those who didn’t but contributed so generously are aware, we raised a not insubstantial amount of money to finance projects during our time here in Kenya. Having spent much of my life in Africa and having worked and lived amongst the community here in Kenya, the projects I feel are incredibly important are those relating to education, water and food security – basic things which are generally taken for granted at home but which are sometimes in scarce supply over here where people have so little. The pounds go a very long way in Kenya and so we have been lucky enough to divide our funds between some great projects relating to the above. More on the others in later blog entries but the first is up and running as we speak and relates to education.

We have been doing a lot of work here in Shimoni (as opposed to our other home in Mkwiro on Wasini Island) with a school called Shimoni Base Academy, the brainchild of a fascinating and energetic man called Mr Abdallah Mwamose. The school is run as a private school but this is by virtue of the school not having students in each standard of the primary school system and it is hoped that in time as recruitment increases the school will become a government registered school. The term private school has a very different meaning here to that at home and whilst the school receives some income from parents in the form of fees it is only what they can afford which is not very much and the teachers work on a voluntary basis the majority of the time. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the school is a wonderful place to work and clearly to study as well as the intake has gone from 20 in its first year last year to 85 this year with 20 students enrolled to start next term – mid way through the year. Facilities, however, are basic and the school is housed in a building built of lumps of coral rag set in a bare dirt yard and reached by a small track from the main road. The windows and doors are simply holes in the walls and I am informed that before the school moved in to the building it was sometimes used as a toilet by the locals. Classes for kindergarten 1, 2 and 3 as well as standards 1, 4 and 5 are all held here in classrooms with bare coral rag walls. We have spent a lot of time with Mr Mwamose discussing his dreams for the school one of which is to plaster and paint the walls of the classrooms and to secure the school by adding external doors and bars on the windows. We have therefore decided to spend some of our money doing exactly this for the kindergarten 1 classroom and everyone from Mr Mwamose to the children who will benefit from it via the GVI volunteers whose help we have enlisted is incredibly excited about it.

TIA – “This is Africa” is a common refrain when things don’t quite work out the way we planned in Kenya but contrary to this experience of the way things often work we managed to have the classroom plastered (albeit with a cement finish as opposed to the traditional understanding of plastering) and the doors and windows fitted over the weekend. We have coerced some ‘willing’ volunteers to come over from the island to help and work starts in earnest tomorrow after the cement has dried. In the meantime we are all kept gainfully employed planning English lessons for standards 1, 4 and 5 and making plans for the images that will adorn the newly transformed walls. In addition, we have started an environmental education programme for the school to supplement the syllabus as the children do not have any formal science teaching. The first class to be taught in the newly decorated classroom will be an environmental class planned and delivered by the volunteers who will have worked hard all week to make this all possible.

As Mr Mwamose is fond of saying “the future is not a place, it has to be made” and that is what we feel we are contributing to here as we hope generations of children in Shimoni will have the benefit of starting their education in a school staffed with enthusiastic teachers in a healthy and inspiring environment.

The work on the school is going to come out of money that was generously donated by my parents and brother and Jamie’s parents so a massive thanks to both Highams and Litts from all at Base Academy. Mr Mwamose has asked whether we would mind if they put up a plaque to commemorate the fact that we have helped with the project and my answer was of course not, so any visitors to Kenya be sure to pop in and have a look for it!!!! For all the rest of you generous donators, keep an eye on the blog for details of the other projects we are going to be helping to fund. In the meantime, some photos below for your viewing pleasure and more tomorrow on our progress!!!

Kwaherini!