Day 5 & 6: Jambo Projects

On Monday I was able to visit the Kimuka Preschool School yet again, this time to observe the class all morning and assist the teachers.  They have asked me to plan some lessons to do with the students over the next few weeks.  I got a chance to get acquainted with many of the 35 students and have them get used to me.  They are fascinated by new people- especially white people, and want to touch all of the volunteers and hang on them.  Communication is very difficult as most of these children come to the school only speaking Maasai.  Learning English is part of the curriculum.  When they move on to primary school, they study Swahili and English, so many students know 3 languages (including that of their tribe) fairly well if they attend all the years of school.  I spent the morning there, observing the students practice naming the parts of the body, singing songs, writing some a few letters and reading vowels sounds. The teachers do a wonderful job of keeping a warm safe learning community for the children and are very positive with all of them.  Building up self-confidence and placing a high value on education are a large part of the curriculum.

Since everyone knows I am on the lookout for cool animals- while I was walking home I saw a very small, but very bright blue snake.

On Tuesdays Jambo holds their weekly directors’ meeting where everyone reviews what is on the agenda for the week, budgeting, account management, planning and discussion of future projects.  Currently there is a man named Alejandro living in the volunteer house who is working on his thesis, which in part will focus on the Maasai and their land. To assist Jambo, he has been training several employees about how to write proposals and grant applications and now he is going to assist in helping to set up a more formal framework for how this will happen in the future. At this meeting, we established that I will go to one of the two preschools each day. Many of the students at the Kimuka school have sponsors in Spain through AIF, so now we are going to begin work to get sponsors for some students at the – school, where the teachers say the students are actually much needier. So in the afternoons, I will work this week to create student profiles for each student at that school to try and help find some sponsorship.  Please e-mail me if this might be something you are interested in. By the end of next week, I plan to put together some workshops Luis has requested for the teachers at both schools. I am also going to help Luis begin the formal proposals for the children’s home.  Now that word is getting around that Jambo plans to open a children’s home, Luis is already getting calls about orphans in need.  Trying to keep up with Luisito and Samoreah also fills much of my afternoons.  They are fun to watch, they run around and play like crazy.

Three tired kids.

BUT, before I even went to the meeting I saw a bunch of baboons running alongside the road- lots of mamas with the babies on their backs.  Great way to start the day!