Home Visits or Not

On the bus to Kiserian, then home!

Today is the day the girls who are going on home visits for the holiday take off. They packed up and left this morning. Most of the girls do have families - if not parents, then grandmothers, aunts, uncles, older brothers and sisters. Others will go stay with friends of Hekima Place. For example, two of the girls will stay with one of the members of our Board of Trustees. Others will stay with Hekima Place ‘mums’ who are taking their vacation. The girls will be away visiting for a couple of weeks while they’re out of school.
The little ones are picked up by family members and the older ones are driven into Kiserian where they connect with public transit to travel to where their families live.

Some are staying here - about 36 of them. In November at the end of this school year according the the Kenyan education system, the Form 4 girls (high school seniors) will have major comprehensive exams covering everything they’ve been taught in 4 years of secondary school. The test results will determine which, if any, college or university program they can hope to enter. The pressure is intense. So they will be staying here to be tutored in math, chemistry, physics and biology to help prepare them for their exams. Hekima Place has hired two experienced secondary teachers to coach them for the next two weeks.

The Standard 8 (8th graders) also have major exams to take at the end of the school year. The results of their exams will determine what secondary school they will be accepted into. They will be staying here for the holidays as well with Mr. Kinyua tutoring them. He is a former Standard 8 teacher and the Hekima staff person who coordinates the education of the girls.

Some of the secondary school girls will be staying here because their grades haven’t been up to par and they need to be doing some catch-up work. Rick and I will be working with them each morning during their school holiday.

There are a few of the girls who just don’t have any place to go, especially some of the newest babies who’ve come here since the first of the year. These babies and toddlers were abandoned as infants and we have no idea who their families are.

Finally, with 65 girls there’s always some problems and all is not sweetness and light. One child is staying here as punishment for bad behavior in school. This girl is very cute and very bright, but has been on an unfortunate track recently. Hopefully this will get through to her that she needs to exercise more self control. She has been fighting with her sisters and classmates and using bad language (in Kiswahili, yet!). She also managed to lose 4 of her exercise books where she has all her homework for the year thus far. Two of the other girls in her class were misbehaving at school as well, but after  they were reprimanded, their teacher reported they were doing much better.

The girls who are staying here for academic reasons did supervised independent study this morning, as they did every day this past week. They will start more organized tutorials on Monday.

But this afternoon we had some fun. Right after lunch, I took some more photographs of girls I haven’t gotten to yet. I’m slowly working my way through the list. I have generally had a very appreciative audience while I’m doing this - the crowd is good for helping to get the subjects smiling. And Rick brought ‘girlie stuff’ with him from the US for bingo prizes - very popular around here. So this afternoon we had a bingo tournament. Winners got to pick from a bag of prizes that included a wild selection of nail polish and lip gloss. Now we have girls sporting some of the most colorful finger and toenails you can imagine!



While we were playing bingo, a storm rolled in. The rainy season arrived on schedule on April 1 and since then it has rained almost every day for some part of the day. The rainy season is not just constant rain (as I feared), but storm clouds roll in, it rains for some period of time and then it stops - today it rained hard for about 2 hours. Mostly (at least so far) when it’s not raining, it’s sunny and beautiful as it was for most of the day today.

After dinner, everyone gathered in the dining hall to watch the movie Shrek.

Rick’s Arrival and Closing Day at Good Hope School

First news item - Wednesday night Rick arrived safely from the States and even a few minutes early.  I went to the airport to meet him accompanied by Maggi Wambui, the young woman from Hekima Place we have been sponsoring for the past 4 years. All of the high school girls (18 of them) wanted to come along, but there was no way to make that happen because all of the vehicles large enough to carry a crowd (short of the school bus) were out of commission. Kate’s car was having starter  problems (fixed on Thursday) and the van was not operational either. So our friendly hired driver, Sam, picked up Maggi and me here and drove us to the airport. Maggi spotted Rick first as he came down the stairs into the baggage claim/check area and the three of us had a great reunion visit on the drive back to Corner Baridi. It is so wonderful to have him here with us!

He has immediately made himself a part of the Hekima family, helping the secondary girls with their studies, playing with the little ones, weeding and sitting with the little ones for their movie night while I chaperoned the computer room. He has also begun analyzing energy usage around here to see what might be done to bring down the very large electric bills.

Thursday was closing day for the term at Good Hope School where all the primary girls attend. Mum Evelyn and I went over to enjoy the end of term ceremony and collect the girls’ grades. The ceremony lasted from about 10 am to 1 pm, and it was great fun. There were the usual speeches, but also wonderful entertainment from the kids - singing, dancing, and dramatic poetry readings. After the entertainment they handed out the academic awards. We were pleased that some of our girls were honored. Teresa Areyo had the second highest score in grade 2. Purity Nyambura took top honors for grade 6. And Edith Wanja came in 3rd and Nancy Wanjiru 2nd in grade 7. In addition, Lavender Atieno was honored as the most improved student in grade 5 and little Regina Wairimu (4 years old, in preschool) as the “most obedient”.

Thursday night after dinner, I announced the names of those recognized for their academic achievements, calling them to come stand on the stage with me. There was lots of applause for everyone and all of these girls are very proud of themselves. But the most fun was calling little Regina up to the wild cheers of the rest of the girls. Her smile as she walked to the stage was bright enough to light up the room!

I took photos and some video, but you’re not going to see any of it because I used Rick’s camera. After I returned to Hekima Place from the school, I found out that he had not brought his download cables. My fault - I should have requested he bring them. Sorry about that!

Portrait Time

Yesterday and today I spent the afternoons taking photos of the girls. One of my assignments while I’m here is to take a complete set of current photos of the girls for their sponsors and big sisters. Each girl here has a sponsor (usually in another country) who pays for her school fees and a big sister (also usually in another country) who regularly writes to her and encourages her and to both of whom she writes letters back (good practice in English). So, without a studio, studio lighting, or studio backdrops, I’ve been trying to get portraits of the girls. They have been really amused by the entire process, as well as very self conscious as I try to pose them. Now, understand, my photographic specialty is landscape photography, so posing people for portraits is not something I have any expertise at whatsoever. But we’ve been having fun and laughing a lot while trying to get something recorded that they will be happy represent themselves to those who care for them.









While doing all this, the littlest ones were busy observing. Bridget clearly absorbed all the contortions of posing as she plopped herself into one of the Amani House chairs and proceeded to cop a pose. Of course I had to stop what I was doing and snap a shot of her.





















Not to be outdone, Mackenna had to get in on the action. Mackenna, however, is DEFINITELY a two-year old and not about to be told how to pose by anyone. Mackenna did her own thing - and I’ve got a whole series of photos to prove it. However, on slow Kenya internet, you’re only going to get to enjoy one!

Happy Easter from Hekima Place

It has been a lovely Easter here at Hekima Place. Father Bukenya came out and performed the mass here on site - lots of singing, dancing and celebrating our Lord’s resurrection. I love the way Kenyans incorporate dance into their worship. Many of the songs they sing are in Kiswahili and have so much rhythm and usually syncopation. Wish I could show you a video and you could see and hear what goes on. I guess the internet service here is just way too slow for uploading videos. I’ll just have to share when I get back. Several of the ‘uncles’ (the girls can’t get used to calling them ‘dads’, though we’re trying to make the switch because they need father figures) joined us for the mass so we had a really good crowd in Dominica Dining Hall. The weather in the morning cooperated, too - it was sunny and warm.

Yesterday I had gone into Karen to buy Easter ham and other needed items. After I got back here around 4 pm, I launched into the making of cupcakes for the 70+ people we expected to be feeding Easter lunch. This is particularly tedious when the only oven on the property accommodates only one 12 cup cupcake tin at a time! Thank goodness several of the girls wanted to help - I was particularly grateful for that around 9 pm when it was time to frost all those little buggers. Since it was late, I originally thought I’d leave them on the counter and frost them in the morning. But then I thought about the ants that seem to be everywhere, and the possibility of mice and I had visions of coming in in the morning and finding just mounds of ants or thoroughly nibbled and useless cupcakes. So I decided they really needed to go into the fridge, but they needed to be frosted to keep from drying out. So nothing would do but it all had to be completed Saturday night. But by 9:30 we had them all frosted, decorated (a pretty gummy candy and sprinkles atop each!) and in the kitchen fridge.

Although it was sunny in the morning, just before lunch, the skies opened up and it came a gully-washer. Everyone had to make a mad dash from the houses into the dining hall. What I thought was going to be a fairly simple meal of ham, mashed potatoes, and cold slaw turned into a belly-busting dinner of ham, chicken, mashed potatoes, cold slaw, rice and juice (meals are usually accompanied only by water to drink) with the cupcakes for dessert.  Mum Susan outdid herself - everything was delicious.  It was quite the feast! Those of the guys who weren’t in the middle of something they couldn’t leave came in and joined us. What a lovely huge family gathering!

The plan for the evening was to have a bonfire with a simple worship service and then make S’mores. It rained a good part of the afternoon, so there was some question about whether the bonfire would happen or not. We had, however, taken the precaution Saturday evening of moving all the fire wood under the roof of the dining hall courtyard, so we did have dry wood, if the rain would ever stop. And, blessing upon blessing, it did! By dinner time the sky was clearing and we moved all the wood out to the fire pit area. After dinner, the ‘uncles’ started the fire and everyone gathered round. One of the boarding school girls, Ann Waithera, had organized the simple worship service which consisted of  an opening prayer, a scripture reading (last chapter of Matthew, vs. 1-9) and singing. Ann and the other girls leading the worship lead the first few songs, all spiritual, then the girls all chimed in with their choices. When one song ended, someone would launch into another and everyone would enthusiastically join in. I videoed some of the singing (as much to record the sound as anything else - it was pretty dark, to say the least), but I guess those won’t be shared until I get back to the US.

By the time they ran out of songs, the fire had burned down enough to have a good base of ashes, perfect for S’mores.  So that’s the way the evening ended - and was that ever in interesting experience! I had a platter of chocolate and marshmallows and a big box of ‘Nice Biscuits’ (Brit’s influence - sweet crackers). Ever try to organize S’mores for 60+ girls? I had girls poking sticks at me form every direction, first to put marshmallows on them and then to pull the marshmallow off between two ‘biscuits’ with a piece of chocolate in the middle. At any given time, I was being (literally) pressed in upon by 20 or more girls each saying urgently “Mum! Mum! Mum!” with very sticky sticks all around. What a hoot! I think all had a good time and everyone got at least one good, sticky S’more to savor. Amazingly enough, I ended up with only a tiny bit of sticky marshmallow stuff on my jacket - I figured I’d be coated with it!

So that’s the way we celebrated Easter at Hekima Place here in Corner Baridi, Kenya! Hope your Easter was as blessed!