The Solar System

In an over enthusiastic attempt to make the solar system concrete and tangible, I brought a giant yellow exercise ball into Olives to use as the sun, along with a bag of crepe- papered footballs (and in the case of Saturn, plastic bags and a tea towel.) Walking through the village trying to work out how to carry the thing was a challenge. The usual parade of toddlers chanting "How ahh yoo, how ahh yoo?" came to a complete silence as I rounded the corner. They stopped, stared, and as one began to chant "BALLLI! BALLIII!!!" in disconcertingly deep voices. I quickly hoisted the thing above my head as their little hands began to stretch towards it with idolic fervour and legged it as they started to advance.

I managed to make it to school unscathed and brought Standard 5 to the field for their lesson. Hamisi held the sun (the only kid I trusted not to bounce it to oblivion) and the others took a planet each and stood in order. We went through each planet and discussed it, then the kid holding it had to walk in a circle around the sun (a very patient Hamisi) whilst turning slowly in a circle. All went well until we got to Uranus (a horrendously ill-chosen Joseph Katana.) It went something like:
"Good work Saturn, remember to keep turning! Are your arms ok Hamisi? Good work Mercury, try not to bump into-JOSEPH KATANA! DO NOT HIT JUPITER! JOSEPH! JOSEPH! JO-Jupiter, dont hit him back, I'll deal with it. Joseph, do you want to be Uranus or not? (Cue much sniggering.) Joseph, be careful, the rings falling off Uranus! (Sniggering descends into full scale snorting laughter. Hamisi laughs so hard he drops the sun, which bounces off a rock and hits Ayub in the face.)
"Ayub, bring it back. Ayub...Ayub...AYUB MTUNGA! IF YOU BOUNCE THE SUN TOO HARD ITS GOING TO BURST! YOU HAVE 5 SECONDS!...5...4...3...2... SAMUEL GET DOWN FROM THE TREE!...Well how did Mars get up the tree? Did you bounce it? I told you not to...what is it Bonface? What? No I don't have Mercury, you have Mercury...Bonface I don't know, check your pockets-AYUB! ONE MORE BOUNCE AND YOU GO BACK TO CLASS! JOSEPH KATANA PUT THE RINGS BACK ON URA-ON THE PLANET YOU'RE HOLDING! CLASS 5 SIT DOWN!"

I made it home with 4 planets tattered and torn. Uranus and Saturn had disintegrated into a sad little pile of pipe cleaners and tea towels and Mars was wedged up the tree.We never did find Mercury.....But Neptune remained intact, as did my sanity, and the kids are experts on space now. All that remains is to perfect my straight face for the next few weeks of Uranus jokes. :)

Aligning the planets correctly.

 

4 out of 9 planets revolving aint bad...

Last Day of Term.

Last day of term, I can't believe it. Everyone was still psyched up about the Olympics, especially when it was officially announced that the winners were none other than the awesome Team Tembo. :) My voice was hoarse from all the cheering but I didn't have to raise it, it was a really chilled out day.

I gave each of the kids a card I had made for them and a picture of the class.  I was expecting the usual "Maaaadam, this one has a bigger card than meeee," but they all went really quiet and read their cards. When they finished they all started laughing and chatting and swapped cards to read eachothers. Fikiri shouted "God bless you Madam! God bless you!" and all the girls rushed up to hug me. Even Hamisi hugged me! I told them how proud I am of them and they told me they'd never forget me. We walked up to the field together where both the boys and girls won their football games and I sat in the sun getting my hair plaited into a strange teepee-like structure by a bunch of giggling kindergarteners. It was a good day. :)

Class photo Take 1: Sensible poses.

Serious faces...

Class photo Take 2...

Class photo Take 3. :)

Maintaining calm and dignity.

The weird and wonderful Bonface Mwendwa.

Olives Olympics

So we got to the school, and it looked like this:

We waited for it to clear then quickly tagged and painted our teams. I was Team Elephant with 25 kids from Standard 7 to Standard 1. "Elephant" was too long and awkward to chant, so we settled for screaming the Swahili word "TEMMMBBBOOOOO!" in opposing teams faces instead. We actually managed to get the kids from the other teams to start chanting for Team Tembo, that didnt go down well. :) When we got to the field Mr Joseph led the proceedings with the aid of a megaphone held so close to his mouth that it muffled 90% of what he was saying, and I rounded up the giggling kindergarten kids as they ran repeatedly onto the pitch.

We ran the sack race-and won it. Then we won the wheelbarrow race.We came second in the 100 metres boys and tried to remain calm and non-competitive about the whole thing.

Before we could win anything else, the rain decided to make another appearance. It bucketed down, we had to leg it to the school dripping wet and smeared in rapidly melting paint.

We waited it out, went home and changed, and came back for more. We marched to the field through the mud, 500 kids chanting "Rain rain go away, come again another day!" at the tops of their voices.We couldnt have our egg and spoon race as the children in charge of the eggs had eaten them and lost the spoons, but we had our 3 legged race and then the tug of war. Our finest moment.

All my Standard 5 kids were screaming "Pull Madam, puuuuulll!" and boasting to their friends that their madam is strong like a man. Not sure how to feel about that one, but our team was mostly tiny girls and the team against us had huge Standard 7 boys, so I pulled alright.I pulled for Ireland! And aww yeah: we won!! I got home at 5.30 after an 8am start covered in mud, paint, grass and sweat, my voice gone from screaming and cheering. It was epic. :)

Cave Goodies!

Thanks to one of the volunteers, Jen, we had funds to buy loads of supplies for the cave classes, including a blackboard, basketball, and storybooks with pictures of Kenyan children that actually relate to their lives. The kids were so excited, they made me write "Property of Ngome Giriama' on every book so no one would take them! It was a lovely lesson, we learned about the continents, read "Handa's Surprise and answered questions, then unwrapped the basketball. That disrupted the tranquility somewhat. :) Next week is my last week in Kenya and I've been so worried that things would just fizzle out with the cave but all the other volunteers have gotten really enthusiastic about it and promised to keep up the lessons. It's going to be hard to leave,but at least I know they're in good hands.

Using our new blackboard

Checking out the new books.

Cheesy grin time. :)

Everyone say "Shiny new basketball!"

Standard 5

Three musketeers: Ayub, Winnie, Joseph K.

Zakiya and Faith singing the national anthem.

Blocking Madam Ceri's face for the photo.

Standard 1.

Relatively calm...

When I say they swing from the rafters, I aint being figurative.

Embrace the chaos!

Composition Time!

It's exam time down Olives way, compositions were first up. The blindingly exciting title "A Rainy Day" had everyone a tad panicked until I explained that they could still write about an interesting day they had, just pretend it was raining at the time. Pauline wrote a very moving account of the day she went swimming with Madam Miriam, conveniently skipping over the part where she sat on my head and almost drowned me.
My favourite bit was "Madam she swimmed fast fast to the wall. Are you fine Madam Miriam? asked Madam Trinity? I am not fine said Madam Miriam. There was a heart sadness in Madam Miriam and she made many coughing. I like for to swim with Madam Miriam."

Some of the best bits are the proverbs. The kids learn them off without ever learning when to apply them, and some make up their own bizarre versions. A few of my favourites:

"He was as happy as Sir Isaac Newton discovering force of gravity."

"She was as happy as a barren woman to whom has been borned a baby."

"I went into the bathroom for to make water in the frog's kingdom."

"They were as a Christian man who has seen Jesus walking and eating bread."

and the best:

"She was as confused as a pregnant rat crossing a tarmac road."

Words fail me. :)