Oloolua Primary and Joram G

I’ve mentioned before that we usually don’t know what to expect when we get to a school or venue for the classes. We design the class on the fly. Today was far from an exception. We arrived at Oloolua Primary at 11, the scheduled time. The Director wasn’t there and we waited an hour in her office. We knew the school was big, but not how big. We were scheduled to teach the Class 7 and 8 girls. Sitting in the office, we see documents on the wall that each class is over 200 girls. We figured that with the available time, we could do two classes of about 100 girls each in this visit. We discussed doing the classes outside, but there were too many boys around. So the Director offered us a “large, double” classroom.

They assembled the girls. We were led to the medium-sized room and greeted with an ocean of teenage girls sitting quietly on the floor. No space at all between them. Oh $#!*.

I told all the girls to stand up and find a spot against the wall. Circled around us. Not even close to all of them found a spot. We then hit on the idea of making two concentric circles with the taller girls in the back row. Cedric and Wangari leapt into action and quickly herded the girls into the proper arrangement.

We weren’t surprised with the numbers. Last visit I went to the Oloolua Secondary school and had 180 girls in one class. And that wasn’t all the girls.

We finally got to a workable arrangement and were ready to start. Our team was Cedric and Wangari (both of whom volunteer with the Red Cross), Sarah (our sponsored girl from the trainers’ class), Claudia, and me.

We quickly fell into a method of working with every girl on the techniques. A couple of us would start with the inner ring and the others with the outer ring of girls. It was so crowded working through all the girls, we’d check at the end to make sure everyone tried the techniques. We rarely have had to do that.

Sarah was having a good time with the class. She wasn’t comfortable teaching all the techniques, but was a big help to us in dealing with the ocean.

Wangari is really growing as a teacher. She can run her own classes with no issues. And the girls really relate to a Kenyan girl not much older than them who is teaching this. Far more relatable than coming from an old white guy from halfway around the world.

Coincidentally, this is also the school Wangari attended as a kid. Her mother is on the management board of the school and her brother is a current student. It was great to have an alumni come back to teach another set of girls. The Director was thrilled once she recognized her.

The girls were all well-behaved and very attentive. They got into the class and also had some fun. This school is on the edges of a couple slums, so a lot of the girls live there. It isn’t safe for them to walk through there. And it is extremely unsafe after dark. All the girls walk to and from school. The classes are very welcome.

The next day, we went to Joram G mixed boarding and day school. Getting there was a challenge. There are a lot of street vendors in the center of Ngong. The government has changed the rules on when they can be there during the week. In protest, some of the vendors set fire to a blockade of tires in the middle of the main road. Everyone had to go around.

Below is a random street scene in Ngong. The hand carts on the street are common. Some people will have donkeys to pull them. Some are human-powered, such as this one.

It was a holiday in Kenya. Their independence day. I asked if they celebrated by getting drunk and setting things on fire, like we do. They claimed not to do that, tires notwithstanding. The holiday meant the day students weren’t there. But the boarders were. So we had a good group of about 45, in probably 3 to 4 times the space we had for the girls at Oloolua.

Below are a few shots of the school grounds. This looks like a very nice school. There were a lot of kids around. I love the sheep grazing on the football field.

Due to the holiday, they didn’t have much of a schedule, which meant we had to chase a number of the boys away from the windows where the class was.

At this point, I don’t teach boys at all. If I have a class of boys, I never know which one(s) is the next predator. The girls need their techniques to be secret. I also don’t let boys watch the classes.

We started the class at nearly 12. We went for an hour and the lunch bell rang. Of course, we didn’t want the girls to miss the meal, so we broke for them to eat. They started straggling back in 20 minutes or so, but had a mission. It was Dancing Time.

At first, a few diehards came back and cranked the music. African Pop. After all, they are African teenage girls. Several started dancing, seen above.

As the group came back, a circle formed in the room and they got serious. It was a lot of fun to watch. Wangari and Cedric participated fully. I got dragged into the circle for a while. It was really fun to watch the girls enjoying themselves.

Below is a group photo of most of the girls with their keychains. Cedric is on the far right. Wangari is second from left on the front row, kneeling.