Shoe Day at Kimuka!

One of our last days was Shoe Day at Kimuka Primary school. Many of you kindly donated to our shoe and keychain fund. The self-defense keychains were used in all our classes. But the shoes and socks were for Kimuka. From the above pictures, you can see the decrepit quality of a lot of the kids’ shoes. 

Kids were wearing crocs, old sneakers, hand-me-down leather shoes. We even saw a couple kids wearing scuba boots. 

There is a strong market in second hand shoes in the less wealthy areas. People will sell them on the street or walk around with a few dozen pairs to sell. I’m sure the scuba boots came from a second hand market like this. 

Our plan for the day was to meet our cobbler at the school. He had made about 175 of the 200 pairs we had ordered. This was a very large order for him and he just couldn’t get them all done in time. It worked out well, as he will make the rest, as well as a few more pairs that are needed, and deliver them all when school goes back into session in January.

We used a local cobbler to custom make every pair in order to support the local economy.

Your donations also supplied school socks for every kid getting shoes. 

Some of the kids didn’t get new shoes, as they really weren’t as desperate as most. There are about 330 kids in the school and we bought 200 pairs of shoes.

Everywhere we went, we had kids around us. It was fun and exciting. They love the visitors, especially exotic ones like Claudia and me. 

This was also the last day of school, so there was partying to be done. Before the shoe distribution, there were speeches to make, some by us. And performances by the classes of kids.

Below is a poetry recital by some of the older girls. Note that the girl in the center is holding her keychain. We told them to take the keychains everywhere.

And there was dancing. It is part of the fun to drag the guests into the dance. So we were all dancing to multiple songs. It’s fun. And the kids work hard on their performances.

After all the dancing, in the HOT sun, it was time for shoes. We hadn’t planned this part as well as it could have been. The cobbler had bagged the shoes. They were kind of sorted by class. Kind of by size. And not completely by anything. Below is the start of the chaos.

After some serious fumbling around for an extended period, a few of us started a movement of sending the kids back to their classrooms, out of the sun, and we sorted the shoes into classes. Then we delivered the shoes to the appropriate room for the teacher to have the kids try on.

As one should expect, many of the shoes were either too big or too little for the kids. Once all were tried on, we told the teacher to take all his/her kids with shoes too big to the next class grade up and find the group there with shoes too small. Trade for the right size where possible.

Below are kids trying on the shoes. 

Claudia, Wangari, and I ran from room to room working with the teachers and kids to get the best fits we could and try to have some semblance of order. We were successful on the first goal and phenomenally unsuccessful on the second. But, it’s the last day of the school year, so we all had fun.

The cobbler also went around checking shoes and fits. Several of the kids who weren’t on the list asked him for shoes. After seeing what we were doing, he volunteered to provide about seven pairs himself as a donation.

Below are some of the kids with their new socks.

And a large group of the kids with new socks and shoes! You can see a few of the socks in the picture.

Below I’m with a couple of the kids I hadn’t met before. We would have home visits with both these kids before we left. See the report called Home Visits part 3 for details. First is Agnes. Note that Agnes is wearing new shoes, but didn’t put the socks on. The shoes are already dusty enough to look years old.

Next is Francis. We have two young men named Francis being sponsored. This young man is sponsored by Tom Anderson and his family. Tom gave me permission to use his name and it is helpful to distinguish the kids from each other.

After lunch, a number of the kids surrounded me. They were led by some of the kids sponsored in the program. Sylvia was the real ring-leader. They had many questions for me. This evolves into an activity the kids call “telling stories.” They may not really be stories, but the kids do have lots of questions. After about half an hour in the hot sun, the kids insisted on moving under an awning to continue the stories. One boy carried and placed a chair for me. The rest were draped over any desk or classmate that would hold them.

We talked about things like what kinds of animals we have in the US. They were surprised that we had none of the ones they are so familiar with. Another topic was what it’s like to fly on an airplane. Most have never even seen a big airplane other than in the sky. 

The kids were fascinated by a video I showed of Ginger playing her cello. Any video or picture is cause for lots of attention. And this was especially good, as they aren’t familiar with classical music at all.

After a while, we ventured over to where Wangari and Claudia were sitting in another group. Another boy placed a chair for me. Wangari was “interviewing” Claudia. So I became another subject to be interviewed. It was a lot of fun. And the kids loved it.

Eventually, we had to run off to another appointment. So we took our leave of the kids. Until the next trip in January.

This is a great school. We really enjoy working with the leadership team and teachers. Plus the kids are great.