To Be A Kenyan Student

I have been at site for three weeks now, I have started teaching, coaching and doing guidance and counseling at my school. I am still adjusting to some things, like the language barrier, but I am really enjoying getting to know the students and the other teachers! I also have a new address where I can get mail and packages! It is:

Christine Boyer PCV
C/o Bande Girls Secondary School
PO Box 55 – 40409
Muhuru Bay
Kenya

I wanted to give you some insight into what it’s like to be a secondary school student in Kenya, in many ways it is very different from being a high school student in the US, at least from my experience. First of all, secondary school is not free. Right now it is subsidized by the Kenyan government, but many families either cannot afford to send their kids to school, or really struggle to pay for school fees. Many secondary schools in Kenya are boarding schools, Bande Girls is almost totally boarding. Also, many schools are single-sex. The education system is 8-4-4 like in the US, 8 years of primary, 4 of secondary and 4 of university. (In Kenya grades 1-8 are called standard 1-8, while grades 9-12 are called Forms 1-4). But, unlike in the US, Kenyan students take national exams at the end of primary and secondary school. The KCPE is taken after finishing primary school and tests students over 8 years of information, and the KCSE is taken after finishing secondary school, and tests students over 4 years of information. Secondary school students take the KSCE in 8 subjects and are then given the option to drop one of the scores. The scores are then averaged and an overall grade is given. This grade more or less determines the rest of your life. Universities look solely at the KSCE score for admission, and employers ask for your KCSE score before offering employment. So, not only is there a lot of information covered on the exam, there is also an immense amount of pressure to do well. Students take 11 subjects in Forms 1 & 2 and 7-9 subjects in Forms 3 & 4. Students must take English, Kiswahili and math for all four years. In forms 1 and 2 all students must take chemistry, biology and physics, but can choose to drop one in forms 3 and 4. At my school students take Christian Religious Education (some schools also offer other religious studies), geography, agriculture, business studies and government in addition to the required language, math and science classes.

At Bande Girls School the students wear uniforms, which consist of a dark blue skirt, white button down shirt, a blue tie and optional red sweaters (right now most of the girls are wearing their sweaters to class since they think it is cold… I on the other hand think it is very very hot.) Secondary school students in Kenya are also required to shave their heads, so all of the girls at my school have shaved heads. I’m sure there is more than one reason for this, one, it prevents things like lice in schools, and it also creates equality among the students. The schedule of each day is probably the biggest difference. The following is the students daily schedule:

4am-4:30 – Waking up/personal cleaning/Dressing
4:30-6:30 – Dawn Preps
6:30-7:00 – Breakfast
7:00-8:00 – Remedial work
8:00 – 10:00 – Morning Classes
10:00-10:30 – Break
10:30-1:20 - Midday Classes
1:20-2:00 – Lunch
2:00-4:00 - Afternoon Classes
4:00-5:00 - Games/Guidance and Counseling/Clubs
5:00-6:00 – Personal cleaning
6:00-7:00 – Supper
7:00-10:00 - Evening Preps
10:00-10:15 – Lights out

Some variations are that on Mondays and Fridays the school has an assembly from 7:30-8 and the girls do manual labor around the school from 7-7:30 on those days. There are games (sports practice) after classes on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Sun. Guidance and Counseling is on Wednesdays and clubs/debate are on Fridays. On the weekends the schedule is the same from 4-7am, but on Saturday the students clean their dorms for inspection between 7-10, and on Sundays the students go to church at this time. The students are in class for preps and lessons from 10-2 with lunch in the middle, then the schedule is the same again from 4-10, with the only exception on Saturdays when the students have entertainment from 4-6. For the few day scholars at my school they are expected to be at school at 6:30am and leave school at 5pm, and they must come to preps and classes on the weekends between 10-4.

Preps are basically times when the students sit in their desks and are expected to be quietly studying, reading or completing homework. Some teachers make-up lessons during this time as well. The remedial hour is for teachers to teach lessons if they are behind in the syllabus, or if the last year’s syllabus was not completed. The Kenyan syllabus is HUGE and covers many many topics, and teachers often do not finish in the time allotted.

As you can see a huge difference is the amount of time that students spend in class. (Class times plus preps) They spend a lot more time “studying” then I probably did in high school, but with limited resources (5 text books for a class of 40, no outside reference material etc.) the time can sometimes be less productive. It can also be challenging as a teacher to assign different types of homework to encourage learning. There are not materials or resources for research projects or group projects, so we have to be creative! My school is very lucky to have a lab, many schools do not have a separate lab classroom, but many of the materials are lacking. The sinks in the lab don’t currently work, and neither do the gas lines and there are only 2 microscopes. But, we are lucky to have even that, and we do have many chemicals, so I count myself and my school as lucky!

I wrote last time that I would be teaching chemistry form 1, biology forms 1 and 2, plus life skills. I am still teaching those things, but since there is a shortage of chemistry teachers I will be teaching both form 1 streams. I am also teaching life skills to all of the forms, so now I have a total of 22 lessons a week (not counting lessons on the weekend or during the morning remedial work). More than the 16 we had agreed upon, but I think it will be ok. My days are very full, especially since my school is boarding! I wake up at 6 and am at school by 7. I teach throughout the day until 4, and then head to the volleyball “court” at 4 (The volleyball court is a patch of field that we slashed and then dug lines to mark the court, we then filled the lines with ash to make them stand out, and the poles for the net are big logs, not what I am used to playing on. Plus there is sometimes the added chore of chasing chickens, dogs, donkeys and cows off the court!). I am usually out there with the students until 6 when I head to my house to bathe, clean up and relax. I either make myself dinner or I eat with my principal who lives next door.

This week was fairly uneventful, but I did have a surprise visit from my bat friend, and found a scorpion on my front step one morning. The sunrises and sunsets are absolutely amazing here, and they help to start and end my day right! I’m going to try to post some pictures of the school, my house, the surrounding scenery and the sunset and sunrise on facebook! The address to get there is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045872&id=27501679&l=02d9df7ee7

I hope everyone is doing well back home! Love you all! Cheers!

Bande - First Week at Site

I have made it safely to my site and have survived my first week at my new school. The trip was long from Nairobi, but my principal and I were able to buy a few things in Migori before we headed to Bande. I am living on the school compound, and my house is really really nice! I have four rooms (which means a guest bedroom for visitors!!!!) and have my own latrine and wash room behind my house. There is no electricity or running water, but that's fine with me. My school uses solar panels and a generator to run lights in the classrooms at night, so I am able to charge my electronics from that, which is really I all need to stay happy. Bande is much much smaller than Loitokitok, and that has taken some getting used to. There is no hoteli (restaurant) where I can grab some food if I dont want to cook, there is no supermarket, and there is only open air market on Wednesdays. The things I was accustomed to being able to buy on a daily basis during PST are now much harder to get here. The hardest part is the new language barrier. While all the teachers at my school and all the students there speak english and kiswahili, there are very few people in the town who speak either of these languages. The more common language in town in Luo, and I only know a few greetings in Luo. I need to ask a teacher, or find someone in the community who can teach me Luo, because I know that will go a long way to my intergration into the community. For now, I am focusing on my school and teaching the students.

This week I spent a lot of time in the staff room preparing lessons, as all the students are taking opening exams this week. Unfortunately for me, that meant that I was mostly bored, and wasn't really able to get to know any of the students. The other teachers are all very nice though, and I had some interesting conversations. I am looking forward to next week when I will actually be teaching, and hopefully coaching volleyball after school. But, the week was now totally boring, I did have some exciting things happen to me.... Last Saturday I went to Kisii with Chris so we could buy things for our houses like jikos (stoves) and water filters, and when we were driving back to our sites between Migori and Bande, our car hit a COW, yes a cow! The cow had been on the side of the road until just before we reached it, when it decided it wanted to be on the road.... There was no time to break and swerving would have put us in a ditch.. so we hit the cow. The cow suffered a broken leg, and probably had to be slaughtered that night, and the car lost a headlight and broke its bumper, but all of the passengers were fine, thank god. The other exciting thing happened when I returned to my house on Tuesday after a staff meeting. I opened my door and was going to open all the windows in my house to let in the breeze when something dive bombed my head. I can out of the house in a panic, and from outside I could see a bat swooping over and over again in my house. I have no idea how it got in, since I keep the windows closed when I'm not around, but there it was. With the help of one of the prefects I was able to chase the bat out of my house, and hopefully it will not return for a visit anytime soon.

I think that is about all for me now, next time I head into Migori I will bring pictures to upload. The landscape around my village is gorgeous, and the sunrises and sunsets are always amazing! Everything is green right now because it is the rainy season, but I am told soon enough everything will be brown and dead... That is also about the time I think I will die from the heat as well... Cheers!

Swearing In

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I can't believe that it is 2010! In case you are wondering, my New Years resolution is to live in Kenya...

Secondly, it's finally official! I am a United States Peace Corps Volunteer! After the intense application process, 9 weeks of training, passing my Kiswahili language proficiency exam and more or less acclimating to life in Kenya, I was finally officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer today, along with the other 24 men and women from my training class. Our training class is a first for Peace Corps Kenya, with all 25 of us passing our language exam and all of us being sworn in as volunteers! We feel very lucky that none of us have needed to go home due to medical complications, nor were any of us sent home for administrative problems, or for not meeting the training requirements! We are awesome!

Our swearing in ceremony also marked the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps working here in Kenya, so the ceremony was held at the US Ambassador's residence and was more elaborate than usual. We listened to speeches from the PC country director, our training manager, the ambassador and the associate PC director of education. Three members of our training class also gave a speech in English, Kiswahili and Kenyan Sign Language. We took our oath of service and were presented with certificates of completion of training... and NOW WE ARE VOLUNTEERS! We are no longer to be referred to as trainees!

After the ceremony we ate cake and other treats, mingled on the gorgeous grounds, and were entertained by Kenyan traditional songs and dancing. Many of the counterparts and newest volunteers joined in dancing, and it was a really fun day! It is kind if surreal to be done with training and officially be a volunteer! I am so excited to start doing the work that I came here to do!

For the last 4 days we have been in Nairobi attending a number of workshops with our counterparts from our respective schools. (On a side note, there was a matatu strike in Nairobi, so we have been forced to use taxis exclusively to get around... which makes this more expensive, but has also allowed us to sing "Hakuna Matatu!"...) At our workshops we have talked about Peace Corps expectations, our expectations and our counterparts expectations, and from those, came up with our job descriptions for when we get to site. With my counterpart, Hellen, we decided that I will be teaching a form 1 biology class, a form 2 biology class, a form 1 chemistry class as well as life skills to both the form 1 and 2 classes. This will make for a total of 16 lessons per week, which I think will be a good load to begin with. I will also be helping coach volleyball at my school, and will possibly start a health club at my school. The main focus for the first term though, is definitely integrating into the community. I want to improve my Dholuo skills, and get a feel for what my schools and communities needs are, before I decide what other projects I may be interested in many a secondary project. I really like my counterpart and am looking forward to working with her and the other teachers at the school for the next two years!

Tomorrow morning we all head out to our respective sites. The girls at my school arrived today, and they will be taking opening exams next week, so I will have a little bit of time to acclimate and purchase the essentials for my house. I will be living on the school compound, and just found out that my school is a almost totally boarding school, and there are also other teachers that live on the compound, so that made me excited!

So, tonight is our last night together as a training class until April when we will get back together for In-Service Training (IST). We have gotten really close as a group, and though it will be hard to leave, we are all excited to get to our sites and get to work! So, tonight we are going out, to celebrate being sworn in, and also to celebrate Jenny's 23rd birthday! And, possibly take advantage of some non-Kenyan food while we are here in Nairobi (I had sushi two nights ago, and it was AMAZING!). I will try and write an update on my school, house and community as soon as I get the chance, and hopefully can include some pictures! I did post a number of pictures on facebook, because I have been able to get free internet here in Nairobi (the following link should allow you to see the pictures, even if you don't have facebook, I hope it works: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045872&id=27501679&l=02d9df7ee7 I included the picture of Charlie and his host mom that I had promised earlier...). Thanks again for all the love and support from home!