Unfortunately, last month my principal's mom died. To show our support for our principal the entire staff of my school attended the funeral together, including a small group of students. Luo's are traditionally buried in their village homes, which in this case was in a village past Kisumu called Bondo. It was a long trip from Bande but it was a very interesting experience. The whole funeral and burial events occur over a number of days. In this particular case the body was brought home to the family's home on Friday, there were funeral events that evening followed by an overnight vigil (which from what I have heard is more like a wake/party than anything else), then Saturday the events started early in the morning with the body being laid to rest in the evening. There was also a special church service on the next day (Sunday). Because of the distance we only attended the Saturday afternoon events. We arrived at the family home were fed (there was enough food to feed an army, and there might have been enough people there to make an army). We then listened to speeches made by a number of people who were connected in some way to the deceased, the family or the community. Below are pictures from the event which show the group of students singing a song with my principal before she gave her speech at the event. The entire event was an experience with the most intense part being the way Luo's act at funerals. There are women and girls wailing, crying, yelling and throwing themselves on the ground or onto the coffin in mourning. Another PCV described it perfectly when she said it is very hard to watch another human be in so much emotional agony. These outward and dramatic displays of emotion are also in contrast to the usual emotional restraint (especially with negative emotions) that is shown by Kenyans day-to-day.
Volleyball
Undefeated at the zonal competition Bande's volleyball team, coached my yours truly, moved on to the district competition. (Check out fellow PCVs description of how games are run/corrupt/frustrating here in Kenya at the following link. Chris' Blog Chris is at a secondary school that is about 30 minutes from mine and right on the lake.) The first day of competition at districts was full of frustration which began when I was asked to leave a number of my players behind since there wasn't enough room in the vehicle the school had hired (I should note that the football team wasn't going to leave any players behind...), but after sorting things out and working out a fair deal for both teams we were on our way, the next frustration was that the event started almost 4 hours later than scheduled, but despite these issues both volleyball and football teams played well. We played well in pool play and qualified for the semi final match the next day (so did the football team). The second day was equally frustrating, but in a very different way, when we were stopped by police on our way to the event and forced to leave half the students on the side of the road and then go in two trips, since according to the police the vehicle was overloaded. I'm sure a bribe was payed, but since I am supposed to be culturally sensitive and not politically agitating, I won't go into that... The team played extremely well in the semi final match but were ultimately defeated. They didn't go down without a fight though, taking the game to 5 sets with the final set ending 13-15. The team we lost to went on to win the championship match so I think the girls should be extremely proud of their performance.
Now the term is coming to a close, earlier than planned because of the upcoming referendum, and it's hard to believe that so much time has passed. I'm looking forward to August when I'll get a break from teaching and MY PARENTS WILL BE COMING TO VISIT!!!! But thats all for now, cheers!
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