Wasungus

Jambo! After a hearty breakfast of porridge, pineapple, and wheatabix we left Kwamboka’s and headed to our school of rock - the Margaret Okari School. On the way, as always, we had a few little adventures. The first one was heading into safaricom and getting our mobile internet connection at 9,000 Kenyan shillings - what a deal! We passed through downtown Kisii on market day and it was bustling as we stopped at the local superstore to pick up some cookies for the student’s party. Kwamboka picked up some sweet bananas and we hit the local tree nursery on a search for ones we will be planting over the next few days.

The type of tree that we decided to go with is the _______. This tree is preferred because it replenishes the soil rather than depleting nutrients and preventing other crops or plants from growing. This is important because people have small plots of lands and every inch of usable soil means a great deal to the 75% of the population that is involved in agriculture.

We headed up a fairly steep and muddy road, turned left and reached our destination and, ultimately, our purpose - to meet the kids at the Margaret Okari School. It started a torrential downpour when we first pulled in and had to wait 20 minutes while the kids peered out of the classrooms and shouted, “Wasungu! Wasungu!” When the rain stopped we jumped out of the van, threw our bags in the guest house (a 15 X 15 cabin tent), and broke out our bag of tricks. At first kids were a little tentative, but in usual AYS style - in 10 minutes we had 100 kids playing soccer, wiffleball, frisbee, catch, Simon Says, and rock, paper, & scissors. The crazy thing is that we had them playing this all at once. The kids were all awesome from age 5 up to 17. There were tons of smiling, energetic, very athletic Kenyan kids having the time of their lives. This was an epic 4 hour event - almost as epic as the cake fight we had at Pearson Street. At the end of the Kenyan games we had a ton of new friends for these Wasungus.

Colton is like Justin Biebers walking down Main St in Andover. The kids can’t get enough of him. We headed into the school dining room to be entertained by some unbelievable dancing by three different age groups. We look forward to tomorrow and we’ll leave you with Colton’s Kenyan Facts (sorry we missed last post - no internet at the time).

Kenyan greetings: Jambo - hello; Asante sana - Thank you very much; Habari yako - How are you?; Karibu - Welcome; and lastly - Wasungu - white people.

We are overwhelmed by the hospitality of the kids and staff here. There is much to be learned here from the folks in Kenya.