The days have settled into a comfortable routine, rising at 7am about an hour after the rest of Kenya, breakfast and then school for the children at 8am. On the 10 minute walk through Iten the locals are still giving us a good stare but seem to be getting used to our presence as I bring Siobhra over to school each morning. Iarlaith generally leaves 10 minutes earlier as he has assembly three times a week.
The sounds of morning are the cocks crowing and dogs barking and the occasional loud motorbike racing along the lane beside our house. Or we might be treated to the latest in Kenyan pop music from our neighbours. A familiar morning smell and sight are little islands of domestic rubbish being burnt, not our favourite part of Kenyan life. There is no waste collection so we load everything into a metal container and set fire to it when it's full just like everyone else. We drink bottled water but couldn't bring ourselves to throw the plastic bottles into the skip so Kieran has made a sculpture from them. I haven't seen any recycling although it seems to be recognised as an issue at some levels. The Nakumatt supermarket encourages people to bring back their old plastic shopping bags or use cardboard to pack their groceries.
We regularly see very young children walking to and from school by themselves. It is impossible not to feel your heart thumping as you see two children no more than three years of age holding hands as they walk (purposefully) to school and not an adult in sight. More generally you might see an 8yr old with a 3yr old on her back along with three or four other children sauntering along. Despite the crazy driving of motorbikes, cars and jeeps, I haven't yet seen any children in danger from the traffic, they walk mostly on back roads or on tracks parallel to the busy roads.
I am conscious the locals must think it bizarre I walk an 11yr old to and from school. At least I have stopped going up to collect Iarlaith at 4pm. As the older children in Siobhra's school are boarders, you only see the younger ones arriving at the school. There are various modes of transport: car; motorbike; bicycle or being carried on their mother's back. I have yet to see the mode which involves the father's back!
Siobhra has assembly once a week on a Monday and fainted at her first one due to standing in the heat. Philip, her form teacher couldn't get a hold of us on the phone but came across Bro Colm just outside the school who brought her back to the house. He was on his way to Eldoret to leave a doctor friend from New Zealand to the airport. The doctor had been volunteering at the local hospital for a few weeks and Colm came across him at the nearby Kerio View Hotel. I'm sure it was a memorable experience as Colm invited him to stay in the training camp with his athletes, sharing the same basic accommodation and getting to hang out at the track with David Rudisha.
Kieran has taught some classes in Tambach Teacher Training College but his main work will be from September as they are currently doing exams. Art is an elective subject in primary schools and it seems most schools choose not to do it. However student teachers have to pass an exam during their training so there is interest in what Kieran has to offer. He found their knowledge of art history to be quite poor and they failed to recognise Michaelangelos's statue of David when he showed it to them. When he probed further he discovered they had never heard of Da Vinci or Michaelangelo or the Renaissance. They became interested when he showed them art from West Africa being done at the same time and compared prehistoric art from Europe and Africa. While the college has an art room there are no materials and no practical work is done. All learning is theoretical.
The college was built by the Chinese and from a distance looks quite impressive. On closer inspection it is falling to bits with windows hanging off, paint peeling and cracked walls. Building or roads maintenance doesn't seem to be high on the Kenya agenda. Outside the gate is a sign to say it is a corruption-free institution and later in Eldoret I saw a sign for the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, prompting me to think it might be a good "exchange" programme for some of our politicians, 'professionals' and businessmen.
Kieran has also taught some classes in a few primary schools but in general there is little interest. In one school he came across an art teacher who was doing good work with the pupils. The young man had been employed to draw murals for the school and they asked him to stay on. He is self taught and has no formal art or teacher training. Another private Sikh school had a good art programme.
Iarlaith and Siobhra's stories from school continue to provide insight into how white people are viewed in Kenya. As Colm said you could roll around on the floor protesting you are not well off but it would not be believed. And wouldn't they be correct? Our very presence having travelled from Europe confirms that wealth. He told us a story about a female athlete from his training camp who came back from her first trip to Europe and all she could talk about was her amazement when she spotted a poor white man begging on the underground. She never knew there could be such a thing.
During one of Iarlaith's Q&A sessions with his classmates, they asked what it was like to travel in an airplane. These are children from all over Kenya so obviously they are not using air travel to get to the school. It cost us about e50 each to fly from Nairobi to Eldoret, a 50min journey which would have taken six hours by car. I am not yet clear about the students socio economic status and whether it varies much. While St Patrick's is a State school, the children have to pay fees for boarding which come to about e700 per annum. I know there are some bursaries available but I don't know the percentage or how many children might be excluded from the school due to the cost.
While progress is being made, the stats are that about 30% of primary school children do not make the transition to secondary school, which is subsidised by the government but not free. It is also becoming clear we are privileged that Iarlaith and Siobhra are in very good schools hence my first impression that Kenya is generally ahead in Maths and Sciences is not correct and only pertains in certain schools. About 250,000 Kenyan children who complete the primary (school) certificate annually do not get to secondary school. That is a lot of wasted potential.
Iarlaith has come home with tales of boys polishing his shoes (he swears there is nothing he can do to stop it). About 10 days after starting he came home asking would we buy him a padlock for his locker. 'Oh drat', I thought, 'the first case of theft in our new homeland'. But no, it turned out he was shoving his books into his locker (as normal) only to come back and find some boy had tidied it for him. At least he has the grace to feel embarrassed I thought, something I haven't previously experienced when I have finally given in and tidied his bedroom.
He too has witnessed corporal punishment in the school and came home one day a little shook. He said one boy was clattered hard with a book for seemingly falling asleep. Another one got a few slaps for doing his chemistry homework in agriculture. He said the chemistry teacher had given them 10 questions to do which she wanted handed up by 4pm. However as they were in classes until 4pm the only way of achieving the task was by doing the questions in someone else's class.
The boys were amazed when he told them a teacher could be jailed for hitting pupils like that and were interested to know what punishments were used. From what we've witnessed of the school system, our disciplinary procedures of detention and extra homework are more likely to be viewed as opportunities in Kenya. I told him he should pull his head in so he doesn't get in trouble with the Principal for fomenting dissent. At another session of questioning, Iarlaith found himself defending his choice of Home Economics as a subject choice in Ireland. "Surely that's women's work", they chorused when he said men can cook too. When Siobhra had a similar conversation with her friends and said her Dad did all the cooking, they looked at her incredulously and asked, "And what does your Mother do, does she just stand there watching him?" (She doesn't, she could be on the couch with a book or be still at work!)
The children's two schools are very academic but given the history of the school I was surprised to find there didn't seem to be an athletics team in St Patrick's. It may be that Iarlaith will have to start one. His activity for the Gaisce Award which he will complete as part of Transition Year with Gaelcholáiste Chill Dara is athletics, to be started during his time living here.
Iarlaith's subjects are: Maths; Chemistry; Physics; Biology; Business; History; English; Swahili; Christian Religious Education; Computer Science; Agriculture and PE with 10 classes every day. Hours are 8am to 4.10pm Monday to Friday with three breaks during the day - 10 minutes, 20 minutes and an hour. The most difficult subjects are Maths and Sciences as well as Religion, the latter because the boys know their Bible inside out and Iarlaith...eh....doesn't. Games are played between 4pm and 5pm.
Iarlaith's mate Darren advised him that as Swahili was of little use to him, he should go to the library during that class to study Chemistry. Darren is not going home for August holidays so he can study for his final exams in November, as he is hoping to become a medical engineer. Colm told a story of a Masai boy who didn't go home the entire four years of his secondary school. The reason was by the time he found his family it would be time to go back. Another friend who spent two year's teaching in Kitale said he sent a boy home once for his fees and he didn't come back for three weeks. It took him a week to find his parents, a week to sell the cow and travelling time.
Students are fed two meals during the day including a hot dinner at lunchtime which never includes meat. As a Mzungu, Iarlaith has been treated on occasion to a spoon of the meat stew available to the staff.
St Patrick's has one of the biggest chess clubs in East Africa according to Mr Villemboa to whom Siobhra and I spoke while waiting for Iarlaith one day. The casual conversation resulted in Siobhra spending several hours the following week in a chess playoff with four other girls from her school. It was a regional tournament which should have involved other schools from the Rift Valley but no one else turned up. She did well and she and three of the girls are now headed for the national finals in Nairobi on 18th August. Mr Villemboa is taking a team from each age category to compete. Just when I thought I was getting away from the GAA and Community Games messing up holiday plans, this happens. All part of the journey sez the Behan lad.
Student canteen in St Patrick's- boys playing chess
Siobhra studies Maths, English, Social Studies (government, voting system, tribes, political history), Christian RE, PE, Science and Kiswahili. School is from 7am to 3pm but she misses one class in the morning as 6am rising is too hard for the wazungus. There are eight classes a day where the teachers move around for different subjects. She is fed two meals during the three breaks. The first meal is Uji (a runny porridge) and sweet milky tea. The second is rice and cabbage, beans and corn and gravy. There is never any meat.
The second weekend after we arrived we decided to head down the Kerio valley to see a bit more of Kenya. We set off on Saturday morning, the drive down the valley quite spectacular. As we drove through villages, we could hear the shouts of "Mzungus" from the small children as they pointed at us, shouting the warning to their friends nearby. The adults didn't shout but stared or offered us the produce they were selling on the side of the road, fruit, vegetables or acacia honey. Although the road was good, the frequent speed bumps made this interaction possible and they knew to place their stalls at these points. As we got closer to the valley floor, it got hotter and more humid. The land was more arid and people seemed poorer. We saw women out in the baking sun using large knives to chop up branches of trees, most likely for firewood. Others were burning tree stumps to make the cooking fuel of choice - charcoal.
Our first stop was Lake Bogoria or rather the nearby Spa Hotel where the pool is fed by a thermal spring. It only cost KSH900 (approx €9) for us all to swim. The water was green and a bit slimy but really warm. Any health benefits were negated by the slap up lunch we had at the poolside. This is the kids style of holidaying. We spotted a few ostrich on the way to the lake, some traditional looking housing and several irrigation projects. We didn't bother driving any further around the lake as apparently its main feature, geyser-type hot springs, are no longer visible as the lake has risen since heavy rains last year.
Early afternoon we set off for Lake Baringo where we were staying the night, Roberts Camp gets a good write up in the Lonely Planet book. Because we're stereotypical Irish we booked it 24hours in advance and there were only tents left - dome tents with mattresses and bedding supplied, for the princely sum of €30 per tent with breakfast extra.
We started off with a cool beer sitting in the restaurant area which is open on three sides. The hornbills cheekily hopped around the tables grabbing whatever food they could get. At one point Siobhra came back from the lakeside and took me by the hand to show me something. It turned out to be a crocodile basking on the warm concrete about 20m away from us. All I could think about was whether humans could outrun crocodiles if it became necessary. Siobhra is well used to her scaredy mammy and assured me I would not be eaten. We could also see the heads of several hippos bobbing in the water, periodically snorting loudly. They only come out in the evening and it was too dark to get a photo later as they emerged from the lake and wandered around the lakeshore within a few metres of where we were sitting.
Early the next morning we went on a boat trip around the lake with our guide, Joshua. The 2hr trip only cost KSH3,500 (€35), the price a function of the lack of tourists. They said the proper rate was KSH8,000 and offered it to us initially for KSH5,000. This trip turned out to be very worthwhile as Joshua was very knowledgable about the local wildlife and bird life. He told us tourism was dead in the area as several hotels closed down two years ago when heavy rains caused the lake to rise and the buildings were submerged. The water rose about a metre every fortnight but there was nothing they could do to stop it. Some of the businesses restarted like Roberts Camp but we could see others completely destroyed and now derelict.
He brought us out to a small island to find and hold scorpions, spiders and giant centipedes and told us about Kenya's snakes. He said they are generally not dangerous but then he showed us his index finger which looked like something had taken a lump out of it and which he identified as a snakebite. This didn't inspire confidence. The local Kenyans are fishermen and relatives of the Masai and still rely on fishing for their livelihoods. The island on which we got to meet scorpions and the deadly black spider had a hotel run by a local man and his five wives. Kieran paled slightly. I'm not sure of the details of inheritance rights but it seems polygamy is legal in Kenya.
On the trip we saw hippos, crocodiles, large lizards on the shore bank and a huge amount of different birds, including Egrets, Fish Eagles, Goliath herons, Storks and Hornbills. This area is a birdwatchers's paradise and over 400 types have been found. A party piece of Joshua's was to get a fish and throw it in the water and whistle for the distant Fish Eagle to come get it and countdown '3, 2, 1' so we could get the perfect photo of it swooping down to catch it in its claws.
Over breakfast on our return Siobhra said, 'Mam, I couldn't sleep last night because I was terrified. I woke up and I could hear a hippo snorting on one side of the tent and then I could hear another one on the other side." While I felt some sympathy, I hoped the two grannies didn't get to hear about it or I feared them coming personally to snatch back their youngest grandchild. The grapevine had already revealed they were less than happy with her having to witness corporal punishment in school, thinking it would traumatise her. I don't quite remember the same concern for us forty years ago as we negotiated the tough Irish education system.
A group of monkeys came swinging by a little later jumping over our car and peering in the window to see if there was anything worth robbing. We kept our distance as they can get a bit aggressive especially if you have something in your hand they would like.
We set off for home after lunch as we knew from the previous day the 15km to Marigat would take an hour. Most of the road had been washed away in the flooding two years previously and word had obviously not reached the Council. Big trucks, cars and jeeps took the view that going as fast as they could across it was the best approach, churning up dust and pebbles. We, on the other hand, were trying not to have to replace the shock absorbers again.
As we drove across the valley and back up to Iten, it became clear that Sunday was not a day of rest for some. Almost all the back breaking work I witnessed was being carried out by women, some of whom also carried babies on their back. I saw one woman bent double as she carried a massive load of sticks on her back, another with a huge sack of potatoes. The technique is to tie a band around their head and secure the load to it, so the weight is being taken by their head but carried on their backs. While I wanted to remember all the scenes I witnessed, I couldn't bring myself to take photos of it all, thinking it undignified for both them and I.
It was a bit of a relief to get back to the cool, fresh air as we drove up the valley and back to Iten.
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