Sunday, August 18, 2013

Game Park Day!


A day of rest and recuperation at Amboseli Serena Lodge.  FABULOUS in so many ways...

Masai villagers peddling their wares at the entrance to the park.






A visitor on our veranda...


Total contrast to the areas where we've been working...




Judy, Wachira (our driver), Ginger, Ann, Maggie, Hans







Social Weaver Bird nests...

And of course I have to make friends with the local cats :-)


Robyn and Tim - designated "cute couple" of the team!

Female ostriches. Ostrichi?

Top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the distance.

Hungry, hungry hippo...







We love the "polite notices"

Today I'll be hanging out with Julisa.  Dinner at 4 for the team and off to the airport at 5pm for a 10:35pm flight.  We hear the airport is functioning but even crazier than usual because of the fire.



Friday, August 16, 2013

Drama Class - Day 2


This was the second and final day of teaching drama at New Dawn High School.

This church, just a stone's throw away from the school, is where they first held classes in 2006.

The road just outside the school gates.  The first day we came, it had rained the night before so the mud was thick and clingy.

Greeting one of the cows the school keeps.

More kale.  By growing them in these planters, formed of heavy-duty plastic sheeting and wooden stakes, they can grow many plants in a small area.

Fredrick, one of our alumni helpers in the class is giving us a tour.  Above are the water tanks.

A student, Davine, is opening windows and tying up curtains for maximum light in the room.  All the classrooms are shipping containers which have been re-purposed.  

Frederick, Maggie and Au (our photographer/videographer) are standing in the courtyard of the new wing of the building which was dedicated last year.

My team helpers, Maggie and Ann.

Miriam the cook.


Two of the students in the final performance.  Au is in the white shirt, taking photos, and you can see the back of Hans' head in the front row.  This gives a sense of the size of the room.  I think it might be the only room that's the size of the whole shipping container.  The rest are broken up into smaller classrooms.  This was the room where Hans was teaching the teachers, but he graciously agreed to move to a different room so that we'd have room for all the theatre games and exercises and performances we did.

"Parable of the Talents."

"The Prodigal Daughter"

"Choose Life"


"Parable of the Talents"

After class today, Irene the Director, took us to the dorms where 20 of the girls live.  This is Margaret who is one of the school's teachers as well as the dorm mother and mother of her own two girls. Amazing.

Internet is doing weird things so I'll have to post a photo of one of the rooms tomorrow...














Thursday, August 15, 2013

Drama Class @ New Dawn - Day One

Today I was the teacher and Maggie and Ann assisted me - turnabout is fair play!

We were at New Dawn which is a faith-based high school in the midst of the Huruma slum.



I didn't get any photos of the school itself today but took this one from the 3rd floor.  The lovely green trees are part of the school property. The rusted corrugated roofs of many homes are just beyond.

They have enough property to house two cows plus a big garden and greenhouse.  Kale is growing in rows, and they just finished up all the tomatoes that were in the greenhouse.  They give the students lunch each day, and I believe they have enough extra to sell as well.

I'm teaching a drama class for 2 days.  The students are on break but about 30 of them came for the class.  We started out with some stretches and energizing exercises.  Ann is in the bright pink.

Here's me getting quiet in the room by raising my hand - a signal for everyone else to raise their hands and stop talking - which worked pretty well :-)  Hmmm, I guess I'm in bright pink too!

A couple of students starting a scene.

I met some Kenyans at the Christian Artists Fellowship meeting about a week and a half ago who agreed to come and help out.  Lucy, with the blue scarf, is sharing with the students about her day job and her work in theatre.

Peter, the director of a theatre company, is also sharing about his job and theatre, which happen to be one and the same thing for him.

Kevin, in the blue hat, works in the same theatre company as Peter.

"Good-bye" to Kevin and Peter for now.  Lucy will come back again tomorrow.  And if the timing works out, I might be able to go see the play that Peter and Kevin's company is opening this weekend.  

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

A full day at Kangundo

Kangundo is the village where Miriam's parents live - the medical team will be staying up there a couple of nights so as to avoid the long commute.  Yesterday it took the rest of us 2.5 hours to get there and 4.5 hours to get back to our guesthouse in Nairobit - combo of rush hour and rain.

It's a wonderful place and I'm glad I got to go for at least one day.  We distributed food and clothing to some of the neediest folks in the village - mostly widows.  Then the medical team got to work and the rest of us helped in putting together a raised garden bed.  The bricks were already in place; we laid down plastic, the put ash between the garden wall and plastic (keep out unwanted creatures) then dried leaves, dirt, compost.  In the meantime a couple of men were working on a platform for the water tower.  Pics follow.

The next couple of days I teach drama at New Dawn school so this post is brief so I can make sure I'm ready for about 35 dramatic high schoolers!