Tuesday, August 12, 2014

New Dawn High School / Healing Arts

While the medical team stays up in the Kangundo area, the rest of us are back in Nairobi. Hans is teaching Bible to the teachers at the high school while 40 of the students, handpicked by the administration, are coming to our 3 days of "healing arts." We're hoping to give them tools to deal with emotions by using various arts.

Maggie telling the students about the visual art project.

After introducing our theme, each of the team leads talked about the art they'd be sharing - poetry, music/songwriting, visual art and drama. Guess which one I'm doing?


The students gathered for the wrap-up of the day.


Sort of the "backyard" of the school. I'll try to get some better photos tomorrow. Today was rainy and cold, and we didn't get out much. In the middle background is the green classroom structure constructed out of storage containers.

We had a little bit of extra time before lunch, so I led the whole group in some stretches and crazy theatre games - "Whoosh," "Alphabet Circle," "Eclipse," and "Triangles."

For the rest of today, and then again tomorrow, we'll be in our small groups, working towards a presentation for the teachers on Thursday.

What's interesting is that these drama students are so much more quiet and reserved than the "usual" drama student in the U.S. And they are very soft-spoken. Very! I can barely hear many of them even though they are just 4 feet away. So we worked on projection - we'll see if that carries over into tomorrow's presentation.

I thought this was an interesting demonstration of security issues here. A very nice wall with manicured landscaping. But there's razor wire on the top and electrified wires above that (you can click on the photo to see a larger version of the photo).

Every house, restaurant, apartment complex, office building, etc. has walls and security guards. You can't go into a shopping mall without your car being checked, and then walking through a metal detector while the security folks check your bags. After paying for your purchase, many times you will be asked to show your receipt before you leave the store. But how do you stay "secure" when rampant poverty is so prevalent? We have driven past miles and miles of "houses" that are truly shacks - pieces of corrugated tin jury-rigged together. We've seen hundreds and hundreds of hawkers who are selling potatoes, cabbage, newspapers, peas, watermelons, clothes, ice cream - you name it. I truly don't know how they survive when there are so many other people right next to them selling the exact same thing.

The kids at New Dawn are hoping to find their way out of poverty. And education is highly valued here. But one of our drivers in Eldoret has an engineering degree. There are not nearly enough jobs for the graduates.

Well, a somber note to end on today...

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