Standard 8

09/20/05

I recognized Vivian, one of the orphans that I had interview (with her Grandee and two brothers), who will be unable to move on to high school next year if she doesn't get a sponsor. Which gave me the idea to start a directory of all the kids in the area who need school sponsors. Build a website for it, include their current grades, their picture, a personal statement.

Robert was unable to register the group yesterday because of the power outage, so needed to do it today. Which meant our plans to visit a women's/widow's/PLWHA's group got pushed back to Thursday. Which means that I have nothing planned for today (or tomorrow, Robert is going to Homa Bay for a follow up.) I certainly don't want to loose two days to reading or production or writing.

I decided to walk down to the primary school and ask Jane (the headmistress) if I could sit in on a class. I was worried she would say no, I'd burn a bridge, I'd disrupt the class, I'd make a fool of myself. I had another one of those moments at my door, encouraging myself to go. I walked down there and found Jane in her office with a bunch of people. I almost backed out then, but instead sucked it up and asked. She said, "right now? Sure." Of course it was fine and the kids were excited to have me in the class, and the teachers as well. I filmed, and some of the kids stayed in during games time to have me 'beat' their pictures (allowing me the strange experience of having African kids shouting, "beat me!" "No, beat me!") The first lesson was Kiswahili (which I didn't understand a lick of), the second was math (which got me momentarily petrified that I wouldn't remember how to solve the problems they were working on. Fortunately it was just fractions and ratios.) I recognized one of the orphans that I had interview (with her Grandee and two brothers), Vivian, who will be unable to move on to high school next year if she doesn't get a sponsor. Which gave me the idea to start a directory of all the kids in the area who need school sponsors. Build a website for it, include their current grades, their picture, a personal statement. I even started fantasizing about having a gallery show with all the photos, the price of a print being the cost of a year's school fees, which would be sent right to the kid in the picture. So the sponsor gets a nice framed photo of the kid they are sponsoring, and the kid gets to go to school.

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