In my last blog, my goal was to decrease my screen time to two hours. Somehow I’m at seven hours now….29% increase since last week….I’ve been watching a lot of Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston movies during my free time. I finally finished the Maze Runners series and I still haven’t emotionally recovered. I wish I could say I regret watching that much TV but it’s helped me cope with the fact that we have so much free time here. This week we met SO many people. The stares that I was getting at the beginning of the week have transformed into smiles and waves. I feel much more comfortable here.
We started volunteering/teaching at the local primary school and preschool. Within a few minutes of being at the school, I quickly noticed how different Kenyan teaching styles are compared to American ones. The most important quality for students to learn in school is discipline. Wrong answer? Slap on the wrist with a bamboo stick. Sing the wrong note? Slap on the wrist. Talk out of line? Slap on the head. TALK BACK? Not finishing work? Not following instructions? Slap on the buttocks. Age is not a factor in discipline. Even the little three years old who barely speak get some slaps. I was horrified. I began asking people why they believe discipline should be prioritized to an extreme in schools. First, the class sizes for this school ranges from 120 to 130. The teacher does not have time to deliver individualized attention inside the classroom and needs the room to be silent to effectively deliver information. Second, discipline gives students opportunity. Many of these kids start school later because their parents cannot afford tuition or must take a break for a few years to help family businesses. A lot of the adults in the village stopped schooling in primary school. Here, school isn’t “ugh, school”, it’s “you get to go to school??” Students acknowledge that the teacher is their opportunity to climb to the type of lifestyles they want and they are taught this at a young age. At the preschool, when some toddlers were misbehaving, they had to sing a song about how fortunate they are to receive information from teachers and how this knowledge will allow them to become lawyers and doctors. When I asked sixth graders what they wanted to be when they grow up, I got a good number of doctors, lawyers, engineers, pilots, and surgeons. They seem to understand that short term pain is long term gain even at young ages. Also, a lot of students would need scholarships to go to the top high schools so they are additionally competing for that. Third, if the students decide to stay in the village for adulthood, many of the livelihoods here require extreme discipline, patience, and hard work like farming and fishing. But, watching my favorite fourth grade math student get slapped was so disturbing. He literally sits in the front of the class, is extremely patient, gets all the answers right, and helps others. I don’t agree with this style of teaching, but it is effective. Hope and I taught a math class this morning and we tried our American ways by bribing kids with lollipops. Let’s just say when we first walked into the room we got a nice, “good morning, teacher” and silence, and when we left kids were standing on their desks and shaking their heads at us. Definitely a memorable 45 minutes.
Outside of the classroom, I was surprised how genuinely curious the kids are. They asked me to do things that I would never do in front of 130 people normally like singing the national anthem alone (Hope seemed to be busy when I asked her to join me..). They have introduced me to their favorite songs (lots of Shakira fans in the fifth grade), favorite foods (I tried sugar cane for the first time!- my teeth are still sore), and favorite hobbies. I’ve met amazing singers, gymnasts, netball+volleyball+soccer players, mathematicians, and writers. They are a lot more accomplished than I ever was at their age. They have a music competition in Kisumu on Thursday (even the preschoolers are competing)! Sadly, I’m not allowed in Kisumu because of the protests, but I’m excited to hear all about it. I love that over the week they’ve become more comfortable coming up to me and just talking about their day. So far, I think Hope and I are apart of a friend group with sixth graders Grace, Joshua, Michelle, “Barack Obama” (funniest girl), and a few others. We have emerged from muzungus to friends. In a week, the students are all going to be taking their exams and then going on break, so I’m trying to savor the moments I have with them.
We also started going into the fields a few days ago. My research project is examining how social change (financially, socially, technologically, and environmentally) affects how farmers use Push-Pull and create their own technologies. It’s trying to get at how circular economies are formed and what influences farmers to recycle more, share their techniques, and be innovative. So far, I’ve interviewed 11 farmers. Wow. I first learned that “in order to be competitive in farming, you must be collaborative”. Farmers worked with groups across the village to develop new techniques and connect with NGOs such as Tree for Future and FarmTech. I learned that sweet potato is not season specific. Maize can heavily be affect by drought and floods. Sometimes, referring back to local plants like uyma can be more useful during times of crisis. NGOs come to local groups to teach about compost manure, which increases soil quality and reuses animal and crop waste. Radios often deliver information about mixed cropping, fruit planting, the value of planting veggies (more resistant, more profit, but more intensive labor), different market prices, what to plant during which weeks (weather concerns), and approaching natural disasters. IMF and World Bank used to provide extension officers which helped incredibly, but stopped supporting Kenyan farmers as of early 2000s. During 2007–2008 during political turmoil, many farmers got displaced. That’s a lot of random information that will all make sense when I finished and share my report. get excited. :0 The most surprising thing that I learned was how much farmers do to address climate change. When asked, “Who do you believe is responsible for climate change”, almost all farmers replied “EVERYONE”. When asked, “On a scale of 1–5, how much do you think you are responsible for SOLVING climate change”, the average answer was above 3 (the real average will be in the report). I met with Samuel Sana who made his own organic compost manure technology (SOO COOL) that allows the microorganisms efficiently and quickly decompose cow dung, green matter, and dry matter. He places a stick in this stacked layer of nutrients and if he pulls out the stick and it’s warm, he knows it’s working because the chemical reactions are taking place. He’s a climate ambassador and has been training other farmers about his cool sustainable technologies, working with NGOs like World Visitor, starting an initiative to regrow trees with neighboring farmers, and developing water strategies that help crops prosper during times of drought and flooding. Rose Otieno who adopted Push-Pull farming 12 years ago is on the road for social change. She’s proposing that each season farmers should be required to plant more than 5 trees and that local governments should enforce laws on environmental conservation (like controlling roaming animals that ruin plants and trees). Through Tree for Future, an NGO that works with one of her local women’s groups, she has learned how to control pests during increase droughts and improve soil quality (through recycling). It seemed that the farmers who have adopted Push-Pull for a longer period of time (who were also more successful) seemed to be more inclined to care about the climate and lead groups about integrated farming and climate resistant crops like casavine, sweet potatoes, and cowpeas. Lastly, farmers who adopted Push-Pull has have shared how push-pull works with many other farmers and relatives. From what I’ve seen in the last few days, farmers work together to uplift each other.
Aside from school and work, there have been lots of UNO games and movie nights in the Guest House. Joyce has taken my place as the reigning champion. I have learned to live with smaller spiders. I saw a spider yesterday that was completely flat. My new fear are ticks.
I have gotten a marriage proposal! After interviewing them, these farmers said I was to be their daughter in law. They showed me my new home which was quite close to theirs (5 feet). I’m not sure if I could be that close to the in-laws. So I respectfully declined (or I think I did).
I have lots of energy for the next week and am excited to start exploring. Hopefully a safari in the near future? I need to see a giraffe before I leave. Thank Mama Joyce and Hope for keeping me sane. Thanks for reading!
