Ruari Isted's Story

After 5 months in Ruiru my take on the town has changed dramatically from the first time I was the dusty roads and people milling around the street with little to do. But to be fair the rains have come, so the dust has all gone but all the people are still milling around with not enough jobs to keep them occupied. But now these guys recognize me, and even the street kids don’t bother me any more, I feel like I have been accepted as a part of Ruiru town, from the place that I buy my meat, to the Ndanga Hotel where I watch Premiership football with the boys every Saturday, and I think Bolton Wanderers are now most peoples second team in England.

I started out my experience in schools by marking at Githunguri Primary School, and when marking exams that are multiple choice A – D, and with some children getting less than 25% highlights the problems that the school faces, cramped class rooms all with 40 + children in them with inadequate supplies of books/pens/pencils. The first thing that struck me was they were being taught in their 3rd language, after there mother tongue, Kikuyu, Kiswahili, then English. This meant that if by the age of about 9 if the child couldn’t understand any English then could understand nothing at school, and as such couldn’t answer the questions written in front of them.

After New Year I went to Kihuririo Primary School, being the first white volunteer that had been to the school, which meant that for the children that I was teaching I was likely to be the first white person that they’d had a proper conversation with. To start with I took most of the PE, which normally the over worked teachers would just give them a ball and send them out to play. Lots of running, stretching, and playing football and netball with balls made of plastic bags and twine, the kids started to understand my English accent, a not particularly strong Northern one. This meant that I was able to cover teacher’s lessons when they were away or busy. Teaching English turned out to be more difficult than I’d imagined, as I’ve never been taught English as a foreign language, so had to work out what tense we were in, as well as explaining all the exceptions to the rules. It’s amazing how often I before E except after C is wrong!

I did however turn into some what of a Maths guru, and enjoyed it immensely, again I needed to remember how to do long division, and multiples of fractions without a calculator, but with Maths it really feel like they know something new after a lesson, whereas with English your not sure who has understood and who has not. Gaining the trust and respect of children who either saw you through skeptical eyes or as a source of jokes and amusement was my greatest achievement, and something that has brought me the most pride, and got me up in the morning for the very bumpy half hour matatu ride into school 3 days a week.


I would recommend teaching at Kihuririo to everybody, as long as they were willing to work hard and have time to get to know the natural ebb and flow of the place, 1 term flew by, but by the end I consider all the teachers to be good friends, and was enough time to see a real improvement in the ability of the children, even if it was only from 30% to 50%, but if that keeps going they may even get A’s in there exams, something I’ll be writing to find out about. If the results seem low you have to remind yourself of the circumstances at home, the only time to do school work is during daylight, but this is when water needs to be fetched, firewood found, fires lit, and the work on the shamba needs to be done. And in a school where being an orphan wasn’t the exception and a lack of food during the drought meant children couldn’t concentrate I was proud of every mark they got right rather than annoyed at every one they got wrong brought home the reasons behind there struggles academically, they had more important things on there mind. I learned something new every day here, and at the times that I forgot the hardships and little general knowledge something would bring me back down to Earth. Not knowing that the caps of the earth are covered with ice, or about global warming, or to my last day when I was telling the children where I was traveling next to find out that quite a few had never been to Nairobi, and the furthest was Ruiru brought me back down with a bump. I will definitely miss the place.

There isn’t enough space to write about almost anything that I experienced, but I think these are very individual feelings, and the same event will evoke different reactions in everybody, but just seeing how you react to these situations is what my stay was all about to me, and in many cases my reactions were very different to what I expected, but I guess that is the process of character building, and character building is something that Ruiru definitely brings you.

NOVEMBER UPDATE
The trip to the school on the 19th of November was my first venture outside of Ruiru, other than the first journey from the airport. Traveling in Sylvester’s new car (and proud of it he is too), we made our way along the Thika road towards the dirt tracks that lead to the school, and it was from these roads that I saw just a small part of the vast agricultural output that Kenya supplies, acres and acres of coffee plants lined the route, only occasionally broken up by the odd tea or banana plantation. It was quite crazy to think that the obviously fertile ground was being used to produce a good who’s price has more than halved in the last decade, and that their was no option but continue to produce this barely profitable bean.

Having arrived at the school, via a journey spent swerving to try to avoid the bigger potholes in the dirt roads, we waited for the children to turn up and settle into class. I helped out in the primary school class, although I seemed to be more of a source of amusement for the children than a help in their efforts of writing letters and colouring in their pictures. So I ended up being official pencil crayon sharpener for the morning, then later checked the letters for any glaring mistakes that they could correct before sending the letters to their sponsors. The standard of writing varied substantially, but this was to be expected from a class made up of all ages, but in all of the letters I was amused by references to the weather being cold. Granted in the evenings it isn’t hot, but having left a near frost in England it made me smile each time I read it.

The primary class finished first, so whilst some of the children drifted home some waited for their guardian to emerge from their meeting. This was my first chance to play with the children, and witness the joy that they get from some simple pleasures. Randomly I started juggling with some stones, not very well might I add, but this was attempted to be copied by the children, with a varying degree of success, but fun and laughter all round. The games then continued with a version of ‘jacks’, and a failed attempt by me to explain ‘naughts and crosses’ to a gaggle of giggling girls, I think the sight of a tall white guy getting dirty drawing lines in the dust on the ground was plenty to keep them entertained.

When handing out the soda’s I was dubious as to how refreshing warm tango would be having been sat in the car all day, but much to my surprise it was excellent, just what the doctor ordered. Then came the handing in of school books for those leaving primary and secondary school, and this was my first reality check of how big a struggle trying to teach these children must be. The kids were lucky if they had one book on one subject, although some were fortunate enough to have a couple more, although I despised doing my homework, I’m not sure how it would be possible without pens, paper or a textbook. So we collected what they had for redistribution to next year’s classes, although the state of some of the books suggested that they had been passed through many students already.

On the way back to Ruiru we took a different route, still as many pot holes, and even more fields of coffee plants, and a chance to see some of the shacks, that the students probably lived in, or at least similar to the ones that I saw…. and another hindrance to their education, work can only be done in daylight, and with that dying quickly at around 7 it doesn’t leave much time to get chores and homework completed, something I hadn’t previously considered.
I’m very much looking forward to my next 6 months, and am sure I will learn all sorts during my time in Kenya, and so you’ll be hearing more from me in later updates. Bye for now. Ruari