Friday was my first day heading out to school with Uncle Roger, which is what I planned for most of my time in Eldoret. That meant waking up at 6:45 to catch the bus heading out to the school, which was about 16 kilometers from town (actually not too far from Grandy's farm). A lot of the teachers take the bus to school with the kids, which seemed a little weird to me, but I guess that's just because most teachers in the US have a car, and that's definitely not the case here. When we got to school all the students and teachers put their stuff away and then headed to the center square for the flag raising ceremony. The school looks something similar to the elementary section at Morrison, the school I went to in Taiwan. There was a center square that was grass with stone paths through it and probably half of it was all cement with the flag pole in the middle of that section. The class rooms formed a square around this central area, opening onto a cement walkway around the square. I love schools like this that open to the outside. I guess it's only practical when you have pretty warm weather the whole year, but it's so much nicer leaving a class room and seeing the sky and breathing fresh air rather than walking into a hallway where a solid portion of your attention has to be devoted to not being run over (yes I'm talking to you Sentinel High School). Watching the kids line up for the flag raising ceremony brought back memories of lining up outside before school in elementary school. Even with their school uniforms and the formal nature of the event, there was still a special connection for me to see the kids messing around and fidgeting as they stood there. I think kids are a big cross-cultural connector, and they definitely have been for me, because they still haven't learned enough about culture and society to be that different from kids from a completely different culture. What I'm try to say is that squirrely little Kenyan second-graders seem to be to act just about the same as squirrely little American second-graders. A group of older student marched out, in a military-type procedure (but much more sloppy) to raise the flag. A group of students (I believe one of the classes) had lined up at the front, facing the other students, and now they sang the Kenyan national anthem and said the Kenyan pledge of allegiance (or whatever they call it, but that's basically what it was). The pledge seemed to interesting to me because they pledge their allegiance to the republic and also to the president, which seems to me to be somewhat undemocratic, maybe just because we don't do that in our pledge of allegiance. There's also a commitment to nation building in the pledge, which just sounded funny to me because it's different from the American version. After that they sang a song, with drum and tambourine accompaniment, that they had prepared. Then two kids came forward to read passages of scripture and then two other kids came forward to pray for the school, the country, the impending exams, and finished with the Lord's Prayer and a creed I didn't recognize. I'm not sure how much of this is standard across Kenyan schools and how much of it happens specifically because this is a private school that was founded by a man who, from what I've heard, is a very sincere Christian and was adamant about instilling those values at the school. The school administrator gave a short talk to the students about listening during the scripture readings and songs, and told them to take care to prepare themselves for exams. I guess next week are exams, which kind of disappoints me because I would have liked to come at a time when I could see more of the school operating as usual, and maybe be able to help out where I could.
Fridays are pretty laid back for Roger; he only has two classes, so there's a decent amount of in between time. Kids don't have one teacher like American elementary schools, but have teachers that teach different subjects, similar to American high schools. Kids still have desks with all of their supplies and books in it, and always stay in the same room with the various teachers moving around to the different rooms when it is time to change subjects. With this, and I think with the number of teachers at the school, it seems to me there are a lot more teachers walking around than I ever saw when I was in school. Maybe it's just because now I'm walking around with them rather than being in class. We popped into one of the classes (I think it was fifth grade) and all the kids, who had been rummaging around getting ready for class, all crisply stood up and in unison said "Good morning Mr. Ogola and our visitor." Roger returned their greetings and introduced me, which earned another unison response from them. It was clear in every interaction I'd seen that the students show a great deal of respect to teachers, much more so than in the US. Not that these kids are angels by any means, but they are very respectful to their teachers. The weird thing about that was that I had now been put in the teacher category and over the course of the day had a number of kids solemnly and formally shake my hand when we talked or even I greeted them.
Talking more with Roger about how the school operated, I found out that it is one of the top schools in the area and very difficult to get into. It's a combination of kids from the children's home across the street that Kip Keino started and kids from the area who applied and were selected. The kids who apply pay tuition fees that cover both for them and for the kids coming from the children's home. I can see why it's a highly sought after school - as far as the quality of teachers and supplies the kids had available to them I thought they looked just as good as my elementary education. While Roger was working on stuff in his room I had a chance to read an article he had on the wall about Kip Keino and the founding of the school. I knew generally about his accomplishments as an athlete (note for non-track enthusiasts: Keino was one of the first great African runners to make an impact on the international stage. He won gold medals in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics as well as a bronze in '68 and a silver in '72 if I'm remembering right, in the 1500m, 5000m, and the 3000 steeplechase. He was one of the most dominant runners in the world during this period and was an integral part of paving the way for the dominance of the current generation of African runners) but I hadn't ever heard about what he had done after he was done running. He came back to his farm and outside Eldoret and never moved or changed the way his lived because of the money he made from his running. Instead he and his wife started taking in children off the streets, until by the 1990s they had over 70. Keino was finally able to realize a dream he had to build a school that his kids could go to. With some of his money and lots of donations from people all over the world they were able to build a primary school across the road from the farm. The farm now has an impressive herd of cows that has parlayed into a large milk and cheese production operation, the proceeds from which also go toward keeping the school running. As I said, it is now one of the top schools in the area, and all the kids that live at the home go to school there so they are put in a position to be successful and become productive members of society. In addition to this great story, reading the article and talking with Roger, both emphasize that he is a really down to earth guy and amazingly humble for someone who has had the kind of success that he has. Roger said that he is around all the time and comes over to see how things are at the school pretty regularly. I told Roger that if I could meet him when he was around that would be phenomenal. Roger casually said that he was actually probably going to meet with him on Monday. I couldn't believe it. Kip Keino was one of the names I learned growing up when I was getting into running, one of the great legends from the past. To meet him I can't even say it would be a dream come true because I never entered my mind that this might ever happen. Besides Keino, there's a lot of phenomenal current Kenyan runners who's kids go to the school. At one break Roger called over one kid who was Keino's grandson, who he said "runs like a bullet", and the son of Bernard Barmasai, the world record holder in the 3000m steeplechase a couple years ago (I'm pretty sure his record has been broken, but I don't follow the pro running enough to know for sure). It's funny to see these kids because you know they have the genes of world champions, but right now they're just goofy second and third graders that can't wait to get out of class so they can play football. On Roger's desk can be seen signed pictures and autographs from another handful of world class runners that he knows because he's taught their kids. Ezekiel Kemboi (2009 steeplechase world champ), Moses Massai (26:49 10k runner (note within a note: for those of you who don't know 10k times, that means he's running about 4:19 per mile. It also means he's run 10 seconds faster than any American has ever run)), another runner who had the #3 1500m time in the world in 2009, and another with a couple top finishes at the world cross country championships. Being the fan of running that I am, I was blown away. I hope I can meet some of these guys, which may be as simple as waiting for them to come pick their kids up after school.
Roger introduced me to Hayato, the Japanese volunteer that mainly helps him with PE and recreation. He's about a year into a two year stint volunteering at the school and stays in a house set aside for volunteers over on the farm. He's always smiling and polite when you talk to him, but still strikes me as a pretty laid back guy. I was immediately impressed with his command of Swahili, which he spoke fluently talking with other teachers. He also spoke excellent English, so chalk him up as another multi-lingual person that really impresses me with his linguistic versatility. I headed out with him for a PE period later in the morning. Both him and Roger had bemoaned the way the PE got cut into in the name of the "examinable" subjects, which hamstrung their ability to actually teach the kids that much. In this case by the time kids came out there was less than half an hour left for the period, so Hayato just organized them to groups based on who wanted to play football, netball (a game that seems to me like kind of a cross between handball and basketball. I guess it's pretty popular here), and volleyball and we headed out to the field with them. Apparently teachers will just ignore what the time schedule is supposed to be if the subject they are infringing on is not an "examinable" one (then again the thoughts I've heard on this are Roger's, the art and PE teacher, so it's far from a balanced perspective. I still think I agree with him though). The groups split almost completely into boys playing football and girls playing netball and volleyball. We headed with the boys to play football, and Hayato split it into 4th graders against 5th graders with him and I playing on the 4th graders' team. These kids were good enough that I definitely wasn't dominating, and in a lot of cases wasn't winning one-on-one matchups unless I ended up just muscling the kid out of the way (which I generally tried to avoid) or just out ran them. It didn't help me that I absolutely could not tell who was on my team, so I mostly just played defense and cleared the ball to other end when I got it. There were still one or two times when I got up to speed and then some kid challenged me and I sent them flying, but I didn't hurt any of them bad enough that they didn't bounce back up and start chasing the ball usually before I even had a chance to ask if they were alright.
After we came in it was time for "break" which meant all the teachers went over to the teachers' lounge and had a bread and tea. Almost all the teachers were in there, and as far as I could tell no one was specifically monitoring the kids during the break. I met several of the teachers, going through the same polite explanation of how I was related to him and what I was doing here a couple of times. As far as I'm concerned the bread and tea break is pretty essential because they don't eat lunch until 1:00, so by the 11:00 break I was already hungry and without something to tide me over then I think I would have headed out and ran down a wildebeest to eat by the lunch time came. After the break Roger and Hayato took me over to see the farm and the children's home there. It felt to me like something in between a house and a dormitory, but overall looked like a fine place to live, and being out on the farm provided a lot of open areas to explore that I've always thought are an awesome thing to have growing up. The little kids at the home not old enough for school yet were going through activities with their nursery teachers. When we showed up a lot of the kids shouted Hayato's name, apparently he's pretty popular with the nursery kids. In general the kids here react a lot differently to me than other kids I've ran into, I think because they see a lot more foreigners and mzungus than your average Kenyan kid. I still definitely stick out but I'm not the oddity that I am other places. Kids are more willing to come up and talk to me and they don't giggle when I walk by. I must say, it's very refreshing to be at least a little more normal.
We came back and Roger was supposed to have an art class, but he said with exams next week the class probably wouldn't come at all. I surprised though, because it was the first grade class so I couldn't imagine them really working hard to get ready for exams, but I guess even the first graders are gearing up for exams. I don't remember having any kind of final exams until high school, and even then the level of preparation and anticipation here seems to me to be at a level I didn't see until finals week in college. We hung around in the classroom waiting for them, but sure enough, they didn't show up. Roger took me over to see the dormitories. From fifth grade on all the students board at the school and the teachers take shifts staying overnight at the school in the dorms. From there we headed over to the spacious cafeteria/multi-purpose building for lunch. The students make a long line that goes out the door waiting to be served (another thing that reminds me of elementary and middle school) but the teachers have their own table to get food out of a couple of crock pots. It was an extremely healthy meal of rice and stew, so I continued my extremely healthy eating pattern that has existed over here. Roger was free for the afternoon, which was only two hours because they eat lunch so late, so him and I headed out to the field to hit golf balls, a new hobby he has been taking up. He's pretty big all around sports enthusiast, having played about everything that you could play back in his school days, and is a big advocate of kids getting involved in sports as much as possible. It was a great, relaxing way to spend the afternoon and the weather was fantastic. It was one of those times when I felt like I could really get used to this. After a while some kids came out to play hockey, so Roger went over to coach/officiate/cheerlead/play. The first time I heard hockey mentioned here was on the news and they were talking about the Kenyan national team gearing up for some competition and I was trying to figure out how a country that didn't have any ice closer than the top of Mount Kilimanjaro (I know that sounds like a joke, but if you really think it is then look at a map and see if you can prove me wrong) could have a hockey team. They quickly cut to a bunch of guys running around a grass field with long skinny sticks hitting a ball around, and I realized this was field hockey, which it turns out is a fairly big sport in Kenya (I would say maybe roughly on par as far as national interest with ice hockey or soccer in the US). I've mentioned that to several of the students at the school, and they think it's even funnier that people would play hockey on ice then I thought it was to play on grass. Then again, the whole concept of going anywhere near ice recreationally, or at all, is a pretty foreign concept to them. All you needed to do was watch Patrick try to ski when he came to Missoula to figure that one out. I stayed on the sidelines and watched, along with a couple kids who weren't playing (I'm not sure why, but if Roger's not yelling at them, I'm not going to say anything). I started talking with the kids, and they started peppering me with questions. After not too long, one of them started asking me about how Americans felt about Bin Laden being killed. It cracked me up to hear this from a third-grader in Kenya, but to me it was a little bit of confirmation of my notion that people here are far more aware of international events than people in America. I carefully explained to them that most Americans were glad he had been killed because they felt that now the world is safer. They launched into a bunch of questions about the particulars of how Bin Laden had been killed, and I tried to keep my answers pretty general. I felt like there were a lot of American stereotypes wrapped up in this bunch of questions so I wanted to answer honestly but as diplomatically as I could without distorting the "facts" (I'm not comfortable calling what I know about what happened to Bin Laden "the facts" because I just know what I've heard from the American media. For all I know they staged the whole thing just like the moon landing).
We caught a ride back to town with one of the parents coming to pick their kid up, and then headed to the athletic club Roger often goes to to play squash after school. He pointed out a loop around the numerous soccer and rugby fields there, as well as some adjacent corn fields. I decided it would be good to go for a tempo run (for those of you who have been living under a rock/haven't run competitively/never paid attention to your training a tempo run is just an up tempo run at a comfortable pace. Without getting into the particulars of it, for me it usually means I'm running somewhere between 5:40 and 6:00 per mile for 20-40 minutes) since I hadn't really hit anything faster yet for the summer and wanted to get a little bit of an idea of where I'm at. I ran the loop to see where it went, and it was a nice, flat, grassy single track loop, with the notable exception of a dead dog on the far side of the loop that was covered in flies and made me start to feel nauseous when I passed. Every subsequent lap I held my breath for about 3 seconds passed there. Without taking you through the minute details of the workout, let me say that a 25 minute tempo turned into a battle of will. I had hoped to go 30 minutes, but I was pushing myself harder than I really should have just to keep the pace respectable through 25 minutes. As well as my relaxed runs had been going, I clearly underestimated the effect of the elevation on this one. I headed home with Allan, who had come up later on his own, and in the matatu on the way back to town a guy jumped in, exclaimed a greeting to me, gave me a fist bump, and promptly asked for 500 schillings. I responded incredulously that I definitely wasn't going to give him 500 schillings. I didn't want to treat that like a reasonable request that I might consider, or even as something I was apologetic for not doing. I think I'm ever so slowly getting better dealing with pushy Kenyans, whether shop owners or not, who see you as a walking money dispenser and are just looking for where the lever is they have to pull. People had asked me for money before, but usually it was for five or ten schillings, which I still wouldn't give them, but that isn't unreasonable to give someone the change you have in your pocket. 500 schillings though, is over $5 US, and I would estimate that would go about 4 times farther here than the US. Put it this way: you could go out to lunch with 3 of your friends for 500 schillings without skimping at all, and he acted like he really expected I might give it to him. The best I could figure is that maybe there were foreigners who would hand over the money that easily. I asked Allan about it and he said that a lot of Americans come just planning on spending a set amount they have budgeted for the trip, so they don't necessarily say no to people who ask them for money on the street. Allan and I were both pretty wiped out when we got back so it was a pretty low key evening. He fell asleep on the couch and I went to bed after not too long myself.
The camera I have is still the bain of my existence, but I've been able to get some shots that at least give you a decent idea of what the countryside looks like. I don't have all that many shots of in town, partly because it doesn't look all that different from Nairobi except that it's much smaller, and partly because I don't like taking my camera into town with me. I'd like to say that's because I don't want somebody to snatch it, but if I'm really honest a big part of it is that I just don't want to look like a tourist, which cracks me up because it follows that I'm assuming that I won't look like a tourist without the camera, which makes about as much sense as getting in Grandy's way when she has her machete.
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