Day 1 part 2

We made our first visit to the Life Centre School this afternoon and met all the children. The primary school has now been located on the nursery site after the school on the slum being bulldozed by the Government. The head teacher Sos Peter showed us around all the classrooms and the children welcomed us with songs and showing is what they had been learning. All the classrooms were very proud of role play shops that they had set up and their nature corners where they were growing beans and maize. We talked about maybe the enhancement of role play and planting on future visits. The primary school were all sitting exams during our visit today and we were also shown exam papers for the children in final nursery class. They are all doing very well and we were surprised that they were doing exams at this age. We also looked at the 0-2 year old nursery but there were no children in it at the time. They all seem to go home early so we will return in the morning to see the children using the nursery. We have discussed a plan with Alice and James of what we would like to do with the children while we are here. We have a lot to fit in as they break up on Tuesday for a 2 week break. An early night is needed by us all tonight for a new day to start our activities tomorrow.

Missed Flight but arrived safely ......

What a long and tiring journey we had to get here but we have arrived safe and sound. After an 8 hour flight from Heathrow to Nairobi we missed our connecting flight to Kisumu because we were sent to the wrong place in the airport and then the visas took a long time to wait for. After another 3 hour wait we finally got a flight to Kisumu and arrived at 11am Kenyan time (9am UK time). This afternoon we are going to visit the children at the school and take them all the very generous donations given to us. We are all really excited about starting our adventure and meeting the children. We are putting plans into place for all the resources and activities we are going to be doing with the children while we are here. We are planning to end our trip with a boogie mites performance after teaching it to the children and teachers over the week.
Carolyn, Hayley and Sarah-Jayne

Steph's reflection. feeling very lucky.

WOW, I don't even know where to start!!!!

I was very privileged to return to Yellow Dot Otterbourne and have parents say that we are assets to Yellow Dot to be able to do something like this. They loved reading the blog, and followed us every day. One parent said the blog brought her to tears and another parent said they took their child to asante romsey and saw pictures of Kenya on the wall and was explaining to the child that that is where Steph had gone to look after and help other children.

I am feeling very lucky to have a loving family, amazing friends, a roof over my head, electricity, water and all the other things we take for granted. Going to Kenya as really made me think about how lucky we are and do we really need too complain so much???

When I 1st stepped of the plane and drove through kisumu, I was shocked at how bad things were and I really hoped that we could make a difference out there!!!
My 1st memory was seeing all the children lined up at the gates of the Life Centre School, ready to welcome us, it was very emotional and just seeing their beaming smiles was enough to melt your heart. It is very clear how much the school means to the children and that they enjoy attending it and have the ability to learn new skills throughout their school day. Seeing their faces when you serve them their lunch (for some of the children it is their only meal) or play simple games with them is priceless, playing a simple game of skipping led to hours of fun and lots of happy children. It was lovely to see the children making the best of their situation by using bike tyres as hula hoops or collecting stones and drawing pictures in the dirt.
We experienced many different sights, sounds, smells, cultures and heat. The hussle and bussle of kisumu led to many laughable sights, seeing 3 piece suites tied to tuc tucs, buses filled with lots and lots of people and motorbikes carrying chickens and bicycles.
It was a great sight to see the delight and gratitude in James and Alice's face when we gave them all the things we had collected throughout Yellow Dot, and then to be able to help them even more by providing material for uniforms and books to assist the children's learning was a great feeling as we knew we would be making a difference.
I met children who's little smiles will stay with me forever and hearing stories from many different people about things that have touched my heart.
The thing that will stay with me is hearing the sound of the children singing, it is the most amazing sound and words can't describe how it makes you feel.

The life centre school is a fabulous place and is a safe haven for these children, this school has come a long way and once the nursery opens up it will see children progress through the school from 0-15 years old, which is a massive achievement and the teachers of the school should be very proud to be part of this. The Life Centre School would not be here if it wasn't for the C4C charity, this is a super charity and everyone involved in it work really hard to provide a better future for the children and their families.

This was an eye opening experience and has certainly made me think about things in a different way.
Looking back at the email I sent to Jane about going to Kenya, I feel it has certainly broadened my knowledge of how the less privileged live and it has given me an insight into different cultures. I have also met many inspiring people who are very passionate about what they do.
I feel very thankful for all we achieved over there and for the huge generosity from the Yellow Dot parents.

This was a life changing experience and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I would like to thank Paul, Shirley, Jude and Kathy, you are all amazing people and have hearts of gold. Also a massive thank you to my fellow Yellowdotters (my roomies) Maryanne and Carolyn, I couldn't have asked for nicer people to share this experience with, You are amazing at what you do and have a very caring nature. I think we did a great job and achieved so much in our time over there.

Lastly I would like to thank Jane for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime and to help make a difference to the children of kisumu.
I have memories that will last a lifetime.

It is very hard to put it all into words, but I think I have done my best.

Carolyn's reflections "counting my blessings"

I have a nice home, a job, a car and everything i need in life and i am able to feed and provide for my family, however, many in this world are not able to. This is what i saw in Kisumu. Many have very little and need help to survive. Children living on a rubbish dump scavaging for food and things to sell to survive. Parents scrapping together money to educate their children as well as feed their families. This is where charities are needed. If it wasn't for  C4C (Asante Coffee Shop) and the support of Yellow Dot Nursery the children at Life Centre School would not be where they are today. Now with the day care for 0-2 year olds opening soon they are educating children from 0-15 years old to hopefully have better lives in the future.
This trip really opened my eyes and as i said in my pre-trip thoughts really appreciate what i have. Never again will i moan about what i haven't got. Just the home comforts that we have like a bed, fridge, cooker, washing machine, electricity that we take for granted they don't have. The children have no toys. They play in the streets with their friends in the dirt. However, having said all the this all the people and children we met were very happy. They always had a smile on their face. They didn't complain. This is where the different cultures come in. This is the way they are used to living and they don't know any different.
It was really rewarding to part of this trip making a difference to their lives. To see their faces light up with a beaming smile when we took our gifts. To give a meal to a child which would be their only meal of the day and receive a big smile back from them. To experience the different culture, the sights, smells, sounds, heat and the shopping in the markets. To listen to the stories of their lives.
It certainly was an experience travelling around Kisumu. We travelled by tuc tuc and car. The roads are very busy, dusty and have hugh holes in them. Our little pot hole are nothing compared to the holes in their roads.
After budgeting very carefully and buying all we needed for the nursery it was really nice to have money left over. We were also able to buy material for uniforms, pencils, rubbers and sharpeners for the classrooms and mosquito nets for the beds. They were very grateful for this and it was lovely to see the gratitude on their faces.
This was an experience i wouldn't have missed for the world. It was everything i thought it would be and more and i couldn't have asked for nicer people to have shared it with than Maryanne, Steph, Paul, Shirley, kathy and Jude. You are such amazing caring people and i love you all .
Thank you to Yellow Dot for giving me this life changing opportunity.

chicken run

Today we had a last minute dash around. We went into town to buy all the pencils,rubbers and sharpeners for the nursery school, as we had promised! We also got 10 towels for the new 0-2 year old room, and our last purchase was 5 mosquito nets for James, Alice and the family.
The last couple of days we all couldn't get the young girl, Milicent, out of our minds. If you  recall back to one of our previous blogs, her mother died last month and she has to look after her 5 siblings and we wanted to help her in some way, so we decided to buy her 2 chickens (Steph was very brave to share a car with 2 chickens), so they can get eggs and sell the baby chicks later on. We visited her house in the slums. She lives in a tiny shack, and has to sleep in the kitchen area with her 5 siblings which is approximately 8x6. She was very grateful for the chickens and had tears in her eyes.

We will continue later as our flight is leaving.

After this it was back to the hotel for last minute packing and our last thoughts about the trip with Paul, Shirley, Jude and Kathy. Then we were airport bound, 7 people, 2 cars and 13 very empty suitcases!!!!!

Maryanne, Steph and Carolyn would like to say a big thank you to each and everyone of you that followed the blog. We hope you enjoyed reading it and we apologise for all the spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation and the very long blog in the middle of it all!!!!!

We believe we have made a difference to the children of The Life Centre School and look forward too seeing what the future holds for them!!!! Looking forward too seeing the daycare all set up with the equipment that we purchased over there!!!!
Last of all we would like to wish all the pupils of class 8 good luck in their exams.

Teaching Kenyan style

Today we spent time in the classroom. As the school is closing tomorrow, the school is starting to shut down. We were lucky enough to spend time in the classrooms with the teachers and children to get a feel of what goes on in a typical day.
We all spilt up and went to differnet classes. Maryanne went to Class 3 to begin with, when she walked in the teacher was not there, there was lots of English word on the black board, lots of CVC words and basic sentences. Since the teacher was not in the classroom, naturally, Maryanne got up and went through the words and sentences, the children all joined in and was able to say all the words and sentences back to me with confidence. Once she had finished with all the work on the board, Maryanne asked where is the teacher, one girl repiled, she is not here today! Maryanne then went to thr next door classroom and asked the teacher and she confirmed that the teacher was on a course today! Maryanne asked if they could join another class, which they did....the baby class! It was concerning that these children were left unattented and left to 'entertain' themselves. But this is how the culture is here, very layed back and have no worries. Maryanne then went into Class 1, they were doing their times table, it was taught the 'old fashion' way, on the black board and the teacher going through a few sums on the board with them and then they had to get their text books and do their sums in their exercise books. Maryanne was sitting at one of the tables of 5 boys, only 1 boy out of the 5 had a pencil, a very tiny pencil, i asked the other boys where their pencils were, and they replied thye dont have one, i then asked the teacher about the pencils and she replied they leave them at home, and went to the next door classroom and got some more pencils and shared them out. I thenspoke to the teacher about this and said would it help if we got pencils that stay at the school, with sharperners and rubbers, amd she replied with an enthusiastic YES. Maryanne thought that yes the children coming to the school is essential but if they do not have their pencil with them and have to wait until their friend has finished before they can start their work, how much learning is going in. We have made a decision that we are going to buy some small stationary boxes with  enough pencils,rubbers and sharpeners for each class, and then the children can use them During the day but must be given back to their teacher and the teacher must count that everything is back in the box. Hopefully this will resolve thr problem of sharing pencils and waiting.
Maryanne then went into Class 2, they were doing their division, i sat with a small group and helped some of them, the teacher then handed me a red pen and i had to mark them. The child that finished first and correctly had a song sing to him by his tescher and classmates, i loved this idea of praise, as we praise our children at Yellow Dot all the time and I was pleased that this was happening here too. Praise is so important, its a small gesture that goes such a long way and every child and adult feels more inspired when they are praised.
Maryanne thought the teachers were very engaged and knowledgeable., even though the classroom is very hot and very noisy as the classrooms are tinned and right next door to eachother, it didnt seem to bother the children or teachers. Maryanne feels that the children are getting a vdry good standard of teaching, and the most important thing is them being safe and not being on the streets!!
Carolyn spent the morning with middle class and teacher Janet. Janet asked Carolyn what she wanted her to teach and Carolyn said to just teach what she would teach on a normal day. To start there were 16 children in the class but 6 more joined from class 3. Janet asked all the children to stand and she said "good morning, how are you" to them and they all replied at once " good morning, i am fine, how are you. The teacher started by doing take away sums with them. She wrote on the blackboard the date, middle class and Life Centre School. She started by singing 2 little dickie birds sitting on a wall with them. She repeated each line twice and they repeated after her. Next she started singing 10 little birds sitting in a tree and throwing a stone to knock one of the birds out of the tree. She wrote on the the board the number 10 and drew 10 sticks next to it and crossed one out and got the children to count how many sticks were left and she then continued the song crossing out the sticks. She also did some sums with pictures. She drew cups and crossed out some cups and got the children to count how many were left. Janet then got some of the children up to do sums for themselves on the board and the children all had to get up and clap when they got it right and chanted a little song. Janet then put 3 sums on the board and gave all the children a pencil and piece of paper and asked them to write the sums on their paler and work them out. She gave Carolyn a red pen to go round and mark the sums when they had finished. Carolyn also helped the children who were struggling with the sums. All the class had to wait until all the children had finished before they carried on. After the maths lesson the teacher did a language lessson. The language was learnt a lot through singing and chanting. They were learning English 'a' words. They started by saying 'a' sounds like ba, ta, sa, pa, ra etc. they then put these slunds into words. The teacher asked for 'a' words the children could see in a book and they shouted them out. The teacher drew the word on tne board and wrote the word underneath. She did this for about 7 different words. After this she noticed some of the children were betting tired so she asked them all to run to the toilet and back which was the other side of the playground. They all did this which woke them up a bit. She then left it up to class 3 to teach some words and they stood up the front chanting words to the younger children like the teachers do. Everything is chanted and repeated twice all the time. After this it was 12 o'clock and lunch time. The children had to stand and say a prayer before they could come out for lunch. They all said the same prayer together. Carolyn talked to the teacher about how they teach the children. Carolyn explained that she was not a teacher and Janet asked how old the children she had were. Carolyn said 2 year olds. Janet asked how Carolyn taught them and Carolyn explained that the children learn through play and Janet said she had heard this from college. The teaching was good and the children sat very nicely and quietly considering it was hot and the other classes could be heard above the teachers voice at times.
Steph spent the morning in Daycare and Baby class with teacher Lillian, this class has an age range of 2 1/2 year olds to 4 year olds. Lillian started the lesson by singing "today is my favourite day" the children then repeated this to teacher Lillian, we then sang about the weather, singing "what is in the sky" children replied with the answer "sun" they were all pointing to the sky as they sang, Lillian then asked what shape the sun was children replied "circle" and drew the circle shape in the air. Teacher Lillian then started with drawing a number 1 on the blackboard, the children repeated this number and repeated this up to the number 5, Lillian then said she had a new number to teach them and drew the number 6 onto the blackboard, Lillian then asked if they knew what number it was and one of the older children replied "number 6". Lillian then asked the children to repeat what number it was and  showed them how to draw it in the air, all the children did this really well. Lillian then got each child their work book, called them up one by one and explained what she wanted each child to do, some were colouring the number 6 in, others were tracing the number 6 and the rest were asked to draw it. All the children did really well and teacher Lillian asked Steph to mark the children's work, Steph did this by ticking the page and putting a smiley face on it. Teacher Lillian then moved onto sounds and started with the letter "a", the children repeated this sound and drawing it in the air. Lillian then said a sound and asked who wanted to draw the sound "f", a little girl called out and went up to the blackboard and drew the letter f, she then did the same with sounds g, e, s, I and h. Lillian then pulled down a sheet with all the letters on and got a stick to point to each sound, all the children could repeat each sound, there were also pictures drawn on the board and the older children were asked to match the sound to the picture, which they could do and they also encouraged the younger ones to look at the picture and sound. They then ended the lesson singing 12345 once I caught a fish alive. Steph asked Lillian what their learning outcomes were and she replied the 2 1/2 year olds were concentrating on their muscle development. We spoke about exams back in England and what ages we took exams, Lillian was surprised that we didn't take our 1st exams til the age of 6 years old. Lillian then said that exams at the life centre school are taken in each class every term to assess their progress to enable them to move up to the next class. The youngest pupil taking exams is 2 1/2 years old and is achieving 86% in numbers and sounds. The class was then ended by Teacher Lillian saying thank you to Steph for visiting and that they were very thankful for having Steph attend their class.
On the way out of the school we bumped into the Massai warriors, we were lucky enough to have our picture taken and they did their traditional dance for us, this was a fun experience and one that we wont forget.
We then went to the Masaai market, where there were at least 20 stalls filled with African animals, materials and souvenirs to buy. We started at the top and were ushered to each stall and they all say no pressure into buying, but try to sell you their items, as you go round each stall your instinct is to pick things up and look at them, this is a big mistake as they then think you want to buy their items (maryanne told Steph not to touch anything, so Steph continued the walk round the market with her hands in her pockets). We slowly walked round and tried to buy something from every stall. There was lots of bargaining done and many different things purchased. We have had a fun filled day, tomorrow is our last full day so we are going to make the most of it.

Face painting marathon

The day started with more shopping for the nursery and school. We did a quick trip into town to buy material for the school uniforms. We worked out our budget and we were able to buy material for the uniforms much to Alice's delight. The parents have to pay for uniform so this helps the school to be self sufficient in the long run. The material wasn't as much as we had first thought so we were also able to buy the thread, buttons, elastic for the boys trousers, a tape measure and oil for the sewing machines. After this we travelled to the market again to buy the mattresses. We had to wait a while for the man who supplies the mattresses to come and get us. It was baking hot in the car and we also saw some funny but dangerous sights that you would never see at home. A whole 3 piece suite on top of a small tuc tuc, 2 people on a motorbike with a large mattress and 2 people on a motorbike with a chair on their head. The mattress man came and took us to his hut on the market. We had to walk through the streets of the market where many people tried to befriend us. They brought the mattressess to us, all 10 of them, and much to our delight they were half the price we had budgeted for. The mattresses will be for the beds that will be based in the 0-2 year old nursery. The mattresses were carried through the market to a waiting tuc tuc and all 10 were loaded ontop. Can hou imagine the sight? We followed the tuc tuc back to the nursery and on arrival the mattresses were unloaded and the children were very excited about the new arrival and helped carry them in.
After a refreshment we helped serve the children their lunch of rice and beans which is a everyday meal. The children lined up quickly youngest to oldest and were handed their plates. All portions were exactly the same even if they were only 2. During the lunch hour we talked to the children. They all liked to high five us and feel our skin and hair. Steph spoke to one of the children asking them what they had been doing in the morning and she said they had been reading, doing number work and playing outside.
After lunch we gave Maureen the seemstress the material we had bought and she was very happy and thankful.
We had taken some face paints over with us so we then had our marathon face paint as all the children wanted theirs done. There were approximately 100 children. They were all very excited about this and patiently waited their turn in a line.
After the face painting all the children went into one classroom and due to miscommunication the teachers were all expecting us to take the class. We decided to teach the class some of the traditional songs we sing at nursery at home and the children picked them up very quickly and joined in. After we finished we asked them to sing us some of their songs which they did.
While having a discussion in the afternoon we talked about sponsorship of the children to get them through high school. The children that are in year 8 will be moving onto high school next year, the fees for the school are expensive, more expenisve than the Life School Centre School. Shirley spoke to each child in year 8 today, 13 of them, and got their background so when we come back to the UK she will be able to publicise this and hopefully get sponsorship for some of the children. While talking to the children, they opened up to Shirley and one story hit us all hard. A young girl, in year 8, aged 15, just lost her mother last month, she is the oldest child of 4, her father is not around much and is a drunk. This young girl has to get up early in the morning, round 4am to get all her siblings up and washed ready for the day, she then gets to school for 6.30 am! During the lunch hour she quickly runs home to feed the younger two siblings. She is one of the brighter girls in the class even with such responsibility at a young age!
Shirley asked the teachers how many of them will go to high school, the teachers replied "all of them". This shows that they believe in each and every child that attends the school, they are passionate about them no matter what background they come from. This follows the same ethos as we do at Yellow Dot.