Another Day At the School

I worked all day again yesterday at the Ruana Secondary School and this time Eric and I actually felt good about what we accomplished by the time the day was over because we put together all of the library shelves (with some help from Boniface, the mathematics teacher at the school, who was a really nice guy. He will be in charge of the library.) and some of them were filled with books. The library looked like a real library!!! I think that the library team will return tomorrow to finish shelving everything.

The education team also felt good about their day because they sensed that the members of their audience, educators primarily, were truly engaged in their presentations.

As we had done the day before, we broke for chai and sandwhiches in the AM, but this time we ate under a tent that had been errected by some of the students. Lunch was also served under the tent. I had passion fruit for the first time. It was good, but very seedy like a pomegranate. The passion fruit had just been picked from a bush on the school property.

Before we left the Ruana Secondary School at the end of the day, Boniface gathered all of the students together. They thanked us for what we had done and we had a group photo taken. Then we headed back to Meru with a stop at the Nakamot, which is referred to as the Walmart of Kenya. Other than the fact that the store is large and has lots of merchandise, I did not see much of a similarity, but it definitely appeared to be the best place in Meru to shop for groceries, body care products, household goods, and so on.

When we arrived back at our hotel, a woman and a man from Meru were busy setting up tables full of mostly locally-made items to sell to us. Among the more unusual items were a nativity set made out of dried banana leaves and set inside a large gourd, the scene from the Last Supper also made of dried banana leaves, wonderful jewelry, some of which was made of bone, dried banana leaves, beads or wood, carved wooden masks, and beautifully carved ebony bowls. Members of our group purchased quite a few of these items.

As we have done every night in Meru, most of the group gathered in the bar for dinner and conversation. Beth and I shared an order of vegetable samosas and spinach paneer with naan. Most everyone stayed up late to watch the match between Ghana and Uruguay in the World Cup. Everyone was rooting for Ghana, but sadly the team lost in a shoot out.

Tomorrow Beth and I leave for Nairobi so we can fly to Cairo early Sunday AM. The rest of the group will go back to St Lucy's School and maybe to a game park and then return to Nairobi to catch a flight back to London and then various flights to the US.

TomorrB

TheOthe

As we did