It has now been one week since i began teaching at Bishop Imathiu Secondary (Bliss). I am teaching form three, junior level, grammar and composition English. I am feeling a little lost, and trying to understand the best way to teach them, but i am also enjoying it. The Kenyan education system is a lot of repetition and memorization, and not a whole lot of hands on, participation in class, kind of learning. Right now we are getting ready to begin writing, so we are learning about how to make sentences and paragraphs flow smoothly. This weekend their first writing assignment is to write one paragraph, using transition words, describing what they did this weekend. I am anxiously awaiting the outcome.
Bliss is one of the only day schools in the area. Most people in secondary want to board because they think that boarding school will get better results on their KCSE (SATS). This is mainly due to the English occupation period when white people didn't want their white children in school with the Africans, so they were sent to boarding. Of course whatever the English did was far superior to the Africans, so became the standard of sending your children to boarding school. Personally i am against this idea, i think that children need the support and guidance of their parents during these important years of their life, but i have to respect other people's choices. Bliss is usually for students who did not get a high enough score on their KCPE, so they wouldn't be eligible for a boarding school. KCPE's are like SATS but they are taken in eighth grade to determine how good of a high school you get into. To me it is a very strange and complicated system, that doesn't allow for much variety of learning, but hopefully during my time here i will be able to help them understand what am important tool good writing can be. Also, they go to school on Saturday, yuck.
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January is the month of muchukus (white people in the local language). People decide they have something important to give, and take a trip around the world for a week or two. I hope i do not offend people, i am not writing this about every shot term mission trip, but i do think that a vast majority of mission trips set out with very little education about the people and culture they are visiting. And can be quite ignorant of their long term effects on the people they visit. So much of Kenya is poor. There are so many aid organizations and charities working in this country, that many a time people become accustom to getting free stuff. I am not in any way saying this is a bad thing. These organizations save many peoples lives through the distribution of much needed food, health, and other necessary supplies. But at the same time it has created an idea that they will just be given stuff, especially by white people. I try so hard to not act like this. i do, on occasion, buy needed things for people or pay school fees, but i try and do it as discreetly as possible. I am not here to be an ATM, i am here to experience God, and share that experience with others. When i go to towns or places where they don't know me, i hear incessant cries of, "muchokus, give me sweet, give me your phone, give me your earrings..."
So many of the short term missions that come bring all of this stuff to give away, usually junk that the locals could buy in town. I am not against the giving of stuff or the people giving it, but it creates a wall between the people and the visitors. the local people look at these people as a meal ticket and try to become their best, best friend. For instance, there is a lady who is visiting right now, who brings and enormous about of cheap stuff with her, and people just glom onto her like she is the second coming of Christ. She thinks she is just the best of friends with all of these people. She comes every year, and every year is the same. It irritates me to no end. If you want to really do something for the better of the community find something that will make a real difference. Last year one group used their money to buy lunch for all of the students in a primary school, for one year. That was so awesome, i love that idea so much! how much better can you learn on a full stomach? which just creates a circle of good things in the community.
Again i hope i didn't offend anyone, but please remember this the next time you go on a mission trip or even just take a vacation to a foreign place. It should be about helping people become the best of themselves, not stuff.
Love you all sooo much, and hope that everyone is doing well!
Suzanne
Bliss is one of the only day schools in the area. Most people in secondary want to board because they think that boarding school will get better results on their KCSE (SATS). This is mainly due to the English occupation period when white people didn't want their white children in school with the Africans, so they were sent to boarding. Of course whatever the English did was far superior to the Africans, so became the standard of sending your children to boarding school. Personally i am against this idea, i think that children need the support and guidance of their parents during these important years of their life, but i have to respect other people's choices. Bliss is usually for students who did not get a high enough score on their KCPE, so they wouldn't be eligible for a boarding school. KCPE's are like SATS but they are taken in eighth grade to determine how good of a high school you get into. To me it is a very strange and complicated system, that doesn't allow for much variety of learning, but hopefully during my time here i will be able to help them understand what am important tool good writing can be. Also, they go to school on Saturday, yuck.
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Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which i can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful when i am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
January is the month of muchukus (white people in the local language). People decide they have something important to give, and take a trip around the world for a week or two. I hope i do not offend people, i am not writing this about every shot term mission trip, but i do think that a vast majority of mission trips set out with very little education about the people and culture they are visiting. And can be quite ignorant of their long term effects on the people they visit. So much of Kenya is poor. There are so many aid organizations and charities working in this country, that many a time people become accustom to getting free stuff. I am not in any way saying this is a bad thing. These organizations save many peoples lives through the distribution of much needed food, health, and other necessary supplies. But at the same time it has created an idea that they will just be given stuff, especially by white people. I try so hard to not act like this. i do, on occasion, buy needed things for people or pay school fees, but i try and do it as discreetly as possible. I am not here to be an ATM, i am here to experience God, and share that experience with others. When i go to towns or places where they don't know me, i hear incessant cries of, "muchokus, give me sweet, give me your phone, give me your earrings..."
So many of the short term missions that come bring all of this stuff to give away, usually junk that the locals could buy in town. I am not against the giving of stuff or the people giving it, but it creates a wall between the people and the visitors. the local people look at these people as a meal ticket and try to become their best, best friend. For instance, there is a lady who is visiting right now, who brings and enormous about of cheap stuff with her, and people just glom onto her like she is the second coming of Christ. She thinks she is just the best of friends with all of these people. She comes every year, and every year is the same. It irritates me to no end. If you want to really do something for the better of the community find something that will make a real difference. Last year one group used their money to buy lunch for all of the students in a primary school, for one year. That was so awesome, i love that idea so much! how much better can you learn on a full stomach? which just creates a circle of good things in the community.
Again i hope i didn't offend anyone, but please remember this the next time you go on a mission trip or even just take a vacation to a foreign place. It should be about helping people become the best of themselves, not stuff.
Live in such a way that those who know you, but don't know God, will come to know
God because they know you.
unknown
Love you all sooo much, and hope that everyone is doing well!
Suzanne
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