Community Service

Hello everyone

Grant and I had a great weekend exploring. On Saturday, we spent several hours walking around the city of Nairobi and bargaining in the Maasi Market. After spending an hour bus ride back to Nyumbani, along which we saw a giraffe, we quickly turned around and went to the 15-aside Kenyan semifinal rugby match with another volunteer, Lene (she is from Norway). We were lucky enough to have sat next to an ex-rugby player so he could fill us in on all the rules! Next weeks final match will be KBC vs. Quinns!! We finished our night off by watching a movie with the high school girls (lucky Grant)-- this has become a rital: watching a movie on Fri-Sun with one of the cottages. Unfortunately the older girls like to watch scary movies, and I hate scary movies!

After mass on Sunday, Grant, myself, Lene, and Louise (the swedish-american volunteer) joined the standard 7 and high school boys to the Kenyan Horse Races. What an experience! It was beautiful: it was a grass track with a golf course in the middle; it was set in the Ngong hills, and there were monkeys swinging in the trees! Louise was the only one to bet on the horse races and she came away with 700 shilings (about $10). The betting was done by machines, but the odds were done manually under a tent with crowds of people watching. Most of the crowd were Africans, but there were a few with the large and elaborate hats, dressed to the nines, and smoking their long cirgarettes. One of the sponsers of Nyumbani owns a few horses that race in these races, one of which won today. Thus, they were able to take us into the elite "members only" club and teach us horse betting strategies. They also bought all the kids (15 of them) ice cream and payed for their entrance fees. There are many giving Kenyans here! Of course, we finished tonight off with watching Bolt, a Disney cartoon movie, with one of the young cottages.

Below are some pictures of our "community service" that we do from 2-3pm every day during the week. It is a way for the kids to give back to Nyumbani.


Volunteers (left to right): Louise, Heather, Lene, and Grant. The Shamba man (gardener) is Anthony. Kids include Brian and Ann.



Brain holding the broom that we sweep everything with: from grass, to twigs, to the floors of our room.



One of the children, Bridget, found this baby Black Momba snake (very poisonous) amongst the leaves she was sweeping. Don't worry, Anthony, the shamba man, came to the rescue and clobbered it with a branch.



Grant posing with the "twiggy broom." This broom is made from a hedge with thorns on it and is used as a rake. It is cheap, economical, and can easily be repaired when the twigs fall out. Grant made one when he was working with the Shamba man at the beginning of our stay here at Nyumbani.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We have another busy week filled with teaching.

Thank you to everyone who has commented on our blog.

Until next time,
Claire and Grant