Easter pics 2

A couple more Easter pics below. As I mentioned before, we had an exciting and fun-filled Easter holiday. As tradition, 15 British Airways crew members volunteered their day at Nyumbani to put on an Easter egg hunt, dress a member in a 6 foot Easter bunny costume, and hand out gifts like masks (see pics below), squirt guns, and windmills. They also donated clothes, shoes, and toys for the kids. This tradition has been happening for 15 years. It was started by one BA crew member who visited Nyumbani and wanted to do more. Thus this person set up a trust fund in the UK for donations and organized a crew to volunteer 2x/year: Halloween and Easter. There were several crew members this Easter holiday who had been coming for up to 12 years! What an inspiration they are to the kids.

The April Holiday program started yesturday. The kids are on holiday from school for a month, so during this time us 5 volunteers are helping teach a morning revision class for 1.5 hrs (I am teaching standard 2 and Grant is teaching standard 6), then after tea we are teaching a "club class" for standards 1-6, which consists of art/writing, math, library, sports/dancing, and computers. Grant and I are CO-TEACHING mathematics! We are focusing on multiplication and division, and trying to do as many hands-on games to make math FUN!! We had standard 6 yesterday and I think they had fun. We are lucky that we have 4 high school helpers, so if the kids start speaking in Swahili then they can translate for us. The classes are taught in English.

After lunch us volunteers then do community service with a different cottage each day for an hour. Yesterday we moved a compost pile using one shovel, one wheelbarrow, several plastic grocery bags, a shower curtain (which wripped), and about 8 kids grades 1-6. It was quite a site!! After community service our day is finished. I have been trying to go for a run in the afternoon or we walk to the grocery store (20 min walk) to get a breathe away from the kids--which is necessary.

People have been asking us what type of food we have been eating. Every week it is the same menu. As a staple we have either white rice or Ugali--a traditional African food made from flour and water (it looks and tastes like mooshy rice). The accompany this starch we have a variety of beans, maize, sometimes potatoes and a small amount of goat meat if we are lucky, liver (haven't eaten that yet!), and lastly the favorite is fries on Saturday! Not too exciting!!

That's it for now. We are off to do some community service: sweeping the grounds with twiggy brooms!

Much love,
Claire and Grant