Football practice

Here are some photos from a spontaneous football practice with the primary boys. It was a ton of fun! Thanks to everyone that donated cleats and socks. They loved them!

Football training

A Haircut

Not going to write a lot here; it's mainly the pictures. I got a haircut tonight. It wasn't til I saw it lying on the ground that I realized how much hair I had. Everyone here (both boys and girls) is required to keep their hair buzzed all the time, so they have haircutting sessions probably three times per week on average. The haircuts are given by one of the secondary students with some buzzers in the carport. This afternoon it was Charles that was acting as barber, which was nice, because he is very trustworthy with everything, including other people's hair. After I was done, Emilee started giving a haircut to little Rhoda, but just a few minutes after she had started cutting, the power went out, and Rhoda was left with a half-shaved head, hehe - if there is anyone who could handle something like that, it would be Rhoda. Okay, here are the pictures:

A Haircut

An American Interlude

While Michael and Emilee eat the Christmas Cow on December 25, I'll be with some family in Camp Verde, AZ. The kids were disappointed when they heard I was going home for Christmas, and I don't blame them--in fact, I'm sad to miss the celebrations at Tumaini myself! A good number of the kids also thought I was purposefully abandoning them in favor of a 'White Christmas', and it was hard to convince them otherwise.

In actual fact, this is a sort of landmark Christmas for our family, since for the first time ever we have opted to forego all gift-giving and holiday money-spending, and instead are traveling to Arizona to fix up my aunt and uncle's house, which has happened to be in a bit of a sad state. I'm certainly a bit self-conscious about how 'self-righteous' this tactic can come across to people (I know I've thought that about those people who go work in soup kitchens on Christmas). Therefore, I am in no way passing judgment on those who do partake in The Rush this year. Still, there's a genuine satisfaction in the idea as well, and indeed, my family can't go anywhere without having a bit of fun, so we're also planning a 2-day hike down and up the Grand Canyon. I haven't been there for probably 15 years, so I'm excited to camp in the wintry desert location.

But all this was hard to explain to the kids, until I got a clue from Cucu Kariuki and decided to start telling people I was going to a 'harambe'--a sort of Kenyan festival held by friends or relatives of people who are in need, in order to raise money and supplies for them. It's not the same, of course, but it's close enough, and it did the trick: as soon as I mentioned 'harambe', they understood the need to go home. Still, had it been any other year, I would have loved to stay at Tumaini, and I envy Michael's and Emilee's opportunity to share Christmas with the kids.

Well, after a long 42 hours of travel, I arrived back in San Francisco last night. What surprised me most was how unsurprising it was to be back in the States. After my previous 2-month stint in Kenya, the mass of development, the showers, the clean running water, etc..., all caught me rather off guard. It took almost a full week to shake the feeling that something was very wrong somewhere. This time, everything just seems like, well, what it is. I suppose this state of affairs is neither good nor bad, but I found it interesting.

Now, I'm killing the hour or two I have left before our midnight departure to the Grand Canyon. (On family road trips, we like to leave in the 2nd watch of the night, when traffic is at a minimum--and this practice holds a lot of nostalgia for me). I've taken my fill of fast internet and hot showers (though finding high-protein vegetarian food has proved more difficult than in Kenya), and will now leave the blogging to those who are actually remaining in Kenya, until I return in early January. Happy Christmas! (And perhaps more appropriate for this particular day: Happy Winter Solstice!)

Munchies

Many have asked how life is going here in Kenya and there are so many emotions, thoughts, and feelings to this experience so far that I decided to consolidate them into what I am calling munchies…

Simplicity - From walking everywhere to cooking all meals from scratch (mainly with garden vegetables) to practicing daily rhythms of discipline with Lipps and Tbone to just having fewer distractions...life here is typified by simplicity which I love!

Adorable! - These kids are seriously too cute for words! Some of them are harder to love than others but some I honestly want to just steal away when I leave. They emit so much joy, energy, laughter, and cuteness that it is often too much to capture. (There cuteness is like an epic landscape of mountains that you just can't contain in a picture...cheesy metaphor but true) One of my favorite things is running alongside the little ones as they grip your hand. (Michael talked about this in an earlier blog) Following a run with little Edwin during the first few weeks we were here, I wrote a poem that I may post later (if I work up the courage).

Eye-opening - It is not the stark reality of the poverty that is surprising this time (I was expecting that aspect more because of experiences on previous trips) but it is the little realty checks that hit you each day of how different life is here from what I experienced growing up. This is where I have too many thoughts to put into words right now (most of them pop up randomly as we're walking to town or running through the neighborhood) but all I can say is I know this experience will leave me with a very deep imprint.

Filling - This word translates to many areas including the belly. We are constantly cooking and each dinner takes at least two hours from start to finish but the meals have been so yummy! Each meal is a different experiment from Jonathan's Mennonite cookbook ("Less is More") and I have loved getting more into cooking! (Banana bread just came out of the oven! :) Not only is my tummy getting filled but I'm loving the time that we have here to read...I have been filled and nourished most recently by Melissa Fay Greene's "There is no me without you." and Scandrette's "Soul Grafitti." (I highly recommend both!) Along with these personal reads, each morning we make breakfast together and one person reads aloud while the other two cook. It's one of my favorite parts of the day! We are also making our way through NT's big fatty which has been really packed and filling in it's own way.

Sick - Unfortunately from the moment I arrived, I have been hit with one thing after the next, allergy to cold to infection to mysterious eye problem and now to another cold. It has been really frustrating but will hopefully pass soon thanks to many drugs and the help of Dr. ONeil. (Props and thanks to him! :)

Blessed - So many kids here have stories of abuse, death, abandonment and hardship. It reminds me to be thankful for the blessings I've received in the way of loving family and friends. It is amazing to realize how many gifts and blessings I take for granted each day. I have also felt incredibly blessed by the relationships, conversations and faith that I have witnessed in some of the older Tumaini kids.

There are many more words that I could use to describe this experience but I'll let you munch on these for now.

"You're Cheating Me!"

Here is a snapshot from Saturday that I wanted to add to Tbone’s post. There were two awesomely hilarious moments one right after the other…

During one of the races, a car drove by occupied by two Asians. This is a rare sight in Nyeri, Kenya (more so than the occasional Mzungu sighting). Little Edwin immediately rushed across the road to me and said, "Emilee, do you know them? They are the same as you? Chinese." (Every Asian to them is Chinese by the way) This was followed by at least five other kids asking similar questions. This was funny in and of itself but then I got into a conversation with some as I was trying to explain my ethnicity...

"No, I don’t know them and I'm Korean not Chinese. I'm half Korean and…half Kenyan!" This got the response of many excited giggles and shouts of "No! Mzungu!"

Then one little one said, "You're cheating me!" This is a statement we have gotten before from others when we are joking with them but the hilarity arises from the fact that the statement comes out pronounced as "you're shitting me!" Similar to the monkey nuts story (see Jonathan's blog below), the blind innocence of what they are saying makes the whole experience that much cuter and funnier. Imagine yourself surrounded by a group of little ones saying, "You're shitting me! You’re shitting me!" in high pitched squeals.

It was awesome.

Who Will Kill the Christmas Cow?

Here at Tumaini, the kids have three meals: Githeri (beans and maize), Rice and Beans, and Ugali (beans and a maize polenta). Githeri is eaten for every lunch and quite a few dinners, whereas rice and beans and ugali are served less frequently. Given this monotony, it's easy to explain the mounting excitement that accompanies the approach to Christmas here. You see, on Christmas, the children have told us, "we will eat cow!" This is one of the two days per year where they are allowed to eat meat (and because of or in spite of this many profess meat to be their favorite meal).

In addition to the cow, incidentally, several of the rabbits kept here for breeding are purportedly going to be eaten. And, since the rabbits are named (of course) after us and others of the volunteers who have stayed at Tumaini, many of the children take great delight in telling us that on Christmas, "we will eat Michael and Emilee!" And then they laugh diabolically. (Jonathan the rabbit will not be eaten at Christmas; At first I was glad, but then they told me that he has already been "eaten by dogs," because "he rotted and died.")

Anyway, the three of us were sitting around last night, and wondered where they typically get the cow that they eat for Christmas. Then we realized they probably just kill one of the cows they keep on site. After discussing, agricultural newbs that we are, the horror involved in slaughtering an animal like that, and talking ignorantly about what method would be used, the question finally arose, Who will kill the Christmas cow?

It's definitely going to be Edwin.


Edwin, after killing last year's Christmas Cow

Field Day: 5k

Yesterday we had our second installment of “house competitions”. (Recall previous posts about House Tigris, House Euphrates, and House Nile, with teams divided according to age and gender into such names as “Eleven Tigers”, “Invincible United”, “Winner”, and “Cheetah”.)

This time the competition was a 5k running race. Fortunately for us, this was quite a bit lower maintenance than football, as it did not require construction of new facilities or oversight of 18 games. It still required some work, but this time it wasn’t as much, and we had the help of Titus, so we weren’t completely drained at the end of the day. So rather than tell a whole bunch of details about the race, I’ll just tell two little stories.

Story 1: The first race of the day was for the Primary 1-4 students, or “the little ones”, as some of them refer to themselves. (Quoting little Edwin, on most days that we run: “Will you be running with the little ones today?” [And if the answer is yes, then one of us gets the joy of holding his hand for the entire run, which has a cuteness that I think will never grow old.]) They were doing a course that was about 1.5 kilometers, but of course when Jonathan blew the start whistle, almost every single kid started out in a drop-dead sprint. I was going to run with them to play sweeper and make sure no one got left behind or lost, but 50 yards down the road, little 8-year-old Jimmy tripped on someone’s foot and went face down onto the dirt, hard. Then several people behind him actually stepped on him as they ran past. He rose back up to his feet in full sobs, with one knee and one elbow bleeding. Between sobs, he said that he wanted to keep going, so he got up and we followed the others. But after going for about 10 minutes, I realized that we had taken a wrong turn, and by this time, the emotional and physical fatigue had set in for Jimmy, so we turned around and started walking home, with the occasional tear rolling down his cheek. When we got back to the start, we found little Mary also crying, having taken a similar spill right as she crossed the finish line. We went back to our room to dress the wounds, and 30 minutes, 15 band-aids, and 4 biscuits (cookies) later, they seemed to be doing a lot better. It made us all very happy that these two were both on Team Lioness of Jonathan’s House Nile, which won the Primary 1-4 competition, and were therefore awarded a pack of Bubblicious at the end of the day.

Story 2: Actually the second “story” is just a recap of a conversation that determined the outcome of the Secondary Boys’ race. (Here is some information that will help to put he conversation in context: Eleven Tigers is for Jonathan’s House Nile; Invincible United is part of my House Euphrates. Christopher Ewoi is the fastest runner here at Tumaini, and is part of Eleven Tigers.)

Me (to Jonathan, sitting inside our apartment at lunch): “Ewoi told me that he isn’t going to run today because he’s tired.”
Jonathan: “What?!!!”
Jonathan (getting up and going to the door after hearing Ewoi’s voice outside): “Ewoi! Come over here!... What’s this about you not racing today?”
Ewoi: “I’m so tired. I don’t think I can race today”
Jonathan: “Eleven Tigers needs you! You have to race!”
Ewoi: “I’m so tired.”
Sammy (of Invincible United, overhearing their conversation, and perfectly aware of the humor in what he is saying): “Ewoi, it’s okay. If you feel tired then you shouldn’t run.”
Ewoi (in a tone reminiscent of Markus Rogan): “Sammy, just because you said that, I’m going to race.”

(If you’re wondering about the outcome of Ewoi’s decision, well, he won by almost 2 minutes: 17:52 over 5.1 hilly kilometers of rocky, ankle-turning ground, or 5:38 per mile. For reference, I ran well and did 20:05. Ewoi is getting really fast!)

Here are some pictures of the day’s activities. Joseph Waiganjo (Form 4 leaver and really nice guy) took my camera and was the photographer for the day:

Tumaini 5k!

A Bonafide Downpour

I actually feel a little bit bad for posting something that will push Jonathan's hilarious Monkey Nuts down the page, so if you haven't yet seen Monkey Nuts, then please be so kind as to scroll down and look at those, I mean that, first, because this post will not be nearly as entertaining...

When it rains here in Nyeri, it isn't like anything we are used to on the West Coast of the USA. Sometimes you're not sure whether it is raining or you're underwater and there are bubbles rising upward; such is the ratio of air to water. And the raindrops are humongous, not to mention warmer than I am used to! Emilee and I went for a run a couple days ago, and when the first raindrops started falling about 15 minutes from home, I commented that I enjoy running in the rain. God tried to call my bluff about 1 minute later! Of course I smoothly sidestepped his call by clarifying that I do not necessarily like running in the mud. But the truth is that I did enjoy those last 14 minutes more than almost any other 14 minutes of running in my life (one exception being the first run I did here with the kids, a description of which I've been wanting to post for a long time). Weather like that sort of makes you stop worrying about other stuff and just appreciate it. It boosts your adrenaline, heightens all your senses, and makes your whole body come alive from inside to out.

Here are a few pictures I took from right outside our front door during a downpour last week - it had been sunny that morning and I put my shoes outside to dry:

A Bonafide Downpour

Monkey Nuts

Waking up on Sunday morning in time for church is often difficult. I confess (all too readily, perhaps) that the church services here aren't what I particularly crave in the way of spiritual edification. The music that sets my teeth decidedly on edge (insanely overblown speakers, off-key saccharine synth jams pumping from the electronic keyboard, etc...) has already been mentioned, for example. Of course, they do some things here in Riamukurwe Parish that are a breath of fresh air. Women from the community, not even trained 'ministers', regularly preach. 'Presentations', or songs performed by any member of the congregation, take up a large portion of the service, and it's nice to see such involvement appreciated (even if, to my classically-trained ears, those moments have a definite Purgatorial feel).

But, "Church" is another entry, deserving of a title different than "Monkey Nuts," which you may be wondering about. The story I want to tell happened a few weeks ago, and it was in fact during one of those Sundays where Eunice, the Manager (heroine of so many of my blogs, it seems), was delivering the Word of God. As everyone who preaches seems to think, the Word of God by itself can be a bit boring, and so it's good to spice the message up with illustrations and anecdotes.

As Michael, Emilee, and I were sitting three-quarters of the way to the back of the small church, Eunice began to tell a story about certain farmers in another part of Africa, ostensibly to support a point she was making. I was only half-listening, expecting this story to follow the general pattern, that is, to have no link at all to anything that has been said so far. I think I was right. But anyway, the story went something like this:

These farmers produce, as a cash crop, a certain variety of nuts which sell well in other regions. But, as it happens, a local species of monkey is driven wild with pleasure when eating these treats, and so they do all they can to steal them from the farmers. The farmers, being humans and therefore more ingenious than the monkeys, devised a way to trap the monkeys and save their crops: they would take some nuts and put them into a large clay pot with a very narrow mouth. The monkeys would smell the food, rush to the pots, and insert a little simian hand, grasping the nuts. Of course, their fistful of treasure then makes their paws too big to remove from the pot without first letting go of the prize. Unwilling to do this, the monkeys are forced to stay with one hand in the trap, until the farmers can come at leisure and kill them.

So far, so good. I thought it was a worthy story (in fact, one I'd heard about in 5th grade through science class, and liked). I could see where Eunice was going with it too--the nuts are analogous like those things we foolishly hold on to that are going to bring us to ruin. Therefore, we shouldn't be like those monkeys (in our spiritual lives), clinging to pleasures that will only bring death.

But while I was thinking these things, Eunice made her conclusion in some unexpected words: "The Lord wants you to release your monkey nuts!"

I snickered, and looked around thinking everyone else must be too. But all the Kenyans were staring straight ahead, some simply nodding in agreement. Eunice went on, excited by her point. And then she said it again, with feeling: "The LORD wants you to release your monkey nuts!"

I realized at once I was in trouble. The Lord wants me to release my monkey nuts? Ha. Ha ha ha. Monkey nuts! Though I don't laugh at every dirty double entendre I hear, the context, the complete lack of intention, was too much. The corners of my mouth began to quiver, and soon I found myself smiling uncontrollably. A Kenyan to my left looked at me, and I looked down, hiding my face. Then the laughing began: those stomach shakes that I refused to let move up to the throat. "If only I can avoid looking at Michael and Emilee," I thought, "I'll be OK."

But Eunice was not on my side. Really worked up now, she got a bit more personal, and asked the congregation a question, leaning forward from the pulpit and talking in a suddenly low, serious voice: "What nuts are you holding on to?" she said with a penetrating gaze.

And that was it. A stifled guffaw inadvertently escaped my lips, and I ducked behind the pew in front of me, pretending to be reading a Bible. Then I heard movement from Emilee beside me, and saw that she too was trying to keep from breaking out in laughter. I couldn't see Michael, and that was probably what saved us all from total humiliation. But, that feeling came that we all know, when it's one of those times where it's completely inappropriate to laugh, but two people think something is funny, and the mere fact that they know the other thinks it's funny too makes it impossible to get a grip.

Remembering that I'd read about such situations, I tried a folk remedy and started pinching myself. The pain didn't help. And so I stayed bowed forward for a full minute, until I thought the storm had passed, and the lashings of laughter subsided. Eunice had moved on, and we were in the clear. That is, until she came to her grand finale, and in full-throated Kenyan fashion made her pronouncement: "It is not a surprise that some of us will burn in Eternal Hellfire because we are holding on to monkey nuts!"

So true, Eunice, so true.

Needless to say, a lot of people were wondering what was going on with the Wazungu, though no comments were made. I tried to make it look like I had been crying (and I was...), moved by the sermon--but it wasn't that kind of sermon. Anyway, it's these little cultural or linguistic differences, and other random hilarities, that keep life here exciting. Like tonight, while playing Pictionary with the Form 4 Leavers (the secondary school graduates), when the phrase to draw was, appropriately, "Baby Jesus". One team's artist chose to signify the stick-figure infant's holy status by drawing a manger, and streaks of light shining gloriously around Jesus' body. The other team's artist chose a more realistic tack, and decided instead to draw the little newborn, not just as Baby Jesus, but as "Extremely Well-Endowed Baby Jesus If You Know What I Mean". Everyone in the room had a good laugh for about 10 minutes. Oh, and in case you were wondering: the streaks of shining glorious light turned out to be a better symbol--our team won.

Nyeri Half Marathon

On Saturday, roughly 80 kids from here at Tumaini competed in a road race only 4 kilometers from here in the town of Nyeri. About 20 of us competed in the half marathon (21k), and the other 60 competed in a 3k children’s race.

I won’t go too far into the details of the mess that was registering for the race. Theoretically, the kids who were entered should have known that they were entered, because the ones who were entered were the ones who had told Coach Titus that they wanted to race. But just the same, the night before the race, there was a sea of chaos outside our door with every kid 12 years old and younger wanting to know if their name was on our printout of entrants. One little 9-year-old, Edwin, literally jumped 3 feet in the air in excitement when I told him he was racing. It was one of the most unashamed expressions of joy that I have ever seen, and it was incredibly cute. (The whole scene with the kids wondering whether they were entered actually made me somewhat sad, because I think a large factor in it was that many of them are so used to being let down that they hardly even dare to hope for someone to follow through on their promises any more, let alone to expect it.)

So, to the race... The race was supposed to start at 8:00 AM, and Titus had warned us that "Kenyans are not very punctual, so it might start late. Maybe at 10 minutes after 8." I don't know if we mis-heard him, and he actually said "maybe at 10", or if he was just way off! Indeed, the race was supposed to start at 8:00, but apparently that meant the race organizers started setting up for the race at 8:00.

So, after we had gathered 80 kids at the front gate of the home at 6:45 in the morning and walked them into town to arrive at 7:30 for check-in, we just had to sit and wait til about 8:30, when people came and started putting putting up signs from the sponsors and everything. At 9:30, we finally were able to start checking in and picking up our t-shirts. At 10:00, with about half the kids checked in, they ran out of t-shirts and race numbers. While someone was going to find extra shirts and numbers, we heard a buzz that the 3k race was about to start. Titus went to ask them to please not start the race until everyone had been given their number, and succeeded. (As an aside, Titus is awesome. I don't know what we would ever do without him. He is also, I think, the best coach I have ever met in any sport. He is a very well-integrated person and is excellent with the kids, striking a healthy balance of strictness and gentleness, of being their advocate and a disciplinarian.)

Eventually, at 10:45, the 21k race started. Titus told me that the course was "not too hilly", but this was a statement that I had heard from him before and have since learned to regard as utterly meaningless. Had we started at 8:00, we would have had nice cool running weather, but as it was, we had a blazing sun that made the 80-degree air feel much hotter than it was. Anyway, these are my excuses for my very ugly time of 1:33 - almost 6 minutes slower than I did in my only other half marathon 4 years ago. (For those of you who are curious about how my running is improving, I'll say that I was pretty disappointed at first at the apparent lack of improvement in spite of all the training, but after thinking about how much hillier and hotter this was than my other race, it's almost impossible to compare the two.)

Some of the other 21k runners from Tumaini did really well! Jonathan wasn't able to race because of Achilles tendon pain, but Karicho improved his time by 11 minutes from 6 weeks ago on a much flatter, cooler course in Nairobi, from 1:35 to 1:24. And Ewoi improved his time from 1:30 in Nairobi to 1:20 here. Believe it or not, Emilee finished at almost the exact same time as Ewoi! Unfortunately, this was because she and Ruth, the Tumaini girl she was running with, missed a poorly marked turn and cut about 6 kilometers out of the course =). After seeing the race organization, I can't say I'm surprised about this - I actually missed the same turn and ran about about a minute extra, and wouldn't have even known to turn back if I hadn't seen several others also backtracking.

Now, the funny thing about running in a race in Kenya is this: I'm not a great runner, but I'm faster than most people I see running in the USA. If I enter a race, I would say I usually finish in the top 20 percentile or so. Here, not so AT ALL! I finished in position number 167. Karicho (9 minutes faster than me) was number 157. Ewoi (13 minutes faster) was number 133. I finished right as they were starting the awards ceremony. I doubt there were more than 20 people who finished behind me. That means I was roughly in the bottom 10 percentile. And this wasn't a national championship or anything - it was the Nyeri Half Marathon - maybe the equivalent of the Menlo Park Turkey Trot.

Another highlight for the Tumaini / Hope Runs people was that in the kids' 3k race, 12-year-old James Lukine took second place. (He actually got nipped out as he slowed down crossing the finish line and otherwise would have won - a good lesson.) I was surprised that he was the top runner, because there were two other Tumaini kids who I thought were faster, but they finished in 10th and 15th places, respectively. But I should have known better, because Lukine more than anyone else here has one of those strides that is just poetry in motion - absolutely beautiful to watch!

A couple other things that I found interesting during the race were: 1) The road was not closed to traffic, meaning that you had to watch out for matatus travelling way too fast and deal with the occasional lungful of unfiltered diesel exhaust (I have since concluded that the organizers' decision to not close the road to traffic had to do with the fact that most runners here are assumed to be able to run at the same speed as traffic.) 2) Without a single exception, every time that I came up from behind a male racer and began to overtake him, he would look and see that it was a white guy and put in a little kick to get ahead of me again - he would repeat this until he would either start walking or slow to a crawl of a run and I would go by him for good. 3) Catherine N'Dereba, the former world record holder in the marathon, was there watching and handing out awards. Titus went to primary school with her and knows her quite well, so he introduced both Jonathan and Emilee to her, though I missed meeting her. Jonathan and Emilee said she was very nice.

After the race, the whole Tumaini herd walked back home. Em and I crashed on the sofas for the rest of the afternoon, Jonathan did some work, and the kids went into the dining hall and watched Rambo 4 or something like that.

Well, this was a long post, and if you made it this far, then thanks for reading!

Field Day: Kandanda

Some of you readers may recall Jonathan’s post from a few weeks back, "Tumaini Is the New Hogwarts". He wrote about how we had divided Tumaini into the “houses” with the names “Tigris”, “Euphrates”, and “Nile”, and would be having sporting competitions divided along the lines of these houses during the remainder of our time here.

Well, on Saturday, we had our first day of competition. We figured we should start out with a game that the kids understand and love. And, as far as I know, outside of the USA and Canada, where kids’ hearts are stolen by basketball, baseball, American football, or hockey, the first love of every child everywhere in the world is football. Not American football, but football as in futbol, or soccer, or, in Kiswahili, kandanda.

Prior to the day of competition, we took each house and divided it into six teams according to age and gender. Each team had between 7 and 10 students. We told each team to select a name for itself, and they came up with some pretty good ones. The three youngest teams dubbed themselves “Lion”, “Lioness”, and “Cheetah”; some other highlights were “Castle”, “Winner”, “Santos Corporation”, “Dark Angels”, “Super Eagle”, “Eleven Tigers” (there were only 9 on that team, but you need 11 for a full football team, so they said they were “trusting God to provide the remaining two”), and my personal favorite, from my own House Euphrates, “Invincible United” (which, unfortunately, turned out to be quite vincible).

Each age group played a round robin, meaning that there needed to be 3 games in each age group, across 6 age groups, for a total of 18 games. This meant that we needed to turn the one football full-size football field at the primary school next door into two half-size fields in order to fit all the games in one day. It also meant that a lot of grass had to be cut… without a lawnmower.

Fortunately, we had Christopher Ewoi (see previous post, "Tumaini Lives, Part 1"), who assured us that he could handle the construction of some new goals out of wood and nails. He oversaw a group of kids who found straight and sturdy tree branches, stripped them smooth with a machete, nailed them together, and planted them in holes in the ground. The goals were really strong, as evidenced by the way they handled some hard crossbar shots! (Unfortunately, it was mostly secondary boys working on the goals, and they built the first field right in the middle of their existing playing field, figuring that they would play on that one and leave the girls to play on a little tiny one off to the side. We had to make them move the goals to correct this, which was very difficult, since we now had football goals up and footballs floating around, and shooting footballs through the football goals proved to be more interesting to most of the kids than doing more work to prepare the field. In the end, for this same reason, we never really got the grass adequately cut on the second field, and it turned out to be a little bit more difficult to play on, but I never heard any complaints about this.) Ewoi brought out bags of sawdust on the morning of competition and marked the sidelines, goal-boxes, etc. We named the fields “Manchester” and “Milan”.

The competition turned out to be a blast! Nearly all the students were out at the fields all day, from 10 am til 6:30 pm. Each house got a different color headband to wear as a uniform (See pictures; Tigris wore green, Euphrates white, and Nile grey.) If students were not playing, they were usually cheering for other teams from their house. There was a lot of celebration and a little sulking. We got a lot of help from many of the older students for things like reffing games, acting as line judges, timing, video-taping, and most importantly, herding the young ones when it was time for them to play. One of my favorite things was watching the girls play, because it was clear that they were enjoying being welcomed as being on equal footing with the boys. Many of the girls teams had a lot of team spirit, doing cheers before their games and requesting team photos afterward.

The day left us very tired, and as if to punctuate it, we were greeted with a power outage just a few minutes after we returned to our apartment and began to prepare dinner. But it was super fun, and we are definitely looking forward to our future sporting days. I’m not sure how we’re going to manage it when we get to a sport that the students have never played, like Ultimate Frisbee, and will not have the advantage of being able to ask the older students to oversee the younger ones, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out somehow.

Here is a link to a photo album with a few shots from the day:

Football Field Day

Idiosyncracies of Kenyan English, Part 1

The two national languages here in Kenya are English and Kiswahili. However, from what we have seen, it is unusual for people to speak either of these languages as a first language (this may not be the case in Nairobi or other large cities). Most people speak their tribal dialect as a first language (in this region, the most common dialect is Kukuyu), Kiswahili as their second, and English as their third. I have been asked several times what my mother tongue is, and people are surprised to hear that English is the first language for almost everyone who grows up in the USA. So most people's English is quite good, but they speak it differently from the way we do in the USA. Just as the British and Australians speak their versions of the language that seem comical to Americans (and vice versa, I'm sure), so do the Kenyans. Here are a few of the highlights we have noticed so far. I'm afraid that a written description will never do justice to the cuteness of a young child saying any of these things, but if you want to get as close to the full effect as possible, then please imagine everything below being spoken in an adorable young voice with a Kenyan accent.

• “Me too” = “Even me…” As in: “Even me, I have bingo!" (pronounced “beego!”) Actually, this doesn’t even have to be “me too” – it can simply be used to draw attention to oneself at the start of a sentence – basically, “Even me, I…” instead of just plain “I…”

• “He” or “She” = “This one…”, especially when referring to one’s friends. As in: “This one likes to eat ugali,” or “This one has cut his finger.” This is actually said by adults and kids alike, and I have found myself adopting the expression readily. The manager, Eunice, might tell us: “By the way, this one is very smart,” or “Oh yes, this one, he likes to cause trouble.”

• “May I please have…” = “Give me a…” or “Help me with a…” Different expressions must be considered polite here, because even the sweetest, most polite and gentle kids ask for things in this blunt way. As in, “Give me marbles” or “Help me with tape.”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, “Exercise, commence!”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, “To your maximum.”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, some Kiswahili word that sounds to my untrained ears like "Marijuana!” - I'm sure that when I finally learn the word, it will be something that makes a lot more sense in the context than its English homophone.

• Coach speaking, when nearing the end of a run, “Finishing spirit”

• “Spoil the air”, followed by "hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha" = you guessed it. As in, “This one likes to spoil the air. Hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha!” or “Even me, help me with a fan. Rhoda has spoiled the air. Hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha!” It's good to know that some things are universally funny.