Beauvoir Visit

The sun shone brightly on the Cathedral Close as we visited Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School. More often than not during the last week and a half, the spring weather here in Washington has rallied to match northern Kenyan weather for the day. The sun and warmth provide an excellent setting as Steven weaves his stories about life with the nomadic Samburu living in a dry, hot environment.

The Beauvoir community welcomed Steven yesterday with great warmth. The students at all grade levels asked excellent questions, including ones about religion and money that we had yet to be asked. The lunch meeting with members of the faculty Social Studies Committee enabled those teachers working most closely with the Global Studies program to muse about on-going connections. We ended the day with a tour of the National Cathedral and grounds, including the excellent view of Washington, DC from the 7th floor.

With only one more ESHA school to visit, Steven and I both have expressed our amazement at how quickly the time has passed and how excellent the reception has been for this man far from home.

Laurel

Photos: Laurel Seid

Harbor School Visit

Although it was far too brief, it was great fun to visit DC and reunite with Steven, Laurel, and Claudia. A highlight of the trip for me was our trip to The Harbor School. We were warmly welcomed by Head of School, Val Wise. I helped Steven with his transformation from jeans and fleece to the traditional dress of northern Kenya. He met with kindergartners and first graders, and they were equally enthralled with his presentation.

After Steven told them about life in Kenya as he explained his PowerPoint presentation, the children were able to try on a variety of authentic bracelets and necklaces and be wrapped in kangas. The hands-on experience was a wonderful way to engage the children. It was really exciting to watch the children at Harbor learn about another culture in another part of the world.

Muddy

Photos: Claudia Daggett

A Full Day of Exchanges: Norwood School Visit

Steven Labarakwe's third day of visits to Washington, DC area ESHA-member schools took Laurel and him to Norwood School in Bethesda. There, in addition to making a presentation for second graders, Steven had the opportunity to discuss curriculum and school issues with Norwood administrators and participate in an evening meeting with leaders from several schools.

I joined the evening session to facilitate the discussion, which allowed representatives from schools hosting Steven's visit to share their expectations for the program and, for some, to compare and contrast the experience to what was anticipated. Particularly interesting for many of us was hearing Steven's perceptions of his first three school visits and his first week in the United States. When asked, Steven outlined the most critical needs in northern Kenya: water (in a region that has seen no rainfall for a full year); education, particularly textbooks and trained teachers, and infrastructure. An underlying theme throughout the evening, as you might guess, was the importance of giving elementary school students experiences to develop a sense of belonging to a world larger than their own immediate communities.

Participating in the evening discussion session gave me the additional pleasure of a reunion with my fellow Kenya travelers -- a rendezvous with Steven and Laurel at Norwood, with Muddy joining us later in the evening and for the next day's program.

Claudia

Photos:
"Second graders model kangas," Quanti Davis
"Steven and Norwood mural," Laurel Seid

Off to Baltimore: Calvert School Visit

Like a true pastoralist, Steven traveled from Bethesda to Baltimore to spend another energizing day, this time with the students and faculty at Calvert School. He even wove an anecdote about the difference between traveling on paved or tarmac roads with typical travel in Kenya. The village market on the reading rug in the library turned out to be a great hit with the youngest students.

Steven had an opportunity to read a brief excerpt from Pinduli (Cannon, J. Harcourt Children's Books, 2004), a story chosen by the teachers about a small hyena in the African savannah. Steven had not read aloud to students in this way before as it is not part of the teaching tradition in Kenya. He enjoyed it, and we gained another title for our East African bibliography!

After speaking with a group of well-prepared and curious girls, Steven spoke in the beautiful Calvert School theater on a grand stage where the projected pictures of Ngurunit, its people and animals became larger than life! Thank you, Calvert School!

We even managed to fit in a brief stop at the National Aquarium at the end of the day -- quite mind-boggling for Steven as he expressed that Samburu people have little knowledge of the sea and its creatures.

Laurel

Photo: Laurel Seid

School Visits Begin: The Woods Academy

Steven Labarakwe and his trusty handler received the warmest of welcomes at The Woods Academy in Bethesda yesterday. After several days of gloomy and chilly weather, the sun arrived and the day became like a Samburu summer -- perfect for a presentation about this beautiful culture!

Steven began the day with a large-group presentation to fifth through eighth graders and their teachers. This presentation started with a traditional dance of the moran, the young warriors of Samburu culture. Steven then wove storytelling and audience participation to accompany the slides filled with larger-than-life colorful pictures of the Samburu people and the Ndoto Hills landscape.

We then moved to small-group presentations in the library with younger students in which we recreated a village market. The students were able to wrap in the traditional kikoys and kangas and wear the beautiful beaded necklaces and bracelets.

We thoroughly enjoyed lunch with the members of the student government and wrapped up the day with a tour of the school.

Thanks, The Woods Academy!

Laurel

Photos: Laurel Seid

Steven Adds His Voice

We are thrilled to add a new voice to our blog -- that of our host in Kenya and now guest in the U.S., Steven Labarakwe:

Here I come, America. Finally the long awaited moment arrived, the Seid-Brown family invited me into their home wholeheartedly in Bethesda, Maryland. I got a nice room, and I got settled.

On Saturday, I went with Laurel to serve at the Food and Friends organization. I felt like I was distributing relief food in northern Kenya to the needy persons, the only difference was that the food was a well-balanced diet. Anyways, I enjoyed the work with these different people from different parts of the Washington, DC area.

Laurel, together with her older son, took me sight-seeing into the city of Washington, and I was amazed by how the many presidents of America were honoured via monuments and the writings on the walls of monuments.

I could feel the change of temperatures, and I armed myself with enough warm clothes from the Brown family. I am looking foward to seeing sun, schools, new experiences, Claudia, Muddy and Princey.

Steven Labarakwe

Editor's note: "Princey" is Steven's good-natured nickname for Jamie Waters, as the young man in our group of travelers.

(Photo: Laurel Seid)

First Days in the U.S. for our Kenyan Guest

While Steven waited in the plane on the tarmac at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, his good friend, Joseph Lekuton, phoned to tell me to be sure to take good care of Steven during his visit. Joseph explained that, on this trip, it would be enough to make sure that Steven came away with an understanding of and appreciation for American culture. So, after waiting in eager anticipation for Steven's arrival, I can hardly believe that he is here and has so quickly and easily become part of our family and our life.

For our part, we are trying to balance being our "normal" selves with our excitement to show him many things. On the normal side of things, he sits at the table with us at our family dinners, smiles at the antics of our 17-year-old son, and, even has run errands with us to the grocery. He joined me at my regular Saturday morning volunteer service gig and even happily went to their Saturday morning orientation for new volunteers. He saw a movie last night at the movie theater with us and laughed right along at the funny bits. He joined the boys last night on the couch for the NCAA semi-finals and read about the games in this morning's Washington Post as if he had always been following March Madness. On the unusual side of things, we wanted to take advantage of the blossoming cherry trees and the events so we dragged him downtown, along with the hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same thing.

I don't really know if we are usual or unusual, typical or atypical of an American family. I do know we enjoy having guests and Steven seems to be doing well, especially as we sit beside each other now typing away at our blogs, each on our laptops, at the dining table.

Laurel

(Photos: Laurel Seid)

Ayuda En Todas Partes: Another Answer to the Desire to Help

Last week, in preparation for Steven Labarakwe's visit to ESHA member schools in the Washington, DC area, we offered information on a nonprofit organization providing school supplies and textbooks in northern Kenya. This week, we offer a second charity to consider for those desiring to provide financial assistance to schools in Steven' Labarakwe's region.

Ayuda En Todas Partes means “help in all directions." A foundation in that name was established in March 2003 to offer concrete help to people in developing countries. The Ayuda En Todas Partes Foundation's primary focus is realizing small-scale construction projects, each using Dutch volunteers over a two- to three-week period, to improve the living conditions of the local community and offer opportunities for building a better future.

In northern Kenya, with Steven Labarakwe as coordinator, Ayuda has focused on the building of primary schools in Samburu villages. In 2007, three classrooms, a teacher's office, a kitchen, toilets, and sports fields were constructed in Ngurunit. Similar projects were constructed in Farakoren in 2008 and Mpagas in 2009. In 2010, Ayuda returned to Ngurunit to add two classrooms and a girls' dormitory. This year, the foundation intends to return to Mpagas to construct additional classrooms. In addition to its building projects, Ayuda has funded mosquito nets for Farakoren families, fees for teacher college for students from the area, an agriculture project at the Ngurunit school, micro-credit for women's groups, and a well in Mpagas.

Ayuda is an officially-registered charity in The Netherlands. For more information about Ayuda, see http://www.ayuda-en-todas-partes.nl/ (in Dutch) or email Rob Ypmea at ayuda-info@ayuda-en-todas-partes.nl.

This information comes from direct email correspondence with Ayuda En Todas Partes at Steven's recommendation. Ayuda is mentioned elsewhere in the ESHA's Kenya Experience blog in "School Visits Prompt School Thoughts," October 10, 2010.

Claudia

Photo: Steven Labarakwe gives ESHA guests a tour of the Mpagas Primary School (Photo credit: Claudia Daggett)

KURA: One Answer to the Desire to Help

As we prepare for Steven Labarakwe's visit to ESHA member schools in the Washington, DC area, it seems important to anticipate the desire to help that is inspired, inevitably, when audiences hear about conditions in northern Kenya. With that in mind, this week we offer information on the Boma Project's new program, KURA -- Kids Uniting for Rural Africa.

KURA's purpose is to effectively improve the quality of education in the Laisamis District by providing textbooks and school supplies to primary and middle schools there. The Boma Project offers some background here:

Laisamis District in northern Kenya is one of the poorest areas in Kenya where 74% to 97% of the people survive on less than $1 per day. According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission: “Schools are insufficient, with enrollment of 25% of children in primary school against a national average of over 99%. Literacy and completion rates are also the lowest in the country."

The vast majority of the schools have no textbooks or supplies. A typical classroom, if there is a building, would have desks and chairs as well as a few pencils and pieces of paper that the children all share.

Photo: One of the better classrooms in Laisamis. Children share desks, textbooks and pencils. (Courtesy of the Boma Project; Kathleen Colson, photographer)
















Photo: A classroom under the tree in Lengima, northern Kenya. This school has no supplies or textbooks. (Courtesy of the Boma Project; David duChemin, photographer)

A typical KURA package, at $500, includes:

• pens
• pencils
• pencil sharpeners
• geometrical sets
• storybooks
• rulers
• graph books
• English dictionary
• Swahili dictionary
• composition books
• sanitary towels
• exercise books – ruled, squared and drawing
• crayons

A package of 35 textbooks for a grade 1 and 2 classroom, at $750, provides learning materials in English, Swahili, math and science.

Gifts to KURA are tax-deductible through Boma, which is a U.S.-based 501(c)3 organization. For more information about the Boma Project, see www.bomaproject.org or contact Kathleen Colson, Executive Director, at (802)236-3018 or kathleen@bomaproject.org.

Other ESHA's Kenya Experience blog posts about the Boma Project include: For the Answers, Look to Those in Need, November 7, 2010, and Prosperity with Dignity, November 14, 2010.

Claudia

We are pleased to announce...

A Meeting with Steven Labarakwe
Educator from Northern Kenya

Thursday, April 7, 2011
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Norwood School
8821 River Road
Bethesda, MD
RSVP by March 31 to info@elementaryschoolheads.org

We hope ESHA members and their school-leadership colleagues will join us to meet Steven Labarakwe, education officer for the Laisamis District in northern Kenya, and participate in discussion about global citizenship and meaningful global partnerships at the elementary school level. This event includes leaders from the six DC-area ESHA-member schools that Steven will be visiting and all other ESHA members interested in participating.

Claudia

Illustration: Nina, Cambridge Montessori School (MA)