Wageni means Guests

We had the week of guests!

Monday - 15 people including 5 with video cameras for a program called World Leadership School
Wednesday - Connie from Greenwich Academy, a private school in Boston
Thursday - no school due to Eid (you know, the Tanzanian snow day!)
Saturday - 12 visitors from Australia Rotary who are raising funds to build the computer / library building.

BUSY WEEK!

Oh, and by the way on Friday we elected our new student leadership with some of the BEST speeches I've heard. Best answer - when asked, how are you going to improve things in this position from the previous leaders, the student (who was running to be the time keeper) replied - "it's not that they did a bad job...I wouldn't change anything they did...but they are TIRED and I'm here to help them!"  He won, by the way!

Lota was selected as our president. I think he'll do a great job of leading the Orkeeswa student body this year. He's out of uniform here as he is in a drama of some kind in this picture.  He's one of the most positive people I've ever met. 

This Ole House

These are two of our students and one of our teachers who were selected to attend a three week leadership event in the United States through the U.S. Embassy.  This is the second time Orkeeswa has sent students on the trip.  Lisa and I were luck enough to be traveling through Denver when these guys were there with Bold Leaders. So, we stopped in and visited them for a while. It was strange seeing them in the northern hemisphere!  The man on the left is the director of Bold Leaders. 

These are the first four recipients of the Orkeeswa Rural Entrepreneurship Development Program loans. They immediately began their small business with these loans and have already brought in their first repayments. Some of the money is going into a savings account for them as well for university.

We had a random layover in London on the way home. So, we stayed the night, ate some food and walked to a palace. We weren't expecting this (mainly because we hadn't looked very closely at our plane tickets!) but it was a nice holiday!

We moved into a new house. It's small but we are living on our own...which is nice. It's also right behind the other volunteer house, so we can have company if we want.  There's been a lot of other stuff happening too since we got back:

• our goat had a set of twins! Plus we added four new mama goats so now we're up to 6 plus three babies. They sometimes try to walk into the classrooms...they have no respect for boundaries
• we have a swarm of bees in one of the hives
• we are getting chickens (20) today (fingers crossed)
• our rabbits lived over the holiday and I think one of them is pregnant
• that garden still struggles (as does our ability to manage it successfully!) but we got some sorghum sudan grass as hay off of it, so that's good. Also, the fruit tree orchard looks great with all the rain we've been getting.
• classes are underway and going well. Honestly the first two weeks went really well. We have great staff and a really good group of students. We have something like 15 teachers now, which is GREAT!
• We're making progress on the entrepreneurship program. Brady, the other ag teacher received a $1500 grant to buy curriculum. We're going to use the ESI curruculum from Nebraska 4-H.
• Mud- had to walk a few times because of the mud and also slogged through it successfully a few times.  I think that's a fun element to the day...but it sure can eat up your time and morale if you're not lucky!
• Oh, we also got our form 2 (8th grade) results back and they were very good. We had NO students fail (first time for that) and also were around the top 11% of over 370 schools in the region.  Agriculture was 10th out of 90 some schools too, so I was proud of my kids for doing so well.

We've also had some struggles too..

• Lisa's had a bit of a chest cold...hopefully going to whip it soon
• New house has LOTS OF MOSQUITOES  The little buggers find their way right to your ears at 4 AM. I appreciate the music, but their timing is all wrong
• We had to make some tough decisions on managing some of our lower academically performing students. I'm learning a lot as a leader from these conversations and decisions, but my hope is we (I) can use any wisdom we have to help these students and also build a solid school with really high standards.
• Tough mentally transitioning our way out of here. We've been here for what seems like forever. But now, we find ourselves having to say "when we're not here, this responsibility is going to be done by so and so..." It's good to have this time and try to equip the new leadership as well as possible.  It's just tough personally because you have such a connection, etc...  

That's the happs around here!  It was SO nice to see family and friends at Christmas and we're really blessed with a few final months here in TZ.  I guess we'll see everyone at home around the first part of April!

Seth

Home

We're home.  I like the sound of that. The way it hits and resonates. Some people have no homes to return to. Or, if you're married you have some ambiguity of which set of homes are "home".  I'm lucky; I get two sets of solid, sink into the couch and get fat and just live kind of homes to visit.  I'm fortunate in that regard.

I haven't written in quite some time, so here's a run-down:

• We finished exams about two weeks ago and had our end of year celebration.  I feel we ended strong this year - much stronger than in years past. We have a lot of returning staff in January so I'm excited about the new year.
• I had an impromptu trip to Nairobi with Thomas to attend a conference with other NGOs doing work with youth in East Africa. I say impromptu because it was decided the day before that we would be the ones attending. It was great!  We learned a lot and networked a lot with like minded practitioners. But, it also meant being gone for two days right before the end of school.  Our staff was great though and they had no problems while we were gone. 
• Lisa was in Liberia for three weeks! She was doing agriculture research asking Liberian farmers about current practices.  She enjoyed the work and had quite the adventure in Liberia. 
• We went to sport's weekend after the last day of school and had a three day sports fest. Our teams took first in girls basketball, second in rugby (yes, rugby!) and second in volleyball.  We had a scare as one student fell and dislocated her elbow...bad way to end the tournament. She is OK now. We immediately took her to one of the best hospitals in the country just a few minutes from where we were playing.
• I was able to re-visit the hospital where I had been sick a year ago, almost to the day. Strangely enough when we were coming back from Nairobi, we boarded our bus right across the road from the doctor's office.  I ran across the street to pay him a visit, but he wasn't around.  It was strange to have the one year anniversary but also great to be in such a different place (mentally and physically) this time around.
• We said hello to new volunteers Ben, Melanie and Sara.
• We said good bye to our friends Allison, Lani, Lisa P. and Scott.
• We flew home! We took a cheap flight (Fast Jet) from Arusha to Dar, stayed the night in Dar, flew to London, stayed the night in London, then flew to Denver.  We did that series to save money...not sure we actually succeeded :)

There's been some talk about what Lisa and I will do when we more "permanently" return to the U.S. As many know, we are returning in January and will be finished at the end of March to return in April.  We'll return to the U.S. after that.  Rest assured, our answer is still a resounding "we don't know what we'll do when we return."  Lisa will work part time for IEFT for sure and beyond that, we are still making some decisions.  My hope is that we use whatever wisdom God affords us as we look ahead. For now, we're just happy to be home.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE AND I HOPE OUR PATHS CROSS VERY SOON.

Exams, Fish & Frogs

Preform Student Kipara by his Boma. He's in my woodworking club!

Form 2 Student Solomon looking very Maasai.

Students battling it out in intramural football. 

Exams

This entire week we’ve been doing Form 4 national exams and an internal Form 2 mock examination.  To say the least it’s been a lot of work. Every morning I pick up Thomas, the exam proctor and two armed guards at 7 AM to take the actual exams out to the school.  Students are tested all day. The form 4’s still have another week of this fun too! Spirits seemed to be high the whole week.

Fish & Frogs

As a part of the exam, students taking biology, agriculture, chemistry and physics have to do a laboratory practical.  The biology one involved A LOT of prep work to find specimens, etc…  This week alone we’ve had to find (and kill) frogs (thank you to our local motorcycle taxi driver on that one), cockroaches (no comment), fish (bought at local market, almost made Lisa vomit…) and crabs (preserved in some salt…stunk like death…stored in our freezer…didn’t end up using them anyway!).

Clubs

We started clubs this  past Thursday. I’m excited to be doing WOODWORKING club again! One of the volunteers did a fundraiser and was willing to pay for the wood, etc… so we can do that this term.  Lisa is doing BASKETBALL club with the new pre-form students too and apparently they are loving it. 

Andy & Ming Say Goodbye

Computer teachers Andy & Ming fly out today. In their 6 month stay, they’ve set up the computer lab and taught classes. They’re heading back to Cambodia to continue their work there.

Sports

The boys and girls are part of a soccer league. So, every Saturday we load up and take them somewhere to play. Yesterday, Saturday, Lisa took the girls and Mzee took the boys.  They learn a lot.

Drip-line Irrigation

Brady and I went to a short presentation about drip-line irrigation yesterday. IT WAS AWESOME. I can’t wait to figure out how to get a system up and going at the school. There is so much potential I think for this. As per usual though, we need to find where to get the systems, get some funding, etc…! Never a lack of ideas.

No more Laguna Beach House Study Camp

For the past several weeks all of the female volunteers have been staying at the school Monday through Thursday nights with the Form 4 girls. They called it Laguna Beach House Study Camp.  I think it’s really helped the girls have precious time/location with which to study. It’s also nearly exhausted the female staff. So, with the near completion of the Form 4 exams, we all said good-bye to the study camp. I think it will be a bit of a welcome relief.

Lots to celebrate, no energy to do it!

By Friday of this week we had a LOT to celebrate! We had successfully pulled of most of the Form 4 exams (including ¼ of the practicals), offered reviews, finished a several month long project in LBH study camp, held school improvement meetings, taught the rest of the kids and did the normal great things that happen here.  However, it was one of those weeks that no one had the energy required to do the celebrating! The thing which we were celebrating was to much! We’ll have to wait for another day. Or some Red Bull.

What's been happening not so lately...

Students learn how to keep our new rabbits from Meshak.

A small group of students prepare the hang our new bee hives. 

Form 5 & 6 buildings under construction. 

Our new bus!

Lots has been happening!  Here's the run down:

• We have new volunteers!
• We finished the goat house, got rabbits, and hung the bee hives. 
• We got a school bus.
• I turned 31 (so old now...)
• Form 4 students take their exams next week.
• Got 37 new kids learning English; our new pre-form 1 kids

I've had to try and grow as a leader to transition into less teaching and more administration. I've struggled a bit because I really love teaching. But, I also am enjoying learning how to help other teachers grow and also work in ways to improve the overall school.

Lisa has been REALLY busy wearing hats of : office manager, volunteer coordinator, life skills coordinator, and sports and activities coordinator. 

I'll try to keep this thing updated more frequently! Please forgive my tardiness.

Love better be a big house

I can remember when my show steer died. We were training him how to use a halter and he fell wrong and broke his neck. I was heartbroken at the time. I also broke my leg one time in junior high wrestling. It was nothing serious and I guess that ended my dreams of wrestling grandeur at an early age…probably for the best! By in large though, I've not suffered much in my life; very little in fact.

But this past week, I've seen glimpses of pains I've not experienced before. Pain inflicted by a student on himself from making a poor personal choice. Pain inflected on a child from a violent family member because… who really knows why. Pain from just realizing how alone a human can feel. Pain from fear.

Martina McBride sang a song a few years ago about love being the only house big enough for all the pain in the world. The song describes a few pains we humans endure – lack, want, strife, grief. She offers the solution of an active love; getting in there and getting your hands dirty. I agree, in general, with her words.

I'll be honest, this past week left me feeling numb. It seemed several things came at once – enforcing difficult policy, teachers pouring out their souls and still feeling empty, some really sad village issues in which the school was asked to intervene (and was thankfully in a position to help!), students unsure what's going to happen on big exams and pushing themselves so hard that you just think they're going to break. Fear. Hurt. Pride. Exhaustion. Misunderstandings. Pain.

Can we be a balm in the wounds? I sure hope so. I have found I have an unlimited capacity to cause hurt. I can be a cruel, self centered, small and vindictive person. At worst, I can sling pain just because I feel like it. I can also just do nothing about it when I see it happening around me too. Often do. But, I also have the ability, sometimes, and in some ways, to show love. And man, that's what I have to do.

We're going back to school this week (had a random holiday today) and we're only going to there until Friday before we have another week long break. We have new volunteers coming in. We have this high stakes test coming up in about a month for our form four students. We have new students starting in about a month too. Oh yeah, there's also limited food and water in the village and the price for everything is skyrocketing. Lots of people aren't going to be able to eat pretty soon. Timing's ripe for some stress, anxiety and lack of sleep. Put another way, timing is right for pain.

I hope I'm not the source of too much pain. I hope I'm a person who is bringing people into that house Martina sang about. And, I hope it's really freakin' big.