Our last week of volunteer work in Takaungu Village was wonderful; I already miss my host family and students. A typical day there for me started early in the morning, awaking to the call to prayer, eating a quick breakfast of tea and porridge, then walking about 2 kilometers to the Vutakaka School. I assisted a teacher, Mr. Musa, with his class (about the age of 3rd graders) every morning until about 12:30, when I would walk back to Tuma's house for a traditional and delicious Swahili lunch. After lunch I'd usually take a refreshing cold shower to wash off the heat of the day before walking back to school, where I would help in the afternoon with after-school "extra education" for Vutakaka students. Most days in the mid-afternoon I'd play a couple matches of netball (volleyball) with the school staff or dance with local Giriama women (one of the 9 Bantu-descendant tribes) to the beat of drums. From about 4:30-6:00 p.m. I'd teach/tutor students from the local public school, then walk home again along the beautiful, coconut palm-lined road back to Takaungu Village. The Kenyan education system is widely known to be pretty bad ... the public school in Takaungu typically has 170 students in ONE class with ONE teacher, and maybe 2 desks and a piece of broken blackboard. The reason the public schools are so crowded and poorly funded is because primary school has only been free since 2002 when Kenya's current president was elected.
Making primary school free was a good thing, except no additional funding or infrastructure has been provided, but children from poor and destitute families are now trying to attend school- in some places quadrupling the previous attendance numbers. On the other hand, Vutakaka School is a private school funded by the non-profit "East Africa Centre" and provides students with more tutoring time and resources (although still limited versus U.S. schools). I wish we could have stayed longer ... just when we had friends in the village and were starting to feel very comfortable with our host family, our volunteer time was up! I'll miss Tuma and her family, as well as my students, and plan to come back at some point in the future.
Making primary school free was a good thing, except no additional funding or infrastructure has been provided, but children from poor and destitute families are now trying to attend school- in some places quadrupling the previous attendance numbers. On the other hand, Vutakaka School is a private school funded by the non-profit "East Africa Centre" and provides students with more tutoring time and resources (although still limited versus U.S. schools). I wish we could have stayed longer ... just when we had friends in the village and were starting to feel very comfortable with our host family, our volunteer time was up! I'll miss Tuma and her family, as well as my students, and plan to come back at some point in the future.
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