The School Assembly

We had amazing rainstorms last night.   Our tin roof made the pattering of the rain sound pretty dramatic, and I woke up in the middle of the night wanting to go outside and run around in it.
Probably not a great idea, so I stayed in bed.
It was still raining this morning, which made the 5 km commute to school and the clinic rather interesting.   The dirt road gets very muddy and slippery, so most people seemed to take their time getting their mornings started.    We definitely weren’t going to be taking our usual motorbike ride, that was for sure.

After a lazy breakfast, the matatu showed up to collect us at 9 – this is one of those “suicide vans” that serve as small public busses and make Nairobi traffic a nightmare.  Here in Kisienya, though, they aren’t terribly common.  We climbed in, carrying our dead laptops, phones and cameras to be charged at the school (one of the few places with some limited electricity).  

The drive in was rather uneventful, but when we pulled into the Light & Salt Academy, we were greeted with an amazing sight.   The entire student body (maybe 150 students?) were standing in two lines outside the front gate, creating a path for us to enter.   Each child waved bougainvillea, and they sang as we crawled out of the matatu.
At first I wondered what they were all doing, but it became quite clear that this whole ado was to honor our visit to the school.   It was a most spectacular sight.   Most of the children were in tattered uniforms and ill-sized shoes.   Victoria, our hostess and the school’s headmistress, had told us that many of the children are orphans – parents here die regularly from AIDS, etc.   Apparently the school has already lost six parents this year alone.
They don’t have textbooks, pencils or paper, all the soccer balls are flat (a seemingly more serious problem than the lack of texts as far as the kids are concerned), and some don’t even show up at times for lack of adequate food.   Yet these children greeted us with huge smiles on their faces.

Singing, they followed us through the gate into the school grounds, and we all crammed into the small and muddy area in front of two of the classrooms.   Each class sang us song or did some sort of performance for us – it was amazing.   Then a woman with an African drum appeared and everyone started singing and dancing.   I’ve never seen a school assembly like it!

After a few songs, Victoria appeared with two bags full of school supplies we had brought with us from the Dollar Store in Seven Corners.  It turns out that these were a bigger deal than we ever thought possible.   Almost embarrassingly so, really.    Apparently at the end of the last school year, the teachers and administration had wanted to celebrate the top students in each class – the ones who had shown the most improvement and one ones who had received the top marks.  Even giving them a pencil would have been a big deal and motivated the children to continue to work hard.   But they literally didn’t have anything to give – not even pencils.   They told the children that they would receive something to celebrate their achievement in the Fall (and Victoria has spent the last two months worrying about what she could come up with to fulfill that promise).   Apparently our dumb little bag of supplies was exactly what she’d be hoping and praying for – and more.  
I don't even know what to say to that.
She called the names of the top three children in each class, and had the three of us present them each with pencils, pens, rulers, etc.    You should have seen the elation of these kids’ faces.   I really couldn’t believe it.
Half the time I honestly don’t even pick UP my pencils/pens when I drop them.   I chew them up and lose them regularly.  It’s embarrassing.

The whole thing lasted over an hour, and we were all so overwhelmed we didn’t know what to do.
I think it might have been the most amazing morning I've had in a long time.

And then we went to the clinic and saw patients.   

And now we’re home....exhausted once again.