Culture Exchange Day: Endeavor to Persevere!

Today we headed off to our second full day at Moding for a day of culture exchange with the students. Last night we prepared a plethora of songs, skits, and stories to present to the entire student and faculty body that illustrated the basic values and culture of the US. After the bumpy ride to school that we are all getting used to, we arrived at Moding ready to go.

We sat in the school's dining hall, which has a stage that we all used. We took turns with the Moding students performing for everyone. Some of these included the 3 Little Pigs (featuring a wonderfully animated Gideon as the big bad wolf, and the 3 boys as the pigs), Goldilocks - another great showing with David as Papa Bear), "This Little Light of Mine," "This Land is Your Land," Caroline's inspirational story about a mouse surviving after falling in a bucket of milk and not giving up, and the ever popular "Gaudeamus." Interspersed through these were the performances by the Moding students, which involved a skit about preventing HIV/AIDS, staying in school rather than drinking alcohol and smoking, a traditional song/dance that is performed during circumcision ceremonies, and an inspirational poem about smiles, along with many other songs (all religious songs that showed us how much faith they have in God and proud of their religion and love for God--they were all so beautiful) and skits. It was amazing to see and learn about the Kenyan culture and what is most important to the people here, because though some values are similar to ours in America, many had a very different focus.

After the assembly, we took a lunch break in which we all joined our Moding buddies and had lunch with them and ate their school meal. The meal was a delicious "mix-cha," as they pronounce it, of maize (corn) and beans. During lunch, we were all able to meet and interact with more students as we bonded over our meal. My buddy Maureen and the girls I was eating lunch with kept asking Caroline and I if we liked it, and if it was okay. It was interesting to see how concerned they were about making sure we were happy--I felt like I was really cared about.

Once lunch was done, we all took a group tour of the grounds with the students that we are paired with for homestay tomorrow night to get acquainted. We got to see the fish pond that they were in the middle of building that they plan on putting Tilapia in and eating them, the huge garden of carrots that is being grown by Form 4 (12th grade) agriculture students as their final exam, and the girls dorms. I loved walking through their dorms to see they were like and compare them to the dorms at EHS, and get the chance to tell the girls about what our rooms at home are like. They have 3 (currently only 2 are occupied) different buildings that house the approximately 100 boarding girls, with no specific rooms, but just divided sections of the buildings with many bunk beds in them. After touring, we had a short while to spend time with the students before leaving. The main highlight has got to be the races we had with a big group of Kenyan boys, with Ryoan winning both of his races outright, and Edward winning by default (his opponent slipped in the grass).

We came back to the mission house only to be greeted by the usual gang of neighborhood kids who were waiting for us to return so we could play with them. For a little while, we got to jump rope and play soccer until the rains came and forced us inside into the powerless house-a regular here in Amagoro. We now are creating our lesson plans for teaching Biology, English, and History tomorrow to the Moding students. Look for the next blog about our homestays and visiting Moding Primary School and all the younger kids.

 

Kwa Heri! (goodbye!)

--Stuart