Friday 8 June 2012

Finished, But Not Forgotten

We are finished our practicum, and have left Ulamba. We all left a piece of our hearts in that community, those kids changed our lives. We are now relaxing on Zanzibar, and reflecting on the experience of a lifetime.
We don't have much time for a full update right now, but hopefully over the next few weeks we will each take some time to write about our experiences.
We will continue to fund raise for the students and the school, and we all plan to go back in the next few years.
Thank you again for your support, we will write a list of how far our money went once we are back in Canada, until then, ahsante sana.

Friday 11 May 2012

We're Here!

Well, we all made it, and we are all loving it. The flights were long, and uneventful, we arrived in Nairobi at night and were met by Jayne's wonderful friend Moses, as well as four of his friends. We spent the night just outside of the city, and were up early the next day to head back to the airport for our 30 minute flight to Kisumu. The baggage was a hassle, but overall only cost us around $120.00 which is fantastic.
We were picked up in Kisumu by Anna's friends Ken and Charles, and they brought us to Margaret's.
We have spent the last week getting to know our classes,
Jayne, Standard 7,
Chelsea, Standard 6,
Melanie, Standard 5,
Sarah, Standard 4,
and Anna has been spending time with Standard 8. Many of whom are her former students.
We are all teaching Science, P.E., and English, but Jayne's also taught a few Math classes as well!
We have all felt so welcome and at home, none of us want to come back!
We have been lucky that it has not been as hot as when Anna was here last, but it is still hot to us.
The students are incredible. They work hard on empty stomaches and exhausted bodies. School starts at 6"00am sharp. They come to school with firewood, machetes, and water, and are prepared to clean classrooms, cut the grass with their knives and burn wood to make meals for the teachers. Their discipline is an incredible thing. It has been nice to have our classes and to have them begin opening up to us. Chelsea and I ( Jayne) have even had a mini dance party with our I-pods to demonstrate electricity. The simple things right?!
All in all this experience has been an eye opener and a pleasure. More than we could hope for. As teachers, and as people, we are growing more and more each day.

We are in Kisumu today buying a sewing a machine for one of the girls, as well as stocking the school's medical kits.  We have also met the two lovely children, John and Lydiah, who we sent to boarding school. They send their thanks and their love.

Again, we thank you for all of your support and kindness. 

Thursday 3 May 2012

Away We Go

We are at the airport waiting to board the plane. The fantastic people at KLM waived our overweight fees. That's $775 extra for the kids in Ulamba. We will try to update the blog as much and soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported us. You are the reason we are here today and we couldn't be more excited, (and maybe a little bit nervous! Comment on here, or send us an email to keep in touch.

Saturday 21 April 2012

12 Days

The final countdown is on. We leave in twelve days. I think all of our nerves are beginning to show themselves. We will finally be doing what we've talked about for the last eight months.
On Wednesday we got together at Anna's house for dinner and Rose, who went to Ulamba with Anna, came as well. It was a welcome change to get together and not talk about fundraising as it seems that's all we've thought about, other than school.
All of our books and school supplies that we have accumulated are in Sarah's room waiting to be packed. We will have over 1000 pounds of luggage between the five of us. We have all had our final immunizations, are picking up our prescriptions just in case we get sick while we're there, and are buying our last few items that we need.
We are all still waiting for our passports to come back with our Visas, hopefully we will see them early next week so that we will feel like everything is ready to go.

Anna, Melanie, Rose, Jayne, Sarah, Chelsea

We will do another update before we head out, and we hope to be able to update everyone on here once a week while we are gone. 


Thursday 29 March 2012

It Was a Success

The Silent Auction was amazing!
We've only received one picture so far, hopefully we get some more.



This is of some of our support team from school, what a bunch of awesome education students.
Thank you to everyone who came out to support us, and the fantastic companies that donated our auction items.
We sold everything, and the kegs were gone by 11:15. Everything went better than we anticipated.
Kyle, Glenn, Stagger Wild (sorry I don't know how to put the dots above the a!) and Chris, thank you is not enough. You all made the evening into a party.
Thank you Chris for being our emcee, you saved everyone from listening to us all night.
Janna, Brianna, best bar-tenders ever, and we can't forget Shahin.
Sarah's parents looked after the door all night, and dealt with the silent auction items at the end of the night.
We really can't thank everyone enough.
We will post links for all of our sponsors soon.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

So Many Gift Certificates

We got together last night at Anna's house to organize the items we have so far for our silent auction.
I just picked up another donation from the lovely Nest & Cradle.
We have almost 30 items, and a few more on their way from up island on Thursday.
The kegs are being picked up Friday morning, and our wonderful friends are baking delicious treats so that people can keep up their energy while bidding on all the awesome stuff.
We have a small list of businesses that have donated on our Silent Auction Facebook Page.
We are hoping for a good turn out on Friday...we will be dressed up and ready to party.
This will be our last big fundraising event, (unless of course we find the time in April for another club night).
Off to finish getting everything ready...

Monday 5 March 2012

Some Pictures

We are only a few weeks away from our Silent Auction on March 23. We are finalizing the details and hoping to get a few more donations for auction items. We are all extremely busy with school, and vaccines, and fundraising, but the thought of Kenya is keeping us all going. We had a meeting yesterday to organize who will do what for the silent auction, and made up our Facebook page.
To immortalize the night, here are a few pictures from our Safari Party last weekend...

Safari Jayne has pointed out an exotic animal to Tacky Tourist Chelsea's delight!

Anna and Sharde attacking Safari Jayne.

There are more, and far better pictures, on Boutique's Facebook page so check them out.