Today has been such a busy, fun day. I love life here!So in the morning, as usual, I taught at school. Today’s amusing anecdote: the school priest/ religion teacher came to greet me when I was sitting outside with the other teachers. He had his wife with him (a severe looking woman carrying a Bible, and dressed head to toe in black). He comes to chat to me, and stands above me, CLEARLY looking down my top. “Ahem”, I say. He grins, and says: “You have nice shoes”. “You’re kidding, right?” I ask, in a disapproving tone. “No, your shoes really are lovely”. Great priest there people…
Then of course there was the young male teacher blatantly flirting with a schoolgirl.. No biggy. No one bats an eyelid.
My box of chalk was stolen from the staff room. Petty.
Aaaand, one of the nuns reinforced for me that yes, I really should have a stick. She keeps one on her desk “just in case”. I was offered another chance to have my own stick, which I gratefully declined. Although I’m beginning to think that I might accept one, just for the souvenir effect.
Some kids really are daft. Today one child drove me up the wall. Half way through the spelling test, I look up, and see her sitting there with no paper, no pencil, doing nothing. “Faith, what are you doing?” “Nothing.” “I can see that, WHY are you doing nothing?” – blank stare-. “Faith, you know the rest of the class is doing a spelling test?? Why aren’t you writing??” “Because I have no paper”. “Where is you work book??” “In my desk”. “Faith, TAKE IT OUT.” Later on, we’re reading a text from the textbook. I look up, once again, Faith is doing nothing. “Faith, where is your book?” “I don’t have one.” “Why not??” “My mum can’t afford to buy me one.” Okay, I said, no problem, please go and sit over there, and share with Christopher. So what does she do?? She stands up and starts trying to move her WHOLE DESK to the other side of the class room…. “Faith, you don’t need to move your desk… just sit at the spare space that is there….” But my nerves were being tested 🙂
After school, we went swimming with the kids. Of course, by the time we got to the swimming pool, there was terrential rain. I said I didn’t mind, it would stop soon, as the sky was blue. The kids were desperate to swim. So in we go, into the outdoor pool. In the rain. The kids soon started screaming and wailing. We all had to go back inside again, having swum about 15 mins, with all the black people sheltering from the rain and watching in bewilderment as the crazy wazungus take their kids swimming…
From the swimming pool, we headed to the elephant orphanage. Driving along the road we met a stray giraffe, taking an evening stroll along the road 🙂 Our “family” has adopted a little baby elephant called Naipoki, so we were going to visit her. She was incredibly cute, and wanted to make friends. She wrapped her trunk around my arm, and gave it a tug, to pull me closer to play. She nearly took my arm off! I was seriously shocked to see that an elephant shorter than me with a trunk not longer than my arm had such strength!! Eventually she got too tired, and was tucked up (under blankets) for bedtime.
The orphaned elephants drink 12 pints of baby (human) powered milk every 3 hours night and day until they are about 3!! The wardens sleep with their “baby”, and have to be with them constantly during the day. I was surprised also at how intelligent elephants are – they respond to their names.
One baby elephant was brought in about an hour before we arrived. A victim of poaching – he has a spear wound to the head 😦 Poor thing was so sad and scared.
If anyone wants to donate online by the way – do contact me for more info.
And today’s piece of trivia: I find it stupidly amusing that Kenyan money is referred to as “bob”. Ie. “How many bob does that cost?” “Oh it’s 30 bob”.
Good night, I’m off to Nakuru tomorrow morning at 7 – to visit the flamingos!!!
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