Primary School Kids

The kids from the nearby primary school are the best. At lunch, they’re out on break when I walk past on my way home to eat, and they’ve always got creative new things to shout out at my as I pass. “Muzungu!” or, “how are youuuuu” then the next week, “goooood morning!” (where good rhymes with food), and eventually they’ve moved on to things like, “you are beautiful!”. “you are smart!”(where smart rhymes with cat) and even, my personal favourite, “we love you so much!” It makes a girl’s day to have 100 small Kenyans shout amorous proclamations at the top of their lungs.

I guess I should mention that there seems to be a local grammatical deficiency in the area of superlatives, like when Winnie asked me if there was a difference between dislike and hate. I told her yeah, it’s like the difference between like and love. When she asked me to clarify the difference between like and love, I thought for a moment that maybe the kids didn’t feel as ardently as their vocab choices might imply… but no, certainly they mean love. Don’t you think?

Last week another primary school was visiting. They ate lunch on the church yard, and my regular primary kids at lunch on their school yard. The fences of the yards line the walk way to my house, so as I walked home, there were kids crowding the fences on both sides. My kids were particularly possessive, and when the visiting kids in unison yelled, “what is your name!” my kids shouted back, also in unison, “her name is Mrs. Farlow and she is from Canada!” (I can’t get them to stop with the Mrs, but at least they no longer tell me that I’m from Japan)

When I go running in the morning before school, I always end up with a herd of kids running beside me. With backpacks and bare feet, they just run beside me. They never say anything. I bet that on the mornings I go running, the number of late students is at least halved. I feel a little bit like the pied piper.

Today I headed over to the shops to pick up some chipati for dinner, just as the choir kids finished their practice. They won some local tournament, so they’re heading to the big city (by big, I mean Machakos) in August for the finals. They practice every day, and they’re actually really good. I would totally go cheer for them, except for that I’LL BE HOME BY THEN! (less than 2 weeks now!) The walk to the shops is about ten minutes, and the entire time the choir gaggle giggled non-stop. Then the boldest girl, a tiny one who I often see challenging boys to foot races, would ask a question like, “where are you going?” and when I answered, “the shops!” they would all repeat my answer as if it were the most absurd thing ever. “THE SHOPS!!! THE SHOPS!” And once they had caught their breath, the girl would ask another question.

“What is your English name?”

“Lisa!”

“LISA!!! HER NAME IS LISA!!! LISA!”

And then I would ask a question, like how far their walk home is. They’d all waffle until the little brave one would shout an absurd answer, like “A THOUSAND MINUTES!” and they would all laugh in the same way they laughed at my absurd answers. Then the little ring leader would sprint off, apparently embarrassed by her own wit, until the laughing had calmed. I noticed that two girls looked alike, so I asked if they were sister. The ring leader shouted, “NO, THEY ARE BROTHERS!” and dashed off again. Almost everybody has as shaved head, so I looked again, but no, they were wearing the girl uniform (that is, a skirt).

I like the primary school kids a lot. It’s too bad there are so many of them (8 classes of about 30) because I’d have liked to have spent time with them, or give them candy on my last day or something. Either way. Hilarious kids.

Computers are ace

Starting today computers are built in (well, appended) to the schedule. This means that I have all 32 (form one/ grade nine) or 38 (form two/grade ten) students at once, and only two computers. They are divided into groups of around three. Each class is forty minutes long, but that's really only twenty minutes of computer time since we need to carry the computers to the church (where class takes place, since its the only place with power) and set them up.

Basically, at two classes per grade per week, each group of three gets one class of computer time every three weeks. And while that's totally fine, I don't really know what to do with the rest of them during the classes when it's not their turn. Currently they just sit in the pews behind and watch, though I made a strict rule that if you come to the front and interfere with the girls whose turn it is, then your group goes last. Two girls came forward to the computers, so I had to put their groups last, and now I think maybe that's kind of a harsh punishment, but I think it's important that I not go back on my own rule.

I've decided that there will be three units, and each group gets on the computer once per unit. The first unit will be the mouse, saving files, opening files, opening and exiting programs, and typing lower case vs upper case letters. This unit will entirely take place on MS Paint, because it'll make them want to practice mouse control. The second unit will be Word, because that's probably the most useful program to learn. The third will be just using Microsoft, like folders and stuff. I guess the third unit can be embellished a little.

Every so often I accidentally drop some slang, like when we were going to the field for gym and some people were being slow, I shouted, 'chop chop!' They loved it so much, and I overhear them saying it all the time. It's so hard to explain proper slang usage! I told them it's not really the most polite thing to say, and that it's maybe a bit outdated.

Today when we were done returning the computers to their proper location, I said, "ace." Then I had to explain ace. I picked the term up in an episode of JakeandAmir.com when Jake was making up terms to see if Amir would believe him. J&A fans, remember? Gully? Anyway, so ace is slang that is used semi-ironically, like as an inside joke with an internet tv show. (Ace and Jocelyn, astronaut accountants from space, am I right?) It's obscure. But I explained it to them as meaning a mixture of good/thanks/I am pleased with what you have just said or done, and that only the youth use it. I felt a little silly explaining. Anyway, somebody let Jake and Amir know that ace has officially spread to Kenya.
Ps- if any Jake and Amir fans have nothing else to do, can you link the episode I mean in the comments?

Today I found out that I'll be teaching in an all girls secondary school!

I also found a google book on the Kamba language. I think I might try to learn a bit before I head over.

Also also, I found this photo album of pictures of Mbooni, the region where the school is! It's sort of fun to look through, and imagine being there. In 20 days!