8/6/10 School visits and car disappointment

This morning Melody and I briefly visited the Zappe kindergarten kids and handed out mosquito net coloring pages and crayons. The kids were so adorable and we saw Babu again today after giving him his bed and backback last night, he looked really excited to see us. When we returned, we decided to take Pili and Enock with us back to Shirati primary school and hand out the massive amounts of crayons we still had left and coloring pages specifically to 1st and 5th grades since they were not included in our original activities that targeted 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. We quickly rushed back after giving the kids crayons and coloring pages so that we could make our 9:30am ride to Bwiri. First a bit of time passes then two hours pass before someone is able to reach a driver. A few more hours later, we realize that there is no driver coming since they were all not available. It was a huge disappointment because we had told many families in Bwiri to meet us at the village office at 11am to pick up their free nets. Since today was Friday, we really wanted today to be the last day that we go to Bwiri and do survey work so that we can rest tomorrow. That didn’t happen after many hours of trying to figure out if we can go or not. So we went to make some bags in Kibwana and then surveyed a few people that we lost to followup in Yakina.

At around 4:30pm, we heard soccer cheering going on and went outside to the nearby field behind our hostel. The games were much more crowded than I expected. I felt like I was back at a high school football game. There were two secondary school teams there from different far away schools. First there was a women’s handball match where they all played in long skirts. Then the secondary school boys had a soccer match. It was so cool, everytime someone scored, there would be a huge rush of people onto the field cheering and singing. Being the only mzungus at this large crowded game, we definitely got a lot of attention. Gotta love it when people keep trying to touch your hair since it is fascinating to have long hair. The kids were super amused by pictures and that they could see themselves on the digital camera. At one point, it was so adorable. I picked up a kid’s English workbook and I saw on the grass with about 7 kids while we read through different parts of the workbook. I would say the object in English and they would say it in Swahili. Moments like these are way too amazing. It makes me feel like part of the community being at the soccer game and playing with young children.