Also, to start the new year off right, we have been venturing off school grounds for a wide range of activities! The first weekend the Form 1s (freshmen) arrived, we all headed up to Brackenhurst Conference Center (Right up the road from the school) for some games and team building exercises coordinated by our lovely Director of Education! We HAD to play some name games to get to know each other and then put their teamwork skills to the test as they were divided into groups and had to hash out how to build a structure out of 15 straws and 1 piece of tape that could hold a bouncy ball being dropped from a ways up. All teams were successful but one, but they all put their best feet forward and worked together well!
Brackenhurst Conference Center is only about a 15 minute walk from the school so we took the girls there on foot for some exercise and to enjoy the sunshine. It also gave us the opportunity to talk to some of them one on one and see how they were doing. I was so encouraged when one of the girls told me that
"Uhuru Academy is unlike any other school she's been to."
She told me how much she loved that although the students are from different backgrounds, they all get along really well and it's not "clicky" like her last high school! Another one of our students on the walk home (before the downpour of rain ensued and we had to run back to the school!) told me that
"Uhuru Academy is different"
because they feel free to be vulnerable and share their stories (their lives and pasts) with each other and us. They loved the safe environment that is created at our school and don't want to leave after they graduate Form 4! I must say that it's hard sometimes to know whether they are getting everything we are teaching in bible study because their serious faces are on. But, when you get them outside of that environment, away from everyone else, and just get to go deeper in one on one conversations with them, you really get to see their true feelings and maturity that sometimes gets masked when they are all 32 in the same place at the same time. It's worth the blank stares we get sometimes to see them applying what they are learning in bible study in their daily interactions with the other students. And honestly, I will take those blank stares, which probably means they are just processing and concentrating on what is being said, over enthusiastic faces anyday if it means we get to see and experience them walking in the grace they have been given and showing that to others in their actions, words, school work, sports, free time, etc. It reminds me of a verse in James that says,
"But, be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
I do not feel deceived but encouraged now when I see those serious faces.
During GLOW Club, we started a leadership campaign and made posters informing the new students about what it means to be a leader at Uhuru Academy!
In more recent news, last Saturday we went on our second field trip of the year with the Form 3s to see two plays in downtown Nairobi! The first one they had read in their Swahili class and so it was cool they got to see it actually acted out in the theater. However, that also meant that Christine, Caitlyn, and I had to sit through a 3 hour play in Swahili which proved to me that I am not as proficient as I thought I was! Luckily, I was sitting next to one of our students who was whispering to me what was happening the whole time! Then, the second play was in English so I did understand that one, however, by that point it was what felt like 100 degrees in that theater due to lack of air conditioning and crowded beyond capacity with high school students which made it difficult to pay attention. But, after sitting in that theater sweating for 5 hours, we then took the girls to get some frozen yogurt!
Some of them, being scholarship students and from lower income families, have never heard of or had frozen yogurt before! I am pretty sure that their bodies have never ingested that much sugar in one sitting because by the time they finished, they were boucing off the walls! Literally, the whole way home, I was driving with 4 students in my car and they were not even singing real words to the songs anymore but just screaming to let out their energy! IT WAS SO CRAZY AND SO FUN! I am surprised I did not have a headache! But, I was glad that I had the opportunity to treat them and take some of them to the mall who had never been before. Also, explaining how to fill up your cup of frozen yogurt was an experience in itself because they wanted to fit absolutely everything they possible could in those small containers! It was the most expensive trip to Planet Yogurt ever (where you pay by weight of the cups) but it was well worth it to spend more time with these girls and be part of their first time experiences.
We then headed back to the school (where the screaming to music and out the windows due to fierce sugar highs) and took some pictures before we said good bye for the day. Even though they expelled a TON of energy on the car ride home, they still had enough for the sassy photos they insist we take every chance we get!
All in all, our first month and a half at Uhuru Academy have been fun filled and fancy free with enough smiles and sugar to go around! It's awesome to part of this school and have such a heavy influence on these girls lives while they are here. It's not just a one way experience though. I will remember these girls and what they have taught me about faith, love, friendship, and laughter for the rest of my life, and look forward to spending the rest of this year laughing obnoxiously, screaming loudly, praying fervently, and loving deeply with them.
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