The day has finally arrived... School visits in the village! Isaiah (ee-si-ah) was my guide for the day. He is a local in the village who attended Wongonyi Primary School. He picked me up at Mama Gertrude's and we set off on the 30 minute walk to school. The views were incredible and the path was steep as we got our blood pumping. I was grateful for being a trail runner back home and glad to get the exercise, too!
The students were very excited to have a masunga (foreigner) visit them. The younger ones in particular would come up and say, "How are you?" over and over. The Headmaster was very kind and welcomed us. I presented my students' art and lucky pennies from North Buncombe Middle School and then asked the students to create art for my students.
Class 7 was really cute, too! 7th grade in the US is always a special one to teach and I found that they were very special in Kenya, too! They got to use colored pencils and were so very excited about the colors! The students who were gifted in art were beaming as they worked.
In between visiting with students I had tea with all the teachers of the school to ask questions and answer questions about schools in the US. Kenyan teachers must have 2 years of college to teach and more to teach secondary school (high school). Secondary school is not free education and students must score 250 or higher on their tests to get in secondary school. They can also go to tech school if they are not high scorers.
Target score for Grade 8 students