School Tours

Last week I spent visiting schools in the area we’re working with, helping to complete a follow-up assessment to an earlier survey. This involved meeting with the headmasters of the schools, taking photos and measurements of classrooms, inquiring about water consumption, inspecting the latrines (my favorite part), and providing excitement for the students while unintentionally disrupting their summer school classes. Although we arrived unannounced to all of the schools, we were received with warm receptions.

We travelled in a pickup truck, or a “Yute” (short for “utility”) as I’m told by my Australian supervisor, three of us snug in the front cab. Some of the roads made the Kitui-Mutomo road look like a racetrack in comparison, but with a proper vehicle and a skilled Kenyan driver, the roads were actually possible to traverse. I’d like to consider myself an optimist, but several times we came across a river, stream, ditch, cluster of roots and rocks, tree branches, thorns, washed away gullies, livestock, I thought for sure we’d need to give up and turn around. I even saw a mountain goat attempt to climb a bank alongside the road and slip and fall. Not kidding. The driver didn’t even blink as he put the Yute into gear and gunned it forward. As a result, I have a sore rear end and a bruised collarbone from the seat belt holding me in place while we jostled around.

Many of the schools had no signboards or other indication to announce its location or how far away it was, so we navigated most of the roads with pure instinct and the assistance of the local villagers and their directions. The people in this area are notoriously known for saying anyywhere you’re going is “just there”, as in, you’re always almost there. No matter that we’ve been driving for hours since the last person directed us with the school being “just there”. Sometimes the driver would turn to me and unknowingly ask the person with the world’s worst sense of direction, “Are we lost?" If you’re asking me, I think we’re in trouble. At every junction, the driver would suggest we proceed in one direction, my supervisor suggesting another, and they would both turn expectantly to me to break the tie. I effectively excused myself from weighing in, warning them that even if I suggested I had a “gut feeling” about a certain path to take, they should ignore me completely, or go the exact opposite way.

Also, interestingly enough, although I rode with a different driver each day, all of the drivers are men, none of them seemed to have any hesitation asking the locals for directions when realizing (and admitting) we were lost. Hmm…there goes that nature vs. nurture argument…

And it was a happy birthday, thanks all for the wishes.

Cheers!
(also as my Aussie supervisor would say)