Sarah In Kenya

As I mentioned before, Kenyan students are nearing the end of the last term of the 2009 academic year.  Today at the Flying Kites School, our students began taking their end-of-term exams.  We have four different levels (or grades) of students: nursery, 1, 2, and 3.  Our level 1, 2, and 3 students take standardized tests in six subjects: English, Swahili, math, social studies, science, and religion.  No separation of church and state here in Kenya!  Although nursery students are not required to take an end-of-term exam, our nursery teacher, Catherine, wrote and administered an exam to our youngest students so that we can assess whether they are progressing adequately.

This examination period is of utmost importance to Flying Kites: not only will it determine which students will advance to the next level for the 2010 school year, it will allow us to assess which students are particularly stunted in English literacy and in need of specialized instruction.  There are several children who joined our school from the community who had been promoted in the public schools they previously attended solely because of their age, but are very limited in their English abilities.   Starting in 2010, these students will receive English instruction through our new literacy program that we will fully flesh out during the December break from school.  All of our classes (besides Swahili) are taught in English, so an excellent grasp of the language is essential.

The testing period started very smoothly today, thanks to the help of our volunteers Hannah, Ashwini, and Christina, who acted as proctors and monitors.  The teachers have begun to grade the exams, and on Wednesday I will meet with them so we can start analyzing the results and deciding how to place the children for the next term.

We’ve had a switch in our volunteer lineup.  Maggie, our Olympian volunteer, finished her three-week stay with us and returned to Denmark.  We were so sorry to see her go!  She was a model volunteer: first and foremost, she interacted wonderfully with the children.  She was one of the first volunteers to initiate the FKKCC Literacy Program, and she worked tirelessly with Kevin to improve his reading skills.  She was also very calm and collected and adapted to life quickly here at the Children’s Center.  While we will miss her, we hope that she keeps up with our progress and spreads the good word about Flying Kites in Denmark.

Fortunately for us, two new volunteers arrived to help this week.  My dear friend, Ashwini Habbu, arrived to volunteer with us for three weeks.  She is a lawyer and has graciously offered to help us with legal questions, such as how to have sales taxes legally waived for any purchases our non-profit makes here in Kenya.  She’ll also be working with me to interview women from Njabini – we want to organize women collectives that make beaded goods and textiles that we will then sell in the U.S. and elsewhere (more on this later!).

Our other new volunteer is Hannah Wesley – she will be staying with us for four months!  Being here for such a length of time will really allow her to make a difference with our organization.  She and I discussed splitting her time between assisting in the Flying Kites classrooms and acting as an advocate for Flying Kites in Nairobi.  Her first outreach project will be to research what international study abroad programs exist in Kenya and prepare a presentation about Flying Kites for these students.  We hope to provide a community service aspect to these study abroad programs and are hopeful that international students will want to get involved with helping our children.

Things are rocking and rolling here!  We have a busy week ahead of us, and I will keep you all updated!

Joseph had another first this week – his first encounter with Google.  He loves it.  His first search was “motorcycle games” – a pretty reasonable search for a twelve-year-old Google user.  His second query?  “Where does HIV come from?”  When he asked Leila to enter this search, it made my heart ache.  Joseph was infected with HIV through his mother’s breast milk, and he is one of the 2.3 million children in the world that lives with the virus – 87% of these children live in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the vast majority of all HIV and AIDS cases.  Tragically, and despite its prevalence here,  less than 1% of sexually active Africans are tested for the disease.

Joseph and one other Flying Kites child, Benson, live with HIV.  Flying Kites has decided to share this information with the public for several reasons, including that volunteers need to know about the disease’s presence in case of emergency at the Children’s Center, and also because we want to reduce the stigma attached with the disease for the children in our care.

Joseph is lucky, in a way – he appears to have a weaker form of the virus, because it is destroying his CD4 T-cells (his white blood cells that are part of his immune system) at a relatively slow rate.  We are doing everything we can to keep his immune system strong, prolong his lifespan, and give him a normal childhood.

Below are some of the questions that Joseph asked.  I learned a lot myself from his Googling, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Where did HIV come from?
Monkeys in Africa first carried the HIV virus.  It is thought that people hunting the monkeys contracted the disease through open wounds.

What are the stages of HIV?
Stage 1: Primary HIV infection.  A flu-like illness that may last for a couple weeks.  The virus may not show up in HIV tests at this point.
Stage 2: Asymptomatic stage.  During this stage, which can last up to ten years, no major symptoms are present.  However, HIV is present and destroys white blood cells.
Stage 3: Symptomatic stage.  Once the immune system has been damaged to a certain extent by HIV, infections and cancers develop in the body.
Stage 4: Progression from HIV to AIDs.  Once the symptoms become severe and prevalent enough, the person is considered to have AIDS.

How long does it take before HIV is considered AIDS?
Without antiretroviral medications, it usually takes about 10 years for HIV to progress to AIDS.

How can antiretroviral medications help?
Antiretroviral medications can slow HIV from progressing to AIDS – sometimes for 30 years or more.

Toby, Leila, and I headed into Nairobi today, along with Joseph, one of our FK kids.  Toby, Leila, and I have some meetings in the city this week, and Joseph had a meeting as well…with the dentist.  Leila took him in today for some molds and x-rays, and the dentist decided his teeth are a bit too crowded.  The verdict: he had to get a tooth pulled.

To reward him for his bravery, we took Joseph to the movies – it was his very first time to go to a movie theater.  He absolutely loved it!  It was a Bruce Willis flick, and he loved all the action.  However, he was puzzled for about the first 10 minutes – he asked, “Where is the karate?”  That’s when we taught young Joseph the crucial difference between Bruce Willis and Bruce Lee.

Before I arrived here in Kenya, I spent a few days in Cambridge, England.  Although I did get to check out the university (it was beautiful), the primary reason I went was to attend a Flying Kites High Tea and Auction, which was expertly put together by JoAnne Rutter and Claire Rayner, two of our favorite Flying Kites supporters.

Joanne and Claire spent months meeting with local businesses asking them to donate items to the auction.  Their hard work was evidenced by the fact that there were over 50 items up for bid in the auction!  The auction included several original pieces of art, jewelery, spirits, and some really cool vacation packages – a flat in Morocco was donated for a week’s vacation!

The auction was spirited and expertly led by a professional auctioneer.  We had loads of fun bidding, and best of all – we raised over $6,000 dollars for the children of Flying Kites!!  Thank you so much to JoAnne and Claire, as well as to Leila’s family for offering their beautiful home for the event and for coordinating the high tea and other details.

And so I ask you, Flying Kites supporters – can you volunteer your services to throw such an auction in your area?  We will be there to support and guide you through the process, and it is a wonderful way to get your community involved in a really meaningful project.  Your time can go a long way for our children.

Joanne and me before the auction

Martin Evans, Nobel Prize Winner, provides an introduction to the auction

The auctioneer in action!

Five of the older Flying Kites Children – Monicah, Hannah, Joseph, James, and Peter – attend Good Shepherd Academy, a private school located in Njabini, the town by which FKKCC is located.  While many Good Shepherd children are boarding students, our kids attend as day students.  Today was Visitor Day, where the school opens its doors to the students’ parents and guardians.

Here in Kenya, the academic year is structured a bit differently.  It is divided into three terms: the first running from January to March; the second from May to July; and the third from September to November.  During April, August, and December, the students are on vacation.  Visitor Day coincided with the end of the third term, when school children across the country prepare to take national exams to determine whether they will advance to the next grade.

The five older kids, Leila, Benson (who owns the FKKCC home), Rahab (a FK Director) and I set off for the school this morning.  I was so impressed by it!  It is massive – three stories tall, with dozens of classrooms.  The day started with an assembly in the church – the boarding students had obviously put a lot of preparation into putting on an entertaining program.  They were such great singers and dancers!

Following the assembly and Mass, we moved to the school grounds, where every grade put on a presentation.  I was so proud to see our children up there.  Finally, the teachers handed out report cards for the term and discussed them with the parents and guardians.  I met all of the children’s teachers, and they had nothing but kind words to say about them!

The best part of the day?  PETER WAS RANKED FIRST OUT OF HIS ENTIRE GRADE!  I wish you all could have seen the pride in his eyes.  What makes this even more amazing is that up until last year when he arrived at Flying Kites, he had NO formal education.  No one is going to hold him back.  I am so proud of him, and I can’t wait to see him excel further during the next school year.

We at Flying Kites love changing the lives of the 16 children in our care, as well as the additional 35 students from the community that we educate.  However, we want our legacy to be larger: we want to effect lasting change for orphaned children across Kenya.

To accomplish this goal, we have implemented the Oasis Program, through which we plan to improve the lives of Kenya’s orphaned and vulnerable children by uniting orphanages and working with them to enhance the services they provide. We are confident that if orphanages around the country are able to share their ideas and communicate with the government as a unified group, they will be able to receive more aid, improve their services, and provide a better life to the children in their care.

Our first step to getting the Oasis Program off the ground is to introduce ourselves to orphanages and assess their current conditions.  Veronica Ciambra and Jessica McCauley, two very dedicated and capable Flying Kites volunteers, have helped me compose a survey to assess Kenyan orphanage conditions.  Fran, a Kenyan Flying Kites employee, will administer the survey.

Fran and I administered a “test run” of our survey to the Flying Kites housemothers – they gave some very helpful critiques that will help make the survey even more effective! They were adamant that a Kenyan should administer the survey instead of me, a muzungo (read: white person), explaining that with a Kenyan asking the questions, the orphanage employees will be more at ease and more likely to respond truthfully and accurately.  In the next few weeks, Fran will begin traveling to orphanages to administer these surveys.  I’ll keep everyone posted as to how this project progresses.