3rd week in Kenya- Visit to School of Deaf

3rd week in Kenya

Friday was our second community day here in Kenya. This was planned to be a visit here in Machakos to the School of the death. It is a public school with 250 students from nursery school age to high school grade. As the school is a boarding school where all the students live there, there is a prices for the stay being 30USD per term (same as 10 USD per month i.e. 55 DKK). This money to cover food, clothes, medicine etc. Thinking about it we get per Diem per day is to cover for  one term for 1 kid. We all arrived at 9 am except from the 2 having food poisoning and meet with the Principal and the teaching staff. An assembly with all the students in their either red/grey uniform or blue for the high school students and we learned the basic deaf language and signs and were showed around the school. Learning the signs for each of our countries made a laugh, where Mexico is the sombrero hat and India the red bindi dot in the forehead. We saw some of the school and lot looks familiar with a Danish school i.e. Class rules in 4 class where "no Noise", "be Punctual. I can recognize that from my hildren's' school. Next on the program was to plant a tree, we have bought 20 trees to plant in the garden and we all got into it together with the students. Communication then gets' another angle as they cannot hear. But we managed to get the trees right. Doreen and I were planting 2 trees with mostly our hands as tools was not much available. We also had to do the lawn, and not with machines, electricity or anything. No old fashion tools were used. This is tough and I'm glad I don't have to use this at home.The kids just love having their picture taken, and then watch themselves afterwards on the camera. They have never seen anything like it. So we all had to take a bunch of pictures showing them - one of the good ones. Cleaning their dining room
and kitchen and then we went to the fun part playing football and just letting the kids "talk" with us and see and touch our hair. The final was amazing with a group of senior girls presented a traditional Kamba dance for us. One girl played the drum and 12 girls danced to the beat of the drum, which they could feel through vibrations. It was beautiful and very emotional. The leader of the dance group had a stick/baton with an animal hair tail, which she swished around in time to the beat. The other girls never took their eyes off the baton so they follow the "steps". Amazing. We all got emotional....Giving presents and saying goodbye ended an unforgettable day. 
Nice lunch in the garden and shopping in Machakos made this day just perfect.

Henriette