While many people consider Saturday to be the beginning of the weekend, students at the Nambale Magnet School are still hard at work in their classes.
This morning, the mission trippers took a break from assisting in classrooms and went out to town with Madame Caroline, a social worker here at NMS. There are two major market days in Nambale, a big market day on Saturday and a smaller market day on Tuesday.
Today we had the opportunity to observe and experience the big market day. As we walked along the path next to the road, we passed fruit vendors, local students from other schools, and several herds of cows. I walked with Katherine and as we admired a few local girls shopping for dresses in a small shop, she brought up the incredibly interesting comparison between their shopping experience and our typical American shopping mall experience.
Throughout my time in Nambale, I've been thinking a lot about consumption and the culture of consumerism that is especially prevalent in America. Walking through the market, there were piles upon piles of t-shirts, jeans, sweaters, and shoes. While I don't know exactly where these vendors receive their products, I can assume that some may be donations from places like the Salvation Army or other similar organizations. Seeing the piles of previously owned clothing sold and displayed in such a way has made me much more aware of the clothes and other items I currently own and use on a daily basis. While I hope that the items I donate end up benefiting someone else, I also believe that creating a culture of conscious consumption, especially in a first world country like America, is so important to keep both our climate and communities beyond that of the Bay Area and our country clean.
Returning to stories of our adventures though, the mission trippers also had the opportunity to stop into a corner store while in town. We have been enjoying so many delicious snacks special to Kenya, including the freshly made snacks at NMS. Additionally, we have become quite big fans of some of the special soda flavors in Kenya including Black Currant Fanta and Bitter Lemon Schweppes.
We returned from our market field trip in the late morning for a brief reflection and some very heated rounds of cards.
In the late afternoon, Anhai, Matthew, and I were invited to teach a 7th grade English class. After a very brief lesson planning session, the three of us headed to the classroom where we taught an hour long lesson about parts of speech.
We started with some introductions and asked the students to share some of their favorite books with us. We then reviewed the different parts of speech, and taught the short chorus of the School House Rock song "Conjunction Junction". Anhai and I were both blown away by the students' excitement and engagement with the lesson, especially when we asked for volunteers to give examples. We ended the class with a couple rounds of MadLibs, including one with a Bigfoot theme, and when the bell rang received numerous hugs and high fives from each of the students.
We ended the day with a fun night of dancing. We listened to pop songs from both America and Kenya and have become obsessed with a song called "Kuna Kuna". All of the NMS students taught us their favorite dance moves and we all participated in a giant conga line. The students have also become particularly interested in the two cameras I carry around with me and took some fabulous pictures of each other at the dance.
Today was the last normal school day of the term before Sports Day preparations begin on Monday. I am so excited to see what the rest of our time at NMS brings and hope to continue building wonderful, lasting memories with each of the students here.
- Charlotte
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