We land in Nairobi in pouring rain – it is not the rainy season but it has rained for 2 days. As my suitcase arrives on the carousel and I notice the wet patch, I think – oh no, my bottles of wine have broken and leaked all over my clothes. But it is just the rain.
Our trip to the hotel is hair-raising – potholes, roadworks, rain and Nairobi traffic! Add to this our taxi driver, Mengo, who swerves, shouts, hoots and looks at me while he talks to me – and I have a recipe for instant nervous breakdown. But arriving at the hotel, the worries are soothed away by the Victorian splendour of the Sarova Stanley – opulent carpets and curtains, dark furniture, club chairs – it is wonderful.
In the morning, the work begins. We meet David Rose at breakfast – he is just off a plane from Australia and looks travel-weary, but the work has to start. He gets a 45 minute nap while Mike and I set off for the Aga Khan Foundation offices. We walk the block to the offices – the city “feels” like a foreign city – it is clean but busy. Mike warns me that there is an “informal arrangement” when it comes to crossing the roads. There is no need to wait for the lights – neither cars nor pedestrians do! So you watch out!
We are driven by another cowboy driver, Josef, to Mkuru – a large slum near Nairobi, to visit two schools where the Reading to Learn methodology is being implemented. On the way, Mike points out all the storks, which roost in the trees in the middle of the lunatic traffic. All along the light poles, we see these huge birds, perching and watching, and later, see a whole flock wheeling and flying in the sky. They are ugly birds close to, with their pink wattles and scaly legs, but in the sky, they are graceful and almost ethereal. We also spot a yellow-billed kite high up in the sky.
We enter Mkuru through blocks of apartments, unfinished but inhabited, and with a forest of TV aerials rising from each roof. As we go deeper in, the roads deteriorate, and the apartments become tenement buildings, with shops underneath and children and washing leaning through skimpy balconies. Everywhere there is litter – piled up on the sides of the roads, where it has been pushed by graders, lying in any empty piece of land, on fences, in huge piles. Joshua, who travels with us, says that visiting these areas is certainly an “olfactory experience.”
The schools we go to see are private schools, and are run either by NGOs and churches, or as businesses. The first one, Kids of Hope, is down a smelly, wet alley way and is made entirely of corrugated iron – old corrugated iron, full of holes and with “frilly” edges where the iron has rusted and buckled. It is the first day of school and not all children have returned, and in the Gr 2 class we visit, there are normally twice the number of children in a tiny space. Their teacher, Betsy, goes through a story about going on holiday, and the level of understanding and the level of English astounds me. The children are dressed in red pants or skirts – huge, voluminous skirts and long, baggy shorts, made out of what looks like fasco. They all wear gumboots – and considering the terminal state of the muddy, litter embedded state of the roads, it is a wise choice.
I chat to Elizabeth, who is a facilitator for the project, training and supporting teachers in R2L, and David, who works with the schools in the slums. They tell me that most of these schools do not have qualified teachers, as the salaries are very low – about 5000 to 6000 KS a month. When I change $100 into KS, I receive 9000KS – so salaries are very low. Some of the teachers are recent graduates who are unable to get jobs in state schools, so serve out some time in these schools. Others are community members. Children pay between 250 and 400KS a month. Parents who are employed are mostly casual labourers or factory workers, and earn about 200KS a day. They also pay for uniforms and exercise books for their children.
The children are delightful – all known by English names and I can’t get them to tell me their real names. When I video them, they all rush to see what I am doing – and then want to see themselves on the monitor.
As we leave the school, Mike steps across onto the other side of a ditch and up to his ankles into fetid water and waste. The smell is still with him.
We leave for Gramo Joy school, and drive along the main “shopping street” – a 3 km congested, muddy track lined with wood and iron shacks, selling everything from charcoal to couture clothes, and everything else in between. There are even hotels, clinics and laboratories amongst the mud and congestion. I try to take photos, but Josef is hooting, swerving, swearing at motorcyclists and driving into huge craters, so my photos are not really clear.
The school is bigger and is managed by a husband and wife team – she teaches and he manages. He is an ex-Telecom worker, and when he was laid off, he and his wife started the school. He shows us how they have moved up into the top 10% rating of Nairobi schools in the past 3 years. I observe some Gr 1s who can speak an amazing amount of English, but are dead keen to have their photos taken instead of co-operating with the teacher.
What we see is very impressive – the teachers have learnt the steps well, but David is able to suggest ways that they can improve on the spelling and writing stages.
We say goodbye to Mkuru Kwanjenga and hit the traffic jam back into town. At the office we are given more background. Schooling has just been made compulsory, but it has not yet been enforced, and state schools are not fulfilling the needs of the population. This is why there are so many private schools. They are also bound by a curriculum that is exceptionally prescriptive and which makes it very difficult for teachers to work creatively. The Foundation is looking at getting some of the teachers to write stories which incorporate some of the spelling words, and to use them as resource books.
I am blown away by what I see – I have just come from schools that are poor and under-resourced but this is beyond anything I have seen anywhere in South Africa. A mud hut in a rural area with clean air and space to play must be better than what I saw today. And yet, the teachers were positive and innovative. Wonderful.
Off to Mombasa at 4.30 tomorrow morning, to visit some rural schools (if the teachers aren’t on strike.) A different experience.
