Week Seven at IcFEM

On Monday morning we applied the finishing touches to our work in the IcFEM Nursery, by cleaning the windows and then arranging the furniture, before going home to carry on work on the trophy. Whilst doing this we watched a review of 2007 on CNN before it was stopped half way through in favor of a cartoon!

Monday was also New Years Eve, and our celebrations took place in the house, after dinner. The celebrations included playing Uno and then watching the highlights of the weekend’s football action.

I was a little late getting up on New Years Day, and then a little late in getting ready, so missed the New Years Day church service. Once ready, I instead played draughts with the guard, and also a new game that he seemed to make up as he went along. Despite this I managed to beat him, which was a first.

The afternoon was once again spent with work on the trophy, which we eventually managed to complete in time for the tournament on Thursday. We later had a bit of a do in the house, with Trevor and Leslie coming round and having a bit of a special dinner of chapatti, and Soloman’s sausages.

The next day we had a fair bit of work to do in our preparations for the tournament, preparations which had had a few set backs, with no petrol for the bus in the local area, and no credit to try and contact certain people.

Instead of the Dreamland school bus, we instead used the taxi driver, Jose, to pick up the team from Mishiku and from Kamkuywa. With limited space it, unfortunately, meant we had to leave some of the reserves behind and instead just take the team. Meanwhile I went to Temba Temba on Buda Buda, to pick up the Kibinge team, and walk the back to Kamusinga. But there was opposition to this and so we instead used Buda Budas back up to Kamusinga.

When I arrived back to Kamsinga Primary with the Kibinge team there was abit of a surprise waiting. I could see that some of the children were playing with some other equipment, other than ours, and I even saw some kids being taught proper forward defensive (for those of you who don’t know this is a proper cricket shot, when you are batting). I was told that this man was from Lugulu, and Mishiku had hired him to help them with some coaching. This was later found to be false info, he was in fact from the Western Province Cricket Association, and had come up with the Mishiku team when he heard about the tournament. He stayed to help out with umpiring and scoring throughout the day. He seemed encouraged by our work and said he would like to carry something similar on, but there is a problem of funding for equipment. He says there is also an older group he has that he would like to move onto hard ball, but they just don’t have the equipment.

The tournament was a good day. We decided to play a little different rules to normal, so that each person got a good chance to bat and bowl. We played 10 overs a side, with each member of the fielding team bowling one over, and batsmen batting in pairs, with each pair batting for 2 overs each, if they were out they lost runs instead of going off the field. It is a system we use with Under 11 teams back in England.

Each of the 3 teams played each other, so there we 3 games throughout the day. The fixtures turned out well, as the last game turned out to be abit of a final, with both teams on one win each, it was winner take all. This game was contested between Mishiku and Kibinge, with Kibinge coming out on top.

Earlier in the day there had been a little controversy when the scores were written down wrong on the scoreboard. When put correct it mean that Kamkuywa had lost both games, one of the leaders looked astonished, even they had obviously being poor, despite my prediction that they were the best team. In the first game alone they had been out 15 times in their 10 overs.
Once the games were over we all went back to the office for some rice and beans, and for the presentation. We had a certificate, t shirt and tennis ball, for the best player from each of the teams. We had the trophy and certificate for the first placed team, and a certificate for second. The winners were happy and I think everyone had a good day, I even think that it may be carrying on into the future, with maybe further tournaments taking place.

The leader of the winning team was so happy, and me and Mathew received an invite to his house for lunch the next day. It was a good afternoon, and a nice lunch. He was also saying that the kids were really pleased about the day before and that it had been a great day. I was also thinking that I don’t think that I had ever been to a day of cricket like that when I hadn’t heard people moaning about not batting or bowling like Thursday.

After lunch we went for a walk up to the local school for a bit of a kick about with the locals and then back to the guesthouse to begin preparations for my departure on Sunday. These included a lot of washing, which took me up until dark and then I woke up early the next morning to finish off.

This morning, Saturday, I went up to Dreamland to plant some trees, and then began saying my goodbyes.

So it has come to the end of my trip, I have really enjoyed my time here. Hopefully There will be one more blog with abit of a conclusion of my time here.
Thank you for reading,
Adam

Week Six at IcFEM

Christmas week and it has been quite a contrast to what is the norm at this time of year at home, on the day itself we even had a barbeque with the sun cracking the flags. Christmas Eve was spent continuing with the painting in the IcFEM office nursery.

All 3 classrooms are now complete, after further work on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with just some adjustments of furniture, and cleaning of windows to be completed. I’m fairly glad that it is over, the classrooms now look fairly good, but it wasn’t the best job ever. The roof was hard work and then applying the yellow border was hard work because the paint was so thick, and then after spending most of Saturday sanding the paint spots off the floor I really was ready for a soda!

Christmas day itself was boiling hot, and was the first day I ate in the house, and the food was great. The day began with a huge breakfast, of toast, mandazi (abit like doughnuts), bananas and even a small packet of sweets. I got through a fair bit, there was just loads of food, with about 3 buckets of mandazi on the table, I couldn’t believe my eyes when even more came, there was no other option but to tuck in! After this it was time for church, and for me there was a last minute change of plan, instead of going with Mathew, I instead went with Solomon, Trevor, Leslie and Chris to Kamusinga. We set off at around 10:20 and arrived back just before 2. We then had a light lunch, of noodles and cake, before starting on the Barbeque out in the yard.

We sat down to eat outside at around 7, and once again it was a real feast. We had a full sheep, chapatti, chicken, salad, and some mashed potato, and then some cake for desert. Once again I managed a fair bit, and so it was no surprise that a little later, and especially the next morning, I did not feel too well, and missed breakfast the next day, while I tried to sleep it off a little.
Christmas day seemed to be just like any other day really in town with shops open, buda budas in business and people seemingly going about their usual business. It was funny, despite this, on Christmas Eve, I was asked whether we celebrated Christmas in England, and was then told that it was a big thing in Kenya and the people were preparing hard!

Once awake, Boxing Day was spent lazing around a little and playing a bit of football in the garden. I also went into town in the early evening to watch the Man Utd match.

This week has also played host to the Kenyan Elections, with votes still being counted as I speak. It has been fairly entertaining and the last few days, town has been quiet. Even Christmas day was busier. The man at the local shop opened and worked Christmas day, as did a lot of others, but had the 27th off for elections, even once he had voted was riding round watching the voting take place. Over the past few days people have been hanging around any TV they can set their eyes on, and most of the house also glued to the TV. It has been a real show with some results being announced, others delayed, with some ECK officials seemingly gone missing and the inevitable claims of rigging. It is now 3 days after the elections and there is no announcement of the next president and even demands for recounts! There is nothing on TV other than these elections, at least over the rest of the time I have been here we have at least had a small break between the continuous talk of elections.

With only a week to go in Kenya, it seems a shame that I am on my way in a little while, as since Christmas my point of view has seemed to have changed, from being a Englishman thinking “o look this is Kenya” to realizing I have now been living in Kenya for the past 6 weeks and feeling more and more at home with the Kenyan way of life.

Week Five at IcFEM

Week 2 of cricket in the Units, and we began by finishing off with Kibinge. Kibinge coaching has taking place in Temba Temba, and on to get to this place we need to go down a very steep hill, on buda buda, it really is scary, you defiantly don’t need roller coasters, just go down this hill on a buda buda, with the rider trying to avoid the potholes and in the process nearly tipping you off the bike, its horrible. It was good that Constance sent one of the buda buda men away that was drunk, that would have been great going down there with a drunk driver.

The kids turned up at about 10ish, around an hour late, and then were taught more rules and how to bowl, but not how to field as the fielding group started to bowl, as in Kamkuywa, once again messing up the plans. We also lost one of the footballs when it popped on a barbed wire fence, and was told it could be fixed, so just allowed the man to got away and, as we thought, “try” and fix it, but we later found that it is possible and so carelessly lost a ball.

The next day was the day to pick a team, and was once again made difficult by the games stopping and players following Mathew around as he wrote down the names of the final team. In teaching the kids the proper game of cricket we once again had similar problems to the previous group, with batters wanting to bowl, fielders trying to bat, etc.

Its nice to know people’s true opinion and that is what we got during our 3 days in Kibinge, from a girl who liked to remind me that “this is boring” and “I m not enjoying this,” but still turned up each day, and even managed to get into the reserves for the tournament day.

On Wednesday we began coaching with a new group, Misikhu, and began chaotically, with the news that the children had turned up at 9am, when we had said 2 pm! So we sent off and arrived at 12:30, to find no sawdust had been delivered as had been agreed, and then when asking for help from one of the teachers, was asked how much we were paying and then refused help when we said nothing. But the man in charge of the unit, Ken, knew of cricket, and has played in the past and so turned up to give a helping hand. But his passion got the better of him, with him wanting his team to be the best and know the most, but we felt it wasn’t fair to teach this unit things we had not taught the others. After the second day, when the kids were so difficult, Ken decided that he wanted to pick his team there and then, because he felt we wouldn’t pick a decent team the next day, when he would not be present. At the end of the second day we went for lunch to a “certain mama’s” house, who had been a part of the house construction with us a few weeks earlier. So we had ugali and cuku, with the “old mama” from the house also present.

By the end of the third day the team was picked, a little more quietly than in the previous 2 groups, but we did have one lad who we had said could not play because he was too big, still trying his hardest to get into the team, and a unknown woman just turning up and looking at the team sheet, and standing in the middle of the pitch, seemingly not knowing what was going on, but she never said a word, but just stood clueless in the middle of the pitch.
We had some good help from some people who seemed to just turn up from the street, but were a real help, and great at keeping control and teaching. As with Robert, who had helped us with the other two groups, but the end of the week they had a good idea of the game and began coaching on their own.

On Saturday I did some shopping and then went to Kitale to have a look round, and also see if I could get hold of the next “Prison Break” series on DVD. I didn’t really stay for too long, because there’s not a lot to see and it’s not the prettiest place in the world. But I did go into the supermarket, I haven’t seen much like it since I was back home, and some of the prices are funny e.g. Kellogs Frosties at 500 shillings (about 4 pounds) a box. Also being a musungu has it perks, as I didn’t have to leave my bag outside, and queue to do so, as other shoppers did.

Sunday was spent at church and then in the afternoon, carrying on finishing our trophy, which some in the house may be seen as inadequate by the winners of the tournament. Tut Tut, it looks real, and as good as you can get from a water bottle, tub of margarine and roll of tin foil.