Hey
Hey Hey J
It’s
the middle of January and it’s as warm as a beautiful spring-almost summer day
in Pennsylvania. A little odd perhaps but I’ve acclimated well and it is
perfect weather in my book. School has begun and we are now halfway through
week 3 already-I can’t believe it!
I
am teaching the same subjects that I taught last year but moving up with them
to the next grade level. So that makes my classes as follows:
·
KSL:
Class 4/5
·
Science:
Class 4/5
·
English:
Class 6
·
Maths:
Class 7
·
PE:
Class 8
I’m
glad we decided to do it that way because I am happy with the classes I have.
Also, I say ‘Class 4/5’ because we don’t have enough classrooms to have all of
our classes individualized and so we combined Class 4 & 5 this year. We
also had a committee decide which kids moved up to the next grade level and
which had to repeat a year. Now the classes are pretty evened out and I think
for the most part, students are in the classes they should be, give or take. We
now have most of the students as around 6-7 arrived within the past few days.
We had begun teaching after 5 days of school opening but we were only at about
60% with students. Then as of last week (week 2) we had all but about 10
students (keep in mind that we only have about 65-70 students each term) and
now today we only have 3-4 left to come I think. We also gained 3 new little
ones who are about 5-6 years old and one girl in Class 4.
Sadly,
we also had a quite unfortunate occurrence happen to one of our students who
passed away over the holiday break. She was only in Class 5 and a really
bright, sweet girl. It was hard and the students asked a lot of questions but
we made it through the week and now things are settling back to normal. Please
keep our students and her family in your prayers and thoughts J
In
other news, I ran a race 2 weekends ago and it was something else. I had only
heard about less than 24 hours before it began from my fellow teachers. The day
before I only knew a few things: it was to start at 9, anyone could join, it
would happen directly next door and it would cost 100Ksh. I was nervous but
knew I couldn’t pass up such a great opportunity. I mean, the race was at the
primary school next to ours with whom we share a fence, it cost about 85 cents
and I had absolutely nothing else planned for the day-perfect conditions. So I
went and brought one of my Class 7 girls to run who is very athletic (along
with most of the kids who were at school-about 30-so they could watch). I ate
my breakfast at 7am with a stomach already full of butterflies and headed over
to the school with Evelyn at about 8:30. I assumed it would start a bit late
and Evelyn was still eating her porridge at 8:20 but we left around 8:30 and
when we showed up we were a bit surprised when we saw a total of 4 other
runners. Oh goodness gracious. There were 2 men carrying up the registration
table at about 8:50 with 6 of us there to register-at the exact time the race
was supposed to start. So we moseyed on over, signed up, received our cotton
bib numbers and went to sit and wait under a nearby tree. I kept hoping other
runners would show up soon because we looked like absolute misfits compared to
these professional type runners. We found out they had come from Nyahururu
(1.5hrs away) for the race and they dressed the part (as well as ran the part
we later watched). The girls had on the same kind of uniform I wore in my XC
races back in the day with warm-ups on over top under right before the race
started…even though we were sweating in our short sleeves and Capri
spandex/shorts. At about 9:30 they started to do a warm up lap so Evelyn and I
decided, what the heck, we wanna look legit too, so we ran for maybe 10 min
before sitting back under the tree. We waited some more. Finally around
10:15ish, other runners started ambling their way across the course to the
registration table. By the time the races began there were 50 runners
competing. We were split into 4 categories: 1. Womens junior race (6km) 2.
Womens senior race (8km) 3. Mens junior race (8km) 4. Mens senior race (12km).
They decided to run the women’s junior race (12th grade and under)
at 11am. Evelyn was in this race and she was the only primary age girl there.
We found out listening to the race start up speech that it was basically a try
out race. They were trying out for the top 6 positions/category in the XC race
for all of Laikipia. We are in Laikipia West county but there is also a north
and east Laikipia and that race takes place in a week or so and it continues to
build up to Nationals. There was no money or prizes to win at this race-only a
chance to further your racing chances. So we knew going into it, neither Evelyn
or I could advance at all but we both had fun.
The
race began with Evelyn, 14 HS aged girls and the one HS aged girl from Nyahururu.
That girl was so far ahead of everyone else she was in her own league. Now
picture this: a group of ladies all dressed in solid color t-shirts (it’s the
HS gym uniform), decently tall, hair pulled back, most of them had shoes on-all
running kinda fast-at least the first lap. Then in that group picture little
Evelyn with her play clothes on of a pink patterned dress, purple biker spandex
beneath, and a different patterned pajama long sleeved shirt on under her
dress, shaved head and bare feet. It was great to watch. She even ended up
surprisingly the official there. 8 of the 16 girls dropped out before 3km was
even over but Evelyn persevered. She made it 4.5-almost 5km-before falling down
with a cut on her foot-but she was in 4th place when she fell! The
official talked to me at the end of the race saying she had a lot of potential
and he might sponsor her for a pair of sneakers! It was very exciting news!!
(And no worries, the cut was small and we cleaned her up and she was good as
new soon after). The next 3 categories were combined so that it wouldn’t take
all day. That meant it was junior and senior men with us senior women. I ended
up finishing the race in second place and was very pleased. My only goal was to
finish since so many other girls couldn’t and I did! Oh, let me describe this
very cross-country course to you. It was a one kilometer loop that zigzagged
back and forth maybe 4 times and then once at the bottom, you ran up to the top
to start it all over again-in other words-not really cross country except for
the long grass and rocky ground and not a very fun course either. And for any
of you interested in times, I attempted to clock the top runners in the race I
ran (basically I got all but the 6k girl). Remember, this was at elevation and
a hot day. The top 8k junior man ran a 25:30 (5:08min/mi), the top 8k girl ran
a 28:45 (5:47min/mi) and the top 12k guy ran a 38:25 (5:09min/mi). Pretty
impressive I say!
That’s
about all that I can think of at the moment. I’m halfway through my first ever
James Bond movie and I’m intrigued to see what will happen next. Hope you are
all enjoying the snowy weather I’ve heard so much about back in the States and
you’re drinking lots of hot chocolate for me! J And a Happy belated
Birthday to my favorite brother and a happy early birthday to my favorite
oldest of the younger three, BekBekBekBek!!
Lots
of Kisses from Kenya!!
Lizbeth
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