The School visit

David, the main project leader, is a well experienced mountain guide and rescue worker, graduate, former KWS worker (a paramilitary government organisation that runs the national parks) and amatureboxer. He came to us one night during dinner, to inform us we would be visiting the school the following morning, and could we prepare lessons for the children?
Mrs Grasshopper, Katrin and myself agreed to jointly give a lesson on geography, or rather a chat on our local geography, industry and culture.
So the following morning after breakfast, we piled into the 4X4's, crossed the river, and shortly came to the local school.

Surrounded by a dilapidated fence to try and keep the elephants out, the school has four wooden buildings, organised in a square around a central playground. As we jumped from our vehicles, every classroom window was filled with young faces, giggling and talking excitedly.
The headmaster approached me and shook my hand. Although dressed simply in chinos and open-necked shirt, and sporting just one eye, he had the unmistakable presence of a headmaster.
He welcomed us to his school, explaining briefly to me there were 200 children attending the school. When he gestured to the other teaching staff, I could only count three others.
" It is very difficult to keep teachers this far out. They cometimes come but can never put up with this for long" he said, with a sad smile and a gesture to the dusty, worn enviroment. His voice was warm and soothing, and I noticed the reverence and respect the children paid him, and the tenderness in his own words and contact with them.
With a quiet word and a gesture the children all poured out of the classrooms, forming a line 4-deep, the smallest children at the front being constantly attended to by the older children behind them, as if they were older siblings.
"What are you teaching?" he asked me.
"Um, er, geography" I replied, just managing to catch the "sir" at the end.
"I'll split the children up after parade, you may be best teaching the older classes" he says, before nodding to a child in the middle row.

Suddenly, the young child in the middle row sings a short, melodic line. As a perfect chorus, all the other children respond.
And so starts one of the most touching, melodic call-and-respond songs I've ever heard. The soloists voice was crisp and clear, and the response really strong and pitch-perfect. They finish, and we are all stunned, to stunned to be sure whether to clap or cry.
Then they start again.
A happier tune if it was ever possible, this time with actions. Clearly a favorite, all the children start waving their little hands, and even the older children at the back start giving it berries, hands high, then down to the ground, singing louder and with feeling.
"They are singing to welcome you" the headmaster quietly informs me.
I know. I don't understand the words, but the smiles, the enthusiasm, the tune, the genuine emotion puts the message across. I see Mrs G look at the floor, blinking back tears. I quickly put my sunglasses on.

We give the headteacher the box containing school supplies we had all bought from Loitokitok, and there then ensued an embarrassing moment where we were expected to photograph the children all holding our donations. This was not what we wanted, and I was eager to get the hell off the playground and into the classroom.

Awkward moment over, I chugged on my water bottle before we set off to our classroom.
Made of plain wooden planks, with a dust-covered concrete floor and no glass in the windows, the classroom was simple but spacious. The children were sat in rows on wooden desks, facing a large blackboard and as we entered, they all silently stood up in respect. Embarrassed and slightly slightly out of place, I quickly asked them to sit down.

Aged between maybe 11 and 14, the children sat in silence while we talked about our home towns, the local industry, landscape, football teams etc. I tried to ask them questions in return, but they were exceptionally shy and quiet. Their constant note-taking was the only sound from them, except the quick giggle if one of us said something half-way amusing.
I was talking about the docks in Liverpool, when a young boy, the scars on his cheeks marking him to be a Masai, raised his hand.
"Yes mate?" I ask
He speaks with careful, precise tones; "What is the local culture like in Liverpool?"....
His other great question was to Katrin: "Why is it true the population of Germany is in decline?"

What a boy!

The lesson goes on for about three hours, before all of us volunteers retire from our different classrooms to the headteachers office. As spartan as the classrooms, he spent some time here thanking us for our time, our donations, as well as explaining to us the problems the school faces. One of them is retaining the children, many of whom are only allowed to go to school because there is a free lunch provided. There are many more young children at the school than older, due to many of the older children either being married-off, or sent out with the cows before their education is complete.
I ask what of the young Masai, who I learnt in the classroom was called Joseph, and lived at the village a couple of miles from the school.
"His parents are not rich, his education will go no further. He will take the cows out to graze soon" The headmaster informs me.

We climb back into our 4X4's and set off back to camp. The children shout and wave as we set off, some running a bit alongside our vehicle laughing.

Their futures are decided not by the exceptional dedication, commitment and care of their teachers, the school or their own phenomenal abilities and achievements. But by the finances, traditions, and requirements of their families, and the economic enviroment they live in.