Camp Preparations

It's time to blog again! Camp Marafiki Pamoja starts again on the 20th of August! We are only running two weeks of camp this session, but it's going to be even bigger and better than before. As in, we are expecting 120 campers! In our first session, we hosted 75 campers.

Francis, Janet, and Amanda

 Amanda and I stopped by school this week to meet with Francis to finalize plans. Amanda's friend Noramy is joining us this year as Michelle is not able to attend. We have two returning volunteers, Cristina from Spain and Sara from Sweden. We are expecting about 15 local adult volunteers to help with activities and food preparations. This is really starting to align with our vision of a locally run camp with international support!

The students began their school break this week, but many showed up to school any way. This week they have been painting and decorating the school! They've been painting the different things they have been focusing on in their classes - body systems, African geography, and plant biology. How many kids do you know that gladly show up to school on break?! This really is a safe and enriching space for the students.

Of course this is my favorite painting.

Sink made by some of the older students

Since we were here last, there have been many improvements made to the school. They've added two toilets (4 total, now), a second water tank (2 total, now). They've transitioned a storage room into a classroom, added gutters to help manage water during the raining season, and planted flowers in the school yard. The most exciting addition to the school - ELECTRICITY! They now have a light in each room and wall plugs in the library and teachers' prep room. This might not sounds like much, but in this area of Nairobi, this is huge! When we rebuilt a few of the classrooms we added skylights, but on cloudy days, it was still nearly impossible to see the board. Now, they can see whenever! Since they do not have running water at the school, some of the older students (8th grade) made sinks to make art projects and hand washing easier!

We started unpacking some of the donations and before we could even get the books out of the bag, several of the students (middle schoolers) came into the library and excitedly started digging through the books. The two favorites - a book about reptiles and a the book about Obama!