Day 3 - Work Starts (Monday June 24th)

After waking up at around 8:18 to the sound of Alexandra and Georgia informing Holly, Olivia, and I that we had a few minutes to make the 8:20 bus, the day continued in an up beat manner. We all hopped on the bus after a hearty breakfast of African style crepes and sugar, then arrived at the Orkeeswa Secondary School and began with an interesting 20 minute Swahili lesson, during which we learned some of the basic greetings and conversational habitudes of the Maasai culture, both in Kiswahili and Kimaasai. After our lessons, we enjoyed a very special ceremony where the Maasai chief and many of the parents of Orkeeswa children were present. During this ceremony, gifts were exchanged between Mr. Beams and the chief, and student speakers excited the group for a long day of strenuous but well wortheffort. After the ceremony, we played some enthusiastic games with Laurie and met many students. Next, we began to make some major progress on our concrete benches for the basketball court, digging out mounds of dirtwith shovels, hoes, and picks, and piling them in the irrigation ditches that the rain had washed away. We finished our first day of projects at Orkeeswa with a highly competitive and fun game of charades. After returning home, and having a short but legitimate water shortage scare, we had dinner with Ms. Beams’ Tanzanian friend Asoto, a student at a Ugandan university studying to be a Swahili teacher. Overall it was both an entertaining and interesting day, and we can’t wait get back to it tomorrow. Stay classy, America. -Anna R. and Britton