Blog 4 Tuesday June 25

Today we went back to Orkeeswa School,

Began the day with Laurie’s fighting teach.

We learned to stage fight; it was very cool,

We learned Swahili—some words were a reach.

And then we went back to work on the steps,

So that the hill of their school does not erode.

We found that in 6 minutes, sixty-three reps

Of buckets full of dirt—quite a load.

After, we took a trip into the town,

We walked from the lodge in which we stay,

We bought some food and had a look around,

We saw a lot of kids along the way.

We hope the rest of our trip is just as fun,

And that we become friends with everyone.

-Kelsey

Shikamoo! (A respectful hello in Swahili). Today was our second day of hard work at Orkeeswa School. We woke up this morning, had breakfast, and arrived at the school by 9. We started off the day with a theater activity in which we learned how to ‘fake fight’. Laurie taught us how to move our bodies to look like we were fighting each other, without actually causing any physical harm. Each Groton student paired up with an Orkeeswa student to practice these fighting moves, such as a slap across the face, hair pulling, and foot stomping. After we practiced for a few minutes, we got into groups of six students and came up with a short skit that incorporated our newfound ‘fake fighting’ skills to perform for the rest of the students.

After this lesson in theater from Laurie, we broke up into small groups and had another language inversion session. I was paired up with four Orkeeswa students, so I received a lot of individual attention and learned many new phrases.

After our language immersion, it was time to get to work. We continued to move dirt from the hillside to the other side of the basketball court using buckets. Some students used hoes to break up the dirt, while others took to the shovels to move the dirt into buckets. We had many enthusiastic bucket carriers, including many Orkeeswa students who managed to carry buckets full of dirt on top of their heads without using their hands. Fraser, Britton, and I teamed up with Mr. Beams to smooth out the dirt piles on the other side of the basketball court. After Fraser, Britton, and Mr. Beams moved onto shoveling, I stayed with Olivia and Anna T. to continue smoothing out the dirt. We met a boy named Cathpert who asked us to sing for him every time he brought a bucket of dirt over to our side of the court. We eagerly introduced him to some popular music including, but not limited to, the High School Musical soundtrack, “Call Me Maybe”, “Don’t Stop Believing”, and “Party in the USA”.

After a few long hours of hard work, we settled down to lunch. After lunch, we did another activity with the Orkeeswa students, which involved a lot of teamwork and communication. We had to learn through trial and error the correct way to pass from one side of a grid to the other. Each team would send a student into an individual box on the grid and then Laurie or Haley (a Groton graduate and volunteer at Orkeeswa) would tell the teams whether or not that square was part of the pathway. If the student stepped into a square that was indeed part of the pathway, they were allowed to move forward or sideways into another square to discover if it was part of the pathway as well. If they stepped into a square on the grid that was not part of the pathway, they were sent back to the end of the line. The goal of the game was to get the entire team to the other side of the grid as quickly as possible. When we finally figured out the appropriate strategy, Haley made the game a little more difficult for us. She added obstacles such as blindfolds, no talking, and only speaking in Swahili. Overall it was a great way to interact with more of the kids, and to work together.

After the grid activity, we played netball, basketball, and soccer with the Orkeeswa students, which was an awesome way to get to know more of the kids and have a good time. After playing sports, we boarded the bus and headed back to the lodge for the day. Today was definitely a busy day, and we are looking forward to learning more Swahili, further developing friendships, and completing our project on the hillside of the basketball court. Kwaheri! (Goodbye in Swahili)

-Holly

Link to photos from today