Wednesday at the Kimuri School

Rich writes about Wednesday Sept. 1 -

Mary and Sarah organized a group of older students from the school to clean the classroom windows and rooms. The school has two wings with a total of six rooms, and the rooms have a narrow band of windows near the ceiling that are not very bright at the best of times.

Scrubbing the blackboard, walls, and windows

The windows were coated with red dirt, which the children scrubbed away with brushes and rags. Each room's blackboard was throughly cleaned and washed; debris and dirt were swept out of the rooms. When they finished, the rooms were much brighter, making it easier to see both books and writing.

Work begun Monday by Brad, Chuck, Dick, and Tina to replace 25 broken window panes continued on Wednesday. Replacing the panes has been a challenge, with each window frame custom made to fit the opening in the wall. For this reason each individual pane opening has to be measured, then the list of measurements taken to a glass store in the town of Kikuyu, and a unique piece of glass cut. Once the panes are brought back to the school worksite, they have to be sorted to find their unique location, and as you can imagine this process is quite lengthy. The original broken glass and old glazing putty was removed last Friday; old putty tends to be brittle and hard, requiring the use of chisels and scrapers to remove it.

Scraping putty off

A pane of glass is inserted into the opening and glazed using a black, sticky putty; at the end of the day removing it from your hands requires scrapers and brushes. Once the process to install a pane was refined the pace of installation increased greatly, and 24 of the 25 broken panes were completed by the end of the day.

Using borrowed tools, several school desks were rehabilitated. Many of the desk joints had loosened, and over time the nail heads had popped up. First the exposed nails were pounded in, then the joints were strengthened using deck screws. One desk was beyond repair, so it was partially dismantled and the parts used to replace missing and broken pieces of other desks.

Eleanor, Kathy, Kendra, and Gretchen write -
Our Wednesday morning began with worshiping with the staff at the Kikuyu Hospital Chapel. The Swahili/English service was inspirational. As we arrived at the school we heard the children singing as they waited for us.

Flannel board stories

We divided the children into three groups by age. Gretchen and Kathy's group told Bible stories with the aid of a flannel board. A craft followed using scissors, crayons, and construction paper which they really enjoyed. (They have never had a chance to use these materials before.) Group two was lead by Eleanor and Joyce outside.

The children love Football

They did more singing, games and finger plays. Imagine ... Eleanor (aka Grandmother to the kids) leading the children in the 'Hokey Pokey." Kendra promoted herself from Coach Kendra to Colonel Kendra as she gave orders for the children to march in pairs of two to "We Are Soldiers in the Army" The children were then instructed by their Commander-In-Chief to divide into two groups for relay races, soccer("Football") and other games.

The children are excited to see us each day and greet us with broad smiles and great enthusiam.

You can see a lot more pictures online.