Create, innovate, demonstrate

Our collegue, Leonard Chumo, Director of ICRI Africa, picked us up to visit schools today. Leonard was our fearless leader throughout the day and we could not have found our way through Nairobi without him. Because traffic in Narobi is horrific, we spent hours in traffic. Even though Leonard was creative when weaving through the crowded city, the routes that were meant to be short cuts often were overrun with traffic. 

Our first stop was a small school called Lampros Educational Center. We were greeted by the school head master and his colleagues along with lots of curious childen dressed in red and blue uniforms. As we entered the classroom, the children sat wide-eyed at their wooden desks, hands folded, prepared for us, the visitors.  The classroom was lined with letters from the alphabet, shapes and descriptions of what a family looks like. The chalkboard had the lesson outlined for the day: Sharing. The teacher, Jane, taught childen that were 4 & 5 years of age. Jane was pretty creative and innovative because she drew what sharing looked like on the chalkboard while describing the concept. Hearing the children's voices recite the concept of sharing and spell the word was heartwarming and inspirational. They each drew what sharing was from the board using different examples such as bananas, avocado, local cuisine, a smile and a hug. They got it! We had done our job. Plus, Jane not only understood how to teach the concept of sharing, she was very creative with her students.

The second stop we made was a preschool whuere we saw another teacher, Jacky, teach sharing to toddlers that were around 3 years of age. The children wore blue outfits that resembled Nike jumpsuits.These little kids were quite restless by the time we arrived and distracted with us sitting and watching them. They showed us what sharing meant by demonstrating how they shared with each other. It was evident that although they were tiny, they were able to grasp the concept and were having fun sharing with each other. The teacher was able to create a variety of things for the children to share, and each child was rewarded by the teacher when they demonstrated. Before we left, they waved good bye and gave us their award wining smiles. So cute. Unfortunately, the next and a half hours were spent in traffic. Although it was not what we wanted, we had the opportunity to learn about Leonard. We really enjoyed getting the time we spent with him, laughing and at times joking about the traffic. For those of you who currently live in LA, or have ever lived in LA, we can assure you that LA traffic is nothing compared to Nairobi traffic. Nairobi is known for their horrible traffic, and boy did we get to experience it! We made it back to the hotel safely, but tired. 

We enjoyed a pleasant evening outdoors, reflecting back on our journey. Today marked the last day of the Speak to Children program in Africa. It has been a long, but rewarding excursion creating outrageous goodness in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Our hope is that the teachers we trained will be more mindful of how they treat children in the classroom and that they will pay it forward, training other teachers along the way so that we can reach more teachers and children. 

We express our sincere appreciation again to all of you for supporting us and following us on this journey. We imagine as the next few days go by we will continue to digest all that we felt, saw and learned. 

Until then, we send a gratitude shout out to each of you.

"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.” 

― Minor Myers

Cheers,

Giulietta and Melanie

Kids hanging on as they ride on the truck in front of us.

ICRI director, Leonard.

Jane teaching sharing to her students. 

Students drawing what they learned about sharing. 

Group pic!

Preschool pic!

Awesome jumpsuits!

Jacky sharing items with the preschoolers. 

Change comes from within

We said our goodbye's to Zimbabwe and our collegue, Charlotte Haggie, on June 25th. We crossed our fingers and hoped our flight would not get cancelled or delayed. Low and behold, we made it to Kenya, with no delays! We thank Charlotte Haggie for beings a fabulous hostess and sending us off with her well wishes.

Arriving in Kenya had a whole different feel....the strict military presence at the airport as well as around our hotel caused us to experience some trepidation, especially when being interrogated about why we were in Kenya. Luckily, we made it through and found ourselves in a peaceful hotel, which quickly eased the anxiety we had felt after the interrogation. We settled into the hotel, grabbed some food on huge patio while listening to some local guitarists, did some laundry, and hit the zzz's. 

This morning we started the day early, 6am, and began the journey to the office through the traffic that Nairobi is well-known for. 26 teachers attend our training today. While the training was about learning now to teach Speak To Children's program, the teachers integrated their traditional Christian songs and prayers, which made the training more rich and reflected who they are. Again, it is evident that their faith is the foundation for their lives, which helps them deal with the tragedies and poverty in their lives.

The training is always presented to the teachers as a gift to them. While the program is meant for them to train children, we want to ensure they are engaged as well as understand how they will benefit. As you know, if people are going to change, they need to be clear how they will benefit. We make sure they understand how they will benefit, how it will feels to integrate the program in their own lives before they teach children. Today, we were reminded that for successful change to begin, it must start from within each teacher. 

Over lunch the teachers shared how the change would need to begin with themselves. They took it a step further and began to think about the benefits of parents being trained and how they could shift and change their community. We were thrilled to hear the teachers realize the importance of taking responsibility. We also shared with them the concept of "paying it forward"' they smiled from ear to ear and nodded with excitement. They said they would try out the concept as they were already embracing how kindness and compassion was contagious. Pretty amazing to be around the world discussing how "paying it forward" could impact tribes in Afirican families.

As facilitators, we have a front row seats to observe which teacher is shy, outgoing, or an emerging leader. Today, most teachers were shy. Giulietta noticed one teacher in particular that was beyond shy, who provided no eye contact. While facilitating her section on the topic of Celebrating Differences, she was able to gather the input and participation from this individual. This person even volunteered to teach the same topic back to the class, which was quite rewarding. She completely got how to teach the concept and demonstrated quite well. It's always such a pleasure seeing how we can bring people out of their shell. This person was open to change and proved it to all of us. 

At the end of the session to today, we talked to the teachers about how we were able to make this all possible through our donors. They were all extremely thankful and appreciative to us traveling all this way. In fact, they were so appreciative they took a photo for all of you showing their appreciation to you, all our donors, friends and family. So, we end this blog with a huge THANK YOU to all of you for your support through this journey! Today was the last day we trained teachers. Tomorrow we are off to visit schools and observe teachers practicing what they learned with their students. 

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Ghandi

Cheers!

Giulietta and Melanie

ICRI logo in Africa

Kenya training materials

Melanie training.

Giulietta training today!

Teachers practicing before demonstrating in their groups.

More teachers practicing in their groups.

Teachers practicing their demonstrations. 

Lucy leading her group while demonstrating.

Teachers demonstrating.

The teacher we indicated that came out of her shell!

The teachers and us giving a gratitude shout out!

All of us showing our appreciation to You! 

We are always given what we need

We dusted our day with an English breakfast and a full agenda. Our day was full of unexpected surprises. In the end we were....hang on, we don't want to give the ending away....first thing's first.

We visited a school today. One of the teachers, Dafne, gave us a tour. The school was in good shape with vegetable gardens, a kitchen an outdoor cafeteria, a medical center, a mini library. Books lined the shelves along with computers for teachers. We could see they had been funded well.  As we entered the classroom, the children sat very still when we entered. They sang a sweet song, and then closed their eyes, folded their hands and began their morning prayers. So sweet to hear their little voices sing their prayer. Very touching. Melanie commented on how quiet they were to the teacher and she replied, "they know they have visitors." We had not witnessed this before in a classroom.

Our next stop was a meeting at a coffee shop. Yep, good coffee in Zimbabwe. As we sat and reflected on yesterday's training, we also planned the rest of our day with the DIrector, Charlotte Haggie and her assistant Marta. Due to exams in schools and schools not in session in the afternoons, we had some free time.  Little did we know where our guides would take us...

Little by little through conversation we learned that our wonderful hosts had planned for us to see the  caves in Zimbabwe, located in a national park. Off we went with Marta and her nephew's friend through Zimbawe's city and country side. Zimbabwe has a very weathly community, but as you drive out of the town into the rural areas, you begin seeing mud huts and how poverty takes ownership of the land. As we listened to American music, we witnessed vendors on street corners, people sitting on the streets, and cows walking along the roads. We eventually arrived to a rural area which was the national park with caves and ancient art work as their canvas. So, we began our hike up the terrain lined with rocks, beautiful trees and a blue sky. We learned that there were native "bushmen" as they called it who were native to the area. They lived in the caves and would tell their stories by drawing on rocks around them. As we kept climbing we noticed something moving in the trees -- Baboons. Yep, about five feet away. We were nervous and a little scared. But our guides said they were harmless. All Melanie could think was they were bigger than her and there were more of them than us. They were all hanging out in a tree right next to the art work we were trying to admire. We snapped pictures of the artwork and kept our eyes on the baboons. It was apparent we were more interested in them than they were of us. The scenery was gorgeous and we were thrilled to finally see a part of Afica that was rich in history. Plus the exercise felt great after sitting on so many planes! We were grateful. As we piled into the car we met some childen who sat and stared, trying to sell lemons. So many types of people, huts and animals lined the roads as we made our way back to the hotel. 

As we prepared for our final dinner meeting with Charlotte Haggie, Giulietta felt something on her foot.

As she looked down, she saw serveral ants crawling on her. Giulietta then found more ants in her bed! We both went on an ant hunt. We were successful. We found the little rascles all over our carpets and bathroom and in Melanie's bed. Yuck. The hotel was kind enough to switch our room. The room  we were given was nicer. We even had heat! Giulietta was thrilled. Melanie was grateful that Giulietta found the ants before the they went out for their dinner meeting and especially before they went to sleep that night.

We then went to dinner to a lovely place with Charlotte and had a great dinner. We had a fun time getting to know her and we were so happy to be out having some fun enjoying Zimbabwe. We felt inspired by the conversation. Charlotte shared stories about how she was given what she needed when she was down to her last dime. Melanie also shared stories about how she was also given what she needed. We all agreed that when you do good in the world, somehow you are always given what you need to continue making a difference. We were reminded that we are always given everything we need. 

When we arrived to the hotel from dinner, we reflected on all the good things that happened to us along the way.  Little things. Important things that kept us going. We decided to make a list of all the things we were given, circumstances that we thought were not what we expected or wanted, yet they became exactly what we needed. 

As we finally departed Nairobi, we got to see the top of Mt. Kiliminjaro. We also wanted to see Victoria Falls, especially Giulietta. We gave up the on the idea. Until...after traveling 40 hours, our flight stoppedd in stopping in Livingston, which we were not happy about. But, the pilot circled around Victoria Falls just so his passengers could see it. Giulietta snapped perfect photos for both.

Glass of wine for three dollars after traveling for 48 hours.

Great fish and chips dinner.

The venue we used to train teachers was beautiful.

The number of teachers that attended the training were only 13, yet these teachers wanted to begin training other teachers right away. The intimacy of the small group was what they needed and actually what we needed.

After 48 hours of traveling, siting, we were able to hike and get some much needed exercise.

We were hoping to see more of Zimbabwe and we did just that when we traveled to the national park where the cave and cave drawings were. 

Ants gave us a new deluxe room.

We made new friends inZimbabwe. 

We were able to get extra malaria pills after realizing we did not bring enough for our safari! 

Sometimes the circumstances didn't appear to be what we needed or even wanted, but we are learning to trust the process of life, each step of the way....knowing something good will come from it.

"Why worry? What is meant for you is always meant to find you." - An Indian poet, Saint Lalleshwari

We are now off to Kenya, our final destination!

Giulietta and Melanie

We made it to the cave drawings!

Ahhhh! Baboons!

Cave drawings

Mud huts

Streets of Outside of Harare

Little girl selling lemons

The children with their teacher in the preschool we visited

Dinner with our lovely host Charlotte!

What a difference a day makes

Well, folks, after 48 hours of exhaustion, lack of sleep, and achy legs due to flight cancellations and delays, we finally made it to Harare, Zimbabwe. The good thing that I came out of traveling for 48 hours is that we got to see the top of Mt Kiliminjaro from the plane and we also got a view of Victoria Falls which the pilot purposely circled around for us to see. We arrived yesterday evening to cold Harare given that it is their winter right now. The weather is basically San Francisco weather (around 50-60 degrees), so luckily we are used to this type of cold, but after coming from humid Accra, it was quite a shock to our systems. As we drove to the hotel with our colleague, we admired the difference between Harare and Accra. Zimbabwe was also under British rule and gained it's independence in 1980. There are many British people here and people drive on the opposite side of the road, which surprisingly was not the case in Ghana even though they were under British rule as well. You might recall our description and pictures of Accra, and we can safely say that Harare is quite the opposite. It actually reminded us of some older cities in the east bay and the Midwest that aren't thriving. There are big, tall buildings in the downtown area with shops around, but a little deserted. There is also a lot of land everywhere with greenery all around, something that Accra did not have. This city is definitely quite developed compared to what we have seen in other places. We arrived to our hotel, a lovely hotel at that. It has this beautiful garden court with chairs and tables amidst trees and flowers. After settling into our hotel room with no heater, we quickly ran to the hotel bar where there was a lovely fire going, so we were able to keep warm and catch part of the Brussels vs Russia soccer game. We then got some traditional British food (fish and chips) for dinner which was just perfect given the long journey we had had to get here. As we strolled back to our hotel we felt a sense of peace, grateful. We switched on our space heater, threw on several layers of clothes, climbed into bed and passed out.

This morning, we woke up to a nice cold room and had a traditional English breakfast. It's kinda cool because even though we aren't in England, we are experiencing some of the culture here. We were then off to our training grounds. The Director of ICRI Zimbabwe and her assistant picked us up and we went. The streets of Harare are lined with Trees and vendors selling their wares. As we pulled up to the training site, we realized the training was held in a lovely home that looked like a traditional quaint cottage, that is now used for a pre-school. We smiled at each other, knowing that we were both thinking about the drastic difference this place was from where we had trainined in Ghana. Trees lined the property. The inside felt like an English family home in the countryside. The inside had lots of preschool toys, books and tables for children and the ICRI office was in the back. The backyard was filled with swings, slides and jungle gyms for children.

By the time everyone arrived, it was clear, today's group was going to be small - 13 teachers all together. But, that was no problem for us. We kicked off the day with a song and dance to warm us up in the chilly room and began our training. It took a while to warm everyone up, but by the afternoon, we were getting the teachers to laugh and smile through our exercises. We were fortunate to have a traditional Zimbabwean meal! Some of the teachers cooked for us. We had rice, chicken, vegetables and their staple food called Sabza, which is basically corn meal that you traditionally eat with your hands to scoop the vegetables. It was so delicious!!! We had moved from the chilly room to outside where we sat in the sun to get warm. The teachers had practiced their demonstrations before lunch and after lunch, the teachers presented to the group. Role playing really makes this part of the training fun. Everyone breaks out of their shell at this point and the group just laughed and laughed. 

The teachers really understood the concepts and they were able to demonstrate what they learned so well. Given that it was a small group of people, we were able to get through the presentations today and we believe that having a smaller group helps the teaching be more intimate and effective, allowing us to really make sure each person understands the concepts. Today was such a great day and it was such a nice compliment after all the trekking we did to get here! 

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arrival. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

With gratitude,

Giulietta and Melanie

Top of Mt Kiliminjaro

Victoria Falls

Streets of Harare

Downtown Harare

Pictures from the training: