Primary kids went back to school yesterday and with just the little ones back to school it was very quiet around here!
During the past few days the secondary girls all got their hair done (I’m still in the learning process of how they work with their hair!), supplies were handed out and encouragement was dished out in abundance. Then today was departure day for the secondary students…oops not exactly.
We have two boys who are transferring out of their schools to join their brothers at a school closer to home and better equipped to teach (it was 4th in the District last year!) Which brings me to the one snafu (so far) with the beginning of school. One of the “transfer” boys was heading to his old school today with Bosco to pick up his possessions (mattress, foot locker, etc.) and to get his transfer letter which clears him from the school. He was asked a few days before if there was anything he needed to take with him to make sure the transfer letter went through smoothly…nope he was all set.
Bosco meets him in Tala to head to school which is about an hours matatu (public transportation) ride away and they are off. We get a call from Bosco saying all the teachers were in a meeting and they would have to wait because each teacher needs to initial the transfer letter to clear the boy. After a few hours we get another call from Bosco saying the boy forgot a book at home and they won’t clear him without the book! I won’t go into the frustration I felt or the phone calls back and forth to figure out a solution….they couldn’t find the book at any of the bookstores to purchase and were told they couldn’t leave money for the cost of the book.
Eventually the teacher (whose class the book was for) agreed to let us pay for the book, hallelujah!
Just as I was about to hit publish for this post Chuck tells me the boy will be spending the night at school because three of the teachers basically blew them off…after the meeting Bosco went to one of the three to get their signature, the teacher said wait he had something to do…that something was LEAVE! The principal wasn’t any help either, he told Bosco either leave the boy or take the boy, he didn’t care. Yup that pretty much sums up the prevailing attitude of the school system here. Now the boy will stay overnight, get the signatures (hopefully since they were there all day and couldn’t get all the signatures) then head home. Tomorrow he is also supposed to go with the other “transfer” boy to their new school and pick up their admission letters!
Seems nothing ever runs smoothly, according to plan or on time here and you really have to learn to just accept what you can’t change and roll with the punches. Saying that however doesn’t make it any less frustrating, but God will work out the details as we continue to follow His lead in helping the kids.
Please pray for God’s will be done in this situation and all we encounter.