Last Saturday Chuck and I visited 6 secondary (high school) students and 1 primary student (5 graduated from Nice View Academy, 1 was a former student and 1 was Gideon’s son James who is in Form 4 – that’s why there is no photo of James, we’ll see him at home during holiday!) at 5 different schools. We left our home at 9:30 am and didn’t finish until 6:30 pm…then it was straight to the Academy for Saturday night movie night! Needless to say it was a very long day.
First let me explain a little how school works here…most students will board at secondary school (not sure exactly why but most Kenyans believe that’s where students get the best education…I’m not in total agreement with that but that’s for another blog) and each school will have a “visiting day” for parents/relatives/guardians to come visit their child, bring them special food to eat and stock up on necessities for them (i.e. toilet paper, shoe polish etc.). It was encouraging to see the orphans’ relatives visiting them because we saw caring relatives where these children can go during holiday from school.
Let me explain who Peter is in the following photos – he drives the bus for Nice View and we asked him to ride along with us and direct us to the schools. He directed us to each school easily and also gave us some history of the area. Thanks Peter (although he doesn’t own a computer I’m thanking him anyway!)
(l to r) Peter, John, Anthony, me, Tati and Chuck
(l to r) an uncle, Peter, another uncle, Irene, Chuck, me, grandmother, Aunt Eunice
(l to R) Peter, Alexander, Annastacia (Anthony's sister), me, Anthony's niece, Chuck and Anthony
(l to r) Peter, James (Catherine's husband), Catherine (Ceffe's mom), Ceffe, me, Gift (Ceffe's uncle) and Chuck
We are still in the process of building the school at Nice View where once it’s complete we could educate from Nursery through Form 4 (12th grade), and that would save us school fees for these students who have to go to other secondary schools since we do not have the facility (yet) to be a secondary school. It would also allow us to control the secondary school standards to equip them for further education on to university level. If you feel led to help with that project please go here to donate securely online. Thank you for all your help, prayers and support.