Juggling

We have many balls in the air right now.

A second school is now set up for "Read for the Top" thanks to donated books from a Kenyan publisher. There is an Episcopalian missionary couple here, staying at St Philips in Maseno. Mary is a Language Arts specialist and former grade 6 teacher. She is going to help with Read for the Top at Emmaloba and set up Peace Keepers (Virtues) for them. She is great to work with and it will allow Pat to spend a bit more time on Mwiyenga, out near Imbale.The finals for Read for the Top in the two schools will have a slew of special invited guests (Bishop, District Education Officer etc) so we want the kids to perform well. Their teams are colour coded so we have ordered T shirts for the heats. We have to find bicycle bells for the the teams to signal their answers and decide on prizes.

The calendar for our last two months is of course filling up rapidly . we are trying to keep it reasonable! There is the first ever meeting of provincial Education Secretaries in Limuru at the end of February. Pat has to go to that if at all possible, so that will cut out 5 days. it will be interesting to meet her counterparts. We have been asked for a whole slew of information and statistics from the diocese, so we're hoping that someone, somewhere in the office will be able to help.

There is a tree nursery in Limuru that specialises in indigenous trees, so we may be able to combine the conference with a visit for information we need for part of the Rotary grant project in Emmaloba.

Virtues training is still in demand and Pat is fitting in as much as she can, but having to refuse some. A new kindergarten is starting in Kakamega, sponsored by the Anglican Church and she is talking to the Bishop about the possibility of making it a Virtues school from the outset.

Last week the roof blew off a secondary school in the Maseno area. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the teacher and students in the room at the time are very shaken. Rod (now engineering consultant for the diocese, by the way,) saw that the whole thing was held on by only two nails.

There is no such thing as trauma counselling, so we are trying to use some of our Virtues trained people in the area to use the strategy of "Companioning" We hope it is of some help.