Ever visited a Kenyan School?

While in Kenya, we visited a local private school called “Little Roots”.

It educates children from the ages of 2.5 years all the way up to 17 years.

We met the head teacher, Mary.

She says she’s 64. She looks 50!

Here’s some of the youngest children at the school:

Lovely Mary. All smiles. Loves her work, loves the children.

Mary tells us that some of the children live at the school, some come from afar, travelling for 1.5 hours just to get there.

School starts at 8am and finishes at 6pm.

With 1.5 hours travelling each way, for some of the children their school day starts at 6.30 am and ends at 7.30 pm!

We visit the youngest class. Twenty-five children aged 2.5 years and they all stand to attention, when we walk in.

Twenty-five pairs of beautiful eyes staring at us.

They start to sing.

My wife and I wanted to cry!

We took some sweets to hand out and they lined up one by one.

More classes were visited….

And more children singing the ‘Doctor’ song:

The children were proud. They were brave and eager to please.

We also took some pens, paper, pencils and t-shirts for the school. They were so grateful.

We loved the school and the children.

Next we visited a local village. Bacari was the CHIEF.

Bacari wasn’t what I expected.

I expected a big muscular man with his face painted, a loin cloth and bones through his nose.

Perhaps I’ve been watching too much TV.

Bacari was small, dressed in t-shirt and ‘puma’ shorts.

He showed us around his house – a mud hut.

He had a sitting room, and a bedroom and lived with his wife and 5 children.

The whole house was smaller than my bedroom, back in the UK.

Then we met the Witch Doctor!

He made his potions and medicine from the local natural ingredients.

He didn’t speak. Bacari did all the speaking. Bacari explained that the Witch Doctor could tell what was wrong with you by just looking at you.

He could ‘x-ray’ you and then cure you within 3 days, no matter what you had!

Here’s Bacari and the Witch Doctor:

Then the Doctor showed us his home brew. Coconut wine. We all tasted it. It was foul! Like milky vinegar.

Then we were treated to a village dance., Kenyan style. We joined in. It was energetic and fun.

The village dancers – I just loved the ‘trumpet’ sound:

We purchased some trinkets and gave a donation.

It was a great time. Nice to see a local village and how they lived.

Ten minutes later we were back at the hotel.

We had lunch, some beer and a dip in the pool.

That night, my wife and I slept in the largest bed you’ve ever seen. Almost as big as Bacari’s whole house. We had air conditioning. We had a personal chef who cooked exclusively for us.

A different world to where we were just a short time ago.

We told everyone what a wonderful time we had. It was one of the highlights of the holiday.