Oloosiyoi Community

WOW! back again from another stint in the Mara. This time I was accompanying a group of high school students from Lakefield C.S. They were building and living in a Maasai community called Oloosiyoi.

Oloosiyoi is a special community because, unlike many other schools where we are working, this was only the third group to travel and build there. The school is fairly small, with 250 students, but very lively.

When the students arrived at the build site, there was nothing but a rocky, uneven piece of land with a rectangle drawn in coloured dirt... a 10 foot by 16 foot rectangle... big. We build with traditional tools, and resources that would be locally available, so no backhoe. They began digging with pickaxes and jembes... and they dug... and dug, and dug... and DUG some more. 6 days to be precise, until that traced rectangle was a trench 5 feet deep!!!

From there, the mixing of cement and making a re bar made up the foundation... and then the beginnings of the walls.

All throughout the building process, we had quite an audience. The students were in school during the time we were there, and on their breaks children all the way from the nursery school to standard 8 would come and watch... we actually had to ask them not to help, in fears that they may hurt themselves.

At the end of Lakefield's time at Oloosiyoi, they had not only been beaten in numerous football games, played the biggest game of duck duck goose in history, but they had laid the foundation for a new classroom, and the community was ecstatic!

To show their thanks to the Lakefield guests, the students organized a wonderfully colourful celebration of traditional Maasai songs and dances.

Upon leaving, I received a note from a standard seven boy from Oloosiyoi. His kind words will always resonate with me, but one part in particular struck me...

I will never forget about you. Remember that life is what you make it, so
make it the BEST!

Enelerai High School

It has been sooo long since my last post... I know... We have had a great month of building and practice teaching for a group of teacher candidates from Nipissing University. Sadly, they left this morning for Canada...

They were doing their teaching at Enelerai Primary, and the last day I was there with them I had a chance to visit Enelerai High School. Although Primary education became free and compulsory in 2004, students still need to pay to attend high school. In this particular school, which is government run, there was a full classroom of form 1 students (grade 9 equivalent)... with over half that were GIRLS (10 years ago, there were barely any girls in the education system at all). Form 2 was about half the size, with fewer girls... form 3 the same... form 4 was a tiny class of about 20... with only 3 girls.

This is a bit alarming to me. With the amount of girls decreasing soo much from form 1 to form 2... it could mean a variety of different things. Maybe it has just taken a while for the girls that started compulsory and free primary education to filter up into the secondary schools... maybe as time goes on the girls, and boys, are forced to leave their education to pursue income generating activities to support their families?... I don't know the answers for sure... but I do know that the need for universal/free high school is very real.

I was touched greatly by the students of Enelerai high school... each one with high hopes of becoming professionals, and desperately wanting to attend university.... but looking at the form 4 class was a bit of a wakeup call. How many of them will even be able to afford to finish high school, let alone attend university?


I am off to the Mara again tomorrow. I will be building with a group from Peterborough, Ontario at a Maasai community called Oloosiyoi. I will be posting upon my return.

In the meantime, please visit www.freethechildren.com and see ways that you can raise your own awareness of education in developing countries. :)