Eric's Pictures

We have a good little buddy at Bosco Boys named Eric. He has a small book full of drawings and we decided to post some of them. Hope you like them

An owl being a dentist to a bear.

Two men fighting over a woman.

Yesu

A boy dreaming about an angel.

Day in Nairobi

In front of the old US embassy in Kenya that was bombed years ago. The man on the right is a Jesuit Brother who works at Bosco Boys named John Kenedy.

The background is down town Nairobi.

We went to a restaurant named CARNIVORE, much like the restaurant in the states called FOGO De CHAO, where we ate pork, chicken, beef, turkey, ostrich, crocodile, camel, and of course, ox testicles. BUT not to top our favorite dish of the night "African Sausage" which literally tastes like, "going to a farm, walking over to an area of hay on the ground where goats/cows/birds have taken a poop/urinated, cupped your hand, scooped a big pile of that goodness, wrapped it into some sort of wrapping (which would allow it to look like sausage), cook it, and voila!" African Sausage...
The man between Katie and Anita is Daniel. Daniel is a former Bosco Boy, when the center started. He is very successful now and has become one of our good friends here in Nairobi. He drove us around for the day and helped us bargain at a city market. To the right of Martin, once again, is the President, John Kenedy.

Sentence Pictures

These are pictures/sentences from another class 4 lesson. This day in class we taught the children what a noun, an adjective, a verb, and an adverb is. We then had them write their own sentences which includes each of the four things we taught them. Some of the children even circled the particular words and described which part of speech it is. After they wrote the sentences, we had them draw pictures to describe what they wrote about.






ONSOPONATIAM, is the first part of this story. The children are not the best at spelling but their thoughts and ideas are there. Onsoponatiam = Once upon a time
We thought this was really funny when we saw it spelled this way BUT I'm sure when we write things in Kiswahili or pronounce Kiswahili words, the children find it funny.

Martin & Anita!

They are here! They arrived safely last night and we got back to Bosco Boys around 11PM on July 23rd.

Creative Story Writing

At Bosco Boys, we are computer teachers. Since we have been here our main lesson has been touch typing. There is no internet access to the children so we have to create lessons for the children. Many of them have never used a computer before, so some of the lessons are actually just turning on and off, correctly, a computer.

Recently there has been some room changes at Bosco Boys and of the changes has to do with the computer classroom. We have been shifted to a bigger room, which will be able to accommodate more computers. The problem about changing the room right now is that school is still in session. So the move has been taking almost 5 1/2 weeks now. We haven't had computer class for this entire time.

So during our computer periods where we are supposed to be teaching typing, we have been thinking of new lesson plans to teach the children in just about any subject/topic. We have taught the children the continents, the difference between countries/continents, some English grammar, and have had them draw pictures/write create small stories.

The older classes have been a bit easier than class 4 and 5 because they are quiet enough to have study hall. The younger classes, have been different. They at times are very good but most of the time they're being little kids, which we understand. The thing that has worked best for them is the picture drawing/creative story writing.

These pictures are drawings/stories of a boy named Edwin, class 4. We decided to write a topic on the board, draw a picture to give an idea, and set a certain time for the children to draw/create a story about the topic. We then would repeat the steps 2 more time but the children had to combine the topics within their stories. Some of the children understood the directions, some didn't.

We chose to post Edwin's because when the class was finishing he wouldn't give us his papers. As we were leaving the classroom he gave us his papers, he had cut small holes into the sides and strung some sort of string to create a book.

TREE

My Tree is called mangos tree
My tree He have many mangos.
and Many brachers.
My tree He have many bird

BOAT - The largest lake in Africa (we believe) is Lake Victoria, which borders on the western part of Kenya. Edwin drew a picture of a boat and fish in Lake Victoria.

Story of the boat
One day Iamgo to Like Victoria
Im vawand a wheal is What
to baet me Iamam scren He
want to eat me iamgo hariap
asta Iamrech Iam go aut
to si a wheal iamsi is very
fre Ran awary of my live.
a and that is my story
Good Luck

DrogBa
This boll is for Drogba
is very vandafull boll
is il boll plary is profet
he want to win the walrd cup
he love football
This is Drogba

FOOTBALL (soccer)

Trip to Alice's home

A few weeks ago we visited Alice, a woman who works in the shamba at Bosco Boys, at her home in Dagoretti. We took two mutatu trips to get to her home town. We stopped at a butchery on the way back to get some goat meat, then we cooked a delicious lunch together, and we just rested at her beautiful home during the afternoon. When we got to her home, 2Pac was blasting and we listened to him for almost 3 hours long. It was really fun listening to "Hit Em Up" while we were praying for our meal. Her son, Daniel, and his girl friend, Cindy, were so amazed when we told them we are from Los Angeles, the same town that 2Pac was from.


Casa de Alice

In Alice's home, there are 5 pictures total. Two of them are of Alice, two of them are of Daniel, and one is a picture of Jack, Katie's dad, and Alice. They took a picture together while Jack and Kerry were visiting and they printed a copy for Alice before they left. That picture is hanging up in her home, and this is a picture of that picture.

Patrick, Katie, Alice

Two neighborhood boys who wanted their pictures taken.

Daniel, Alice, Cindy

Susan's Bday

Susan, Katie's roommate, had her birthday a while ago. We just have had so many other blogs to put up, we haven't posted these yet. enjoy

Dutch Party

If you check out a blog post from Feb. 20th "Twiga Park", we wrote about a priest named Fr. Harry and a man named Ludo of Holland. We first met them a few months into being in Kenya. They were scoping out the place and also took a trip to Uguanda to set up a trip in July. At that time July seemed so far away but it's amazing that they have already visited and left Bosco Boys.

The group consisted of 14 people and most the of the people were around our ages. The children were so happy to have some new people here. The kids would spend so much time with them, learning new things, sharing stories, and seeing if they could get any treats, money, clothes from the Dutch. The children are very good at "getting things" from people when they try... but that's another story. It was fun having some new people here, we both enjoyed talking to them and helping them understand things when something seemed different, our answer... TIA

Here are some pictures from their trip...

Mama Rosa

Well Mama Rosa is wonderful. She spent one month with us here at Bosco Boys and we learned that she has been apart of this project from the beginning. In fact around twenty years ago she was sent by the Rotary Club to be the supervisor on this project of the money they donated to build Bosco Boys. Since then she has been back every year, except for last year because her son was getting married, and is truly loved by the community here.

Mama is from San Diego has told us that we're the only other Californians to have spent an extended amount of time here and we're proud to be now affiliated with her. Mama Rosa told us many stories of her time here over the years, how it has grown, the wonderful sights she has seen, and about the strong relationships that have grown due to her travels here.

The beginning of her last visit here was the end of Jack & Kerry's visit, so they were able to meet. When Jack and Kerry left, Mama became a Mama to us by watching out for us, including us on her fun trips with in Nairobi, and sneaking us a SNICKERS bar to have a taste of home :)

Mama assured everyone that she'll be back next year and the people here can't wait for her to come back. We are excited though to visit her in San Diego when we get back and also visit her family winery in Paso Robles.

No Maji (water)

Being back at home, you turn a knob to receive not only water but hot water. Here, you turn a knob to receive water. If you want hot water you have to flick on a switch a few hours before you need it, to turn the water boiler on. We though, don't have water from the city that comes through pipes from whatever water treatment plant that it comes from. Here, we have well water. There is a large tank with pipes that go down a few miles into the earth to receive maji (water).

About five days ago, no water was coming out of the facet when we turned the knobs. We then realized the pump was broken and we had to call some plumbers. It took 3 days to get water here again. Since it's the cold season, there is no rain. It may seem weird but the seasons are different here than back home. It goes wet (hot)/dry (cold)/wet (hot)/dry (cold). So not only was the tank empty but there has been rainfall to help water the crops, no water to fill in buckets, and the ground is very dry.

The school had to buy a big plastic tank and bring in a truck (like a oil rig) full of water to fill this plastic tank. The children then had to use buckets, fill them outside, and shower with only what water they had.

Now, those few days for us were difficult because we were used to having water. The water here we can still not drink (we have to boil) but we were still very lucky to have water coming out when we turned the knobs. But in the surrounding slums and other parts of Kenya, most people don't have well water. It really makes you appreciate more that when a knob is turned, water comes.



One of the boys playing on the bus. In the back left corner is a shot of the water tank.



Just a random picture of the boys, they love karate/ninja things.

Andrea & Klara

Our new fellow volunteers have arrived! Andrea and Klara, from Slovakia, arrived a few days ago.

It is interesting being the "veterans" here and being able to show them around. We feel we were helped so much by the people who were here before us, and it's nice to help pass on the knowledge of Kenya that we have learned.

There is going to be a lot of change happening here within the next month or so; with different Salesians leaving/coming, a new group of men studying to become priests arriving, various volunteer groups coming for short term missions, and with Anita/Martin & Tim/Kristen coming.

Things are going well here...

No 4th of July party on Zola Ave. this year but know we miss everyone and you are all in our prayers.