Our Week at Lewa Ngiri House

We had a full week while staying at Ngiri (Warthog) House.  We continued daily game drives of course, surrounded daily by giraffes, rhinos, elephants, Water buck, zebra and many more.  We also were able to enjoy a daily swim in the pool.  On Monday, we drove to the Maasai community of Sang'a.  It was a 1 1/2 rough road drive.  We have sponsor the adult education teacher there as well as building housing for the teachers.  On this visit, the adults greeted us with a celebration of singing and dancing.  Maddy then helped us distribute to each of the adult learners a solar powered light we had helped to purchase.  The lights with 4 hours of charging would provide 8 hours of light.  The goal is to provide the lighting to help both the adults and children to be able to read and write at night.

On Tuesday we visited the elementary school program at JPP.  JPP is a church facility near Lewa that is used as a local school for grades pre-school through 3.  Next year they'll add Form 4.  Wonderful teachers and great kids!  With teachers drumming and leading the singing, they greeted us warmly.  Then Nancy headed off to Form 3 to share the letters from grandson Cooper's class and facilitate writing of responses.  She was so impressed with the level of English they have already mastered!  When I came back, she was teaching/practicing antonyms and verb tense--chalk in hand!  Maddy and Kati went to Form 1 to share the poster of writings, drawings and photos that Maddy's class had sent.  Those kids drew and wrote notes back to Whittier Elementary for her to deliver.  And Linda headed straight for the nursery/pre-K class. We were all there during the breakfast snack and lunch that our friends fund for them.  So much easier to learn when you're not hungry.  (These children walk as far as 7km one way to get to this school.....)

So today we are comfortably "tented" at Elephant Pepper, a bush camp in the Mara.  It is an open camp--no fences--so the animals roam freely through it at night (and we won't)!  Should be quite a night!