Happy Halloween! Although today was much like any other day in Kenya. I had a really great conversation trying to explain the concept of Halloween to my taxi driver, to no avail. I spent the day at my internship today, just like every Friday. My days at Heshima have been very hit and miss so far, although I still absolutely love the organization overall. This week was one of those really good days. I spent the morning working with one of the teachers to help the girls make cards for the US directors. It took us about three or four hours to finally get two cards made because they kept doing practice rounds to make sure it would turn out well. A few girls were selected to write messages and the rest signed their names and helped color the cards. They were all so excited to participate, even those who had never met the directors in person. The final products were just absolutely adorable and I’m sure the directors will love them. The Kenya director and my boss were so pleased with our work, although it was really all the girls.
I ate lunch with one of the teachers and had a wonderful conversation before gathering my group for the newsletter. Last week I had asked them to write a first draft of a story they would like to include in the newsletter. When I asked them to share their work I didn’t expect many of them to have done it or if they had to have put too much effort into it. Partly because for the past two weeks they haven’t had the supplies (notebooks and pens) to write their stories and I didn’t know if they had gotten them and partly because I know they’re busy and didn’t expect them to prioritize the newsletter. But I ended up being so pleasantly surprised with a lot of their work! Some girls had interviewed women (mostly Hehsima staff) they saw as leaders, others wrote about themselves and how they see themselves as leaders or becoming leaders, and others wrote about other inspirational girls in the program. Many of them also went out of their way to try to write them in English and while I’m still not sure how they did it (since many essentially cannot speak or understand English) their articles were really well done! It was so great to know that they enjoy this project and are actually putting effort into it. Plus, I got to spend some good quality time playing with the cutest little boy (probably about three or four years old) throughout the day between projects.
I ate lunch with one of the teachers and had a wonderful conversation before gathering my group for the newsletter. Last week I had asked them to write a first draft of a story they would like to include in the newsletter. When I asked them to share their work I didn’t expect many of them to have done it or if they had to have put too much effort into it. Partly because for the past two weeks they haven’t had the supplies (notebooks and pens) to write their stories and I didn’t know if they had gotten them and partly because I know they’re busy and didn’t expect them to prioritize the newsletter. But I ended up being so pleasantly surprised with a lot of their work! Some girls had interviewed women (mostly Hehsima staff) they saw as leaders, others wrote about themselves and how they see themselves as leaders or becoming leaders, and others wrote about other inspirational girls in the program. Many of them also went out of their way to try to write them in English and while I’m still not sure how they did it (since many essentially cannot speak or understand English) their articles were really well done! It was so great to know that they enjoy this project and are actually putting effort into it. Plus, I got to spend some good quality time playing with the cutest little boy (probably about three or four years old) throughout the day between projects.