With confidence, flexibility and incredible balance the Squirrel Group (our youngest) are all naturals at yoga. I would love to say that I teach them yoga but the truth is they can do things with balance and strength, and yes even inner calm, that I have never managed to achieve in all my years of …
This is another post in our occasional medical series. Each morning, when we gather for the meeting that starts the day, as well as taking the register we also have a health check. “How are you all today” is meant more literally than the normal pleasant greeting. Most mornings there is nothing more than a …
Since writing their own poems about plants a few weeks ago, some of the kids have really got into poetry. Luckily we have several anthologies of poems aimed at children and young people. A big shout out to you clever people who knew (how did you know?!) that this day would come, and sent us …
When she last visited Chelsea brought with her a large bag of pencils for the school. These were not just any pencils however. These were all special pencils, collected by Chelsea during her childhood. The collection was so impressive it even went on public display in her home town. The pencils are a riot of …
I used to think that classrooms were just for those times when you really needed to use tables and chairs, but now I’m not sure you even need them then. This week the kids took their tables and chairs outside to work on pieces of writing about the environment. We had been reading poems about …
None of the children who attend Olng’arua School have electricity at home. They all live in traditional houses built of mud and sticks, lit at night by a paraffin lamp, or more likely, just a fire. There are no books in their homes. Occasionally a newspaper might be brought back if someone makes the trip …
The children worked very hard this year on the school ‘shamba’ (vegetable garden). It was looking wonderful; we had started harvesting sukuma (a green leafy vegetable like kale) and were keenly anticipating tomatoes, green peppers and carrots. – Then an elephant came to tea. – Sadly our fence was no match for a determined elephant …
With the normal period for the rainy season here nearly over, we are resigning ourselves to a dryer than normal ‘long dry season’ ahead. There have been some dramatic skies and even a nice rainbow or two but very little rain. The rivers have dried up far beyond their normal points for this time of …
Another story that didn’t get told during the time of drought and violence was the Lion group’s trip to Lake Turkana. Lake Turkana is the world’s largest desert lake, it is also the largest alkaline lake and has recently become home to Africa’s largest wind farm. The shores of Lake Turkana have evidence of some …
For the first time, thanks to generous donors, we had a Christmas Party at Olng’arua School. Christmas is still a very new idea to this community, and has arrived more as the modern concept rather than a religious one, everybody loves a party! The main objective of our event was to see how all our …