Sipha and Chavara Secondary

Our task for today was to take Sipha and her mother, Naomi, to school. The school is a few hours’ drive, on the other side of Nairobi. 

Sipha has been totally blind since birth, due to premature birth. She is five years old. She hasn’t attended any school before. The schools for visually impaired learners aren’t common, and aren’t cheap. 

Naomi is 22 years old, and a single mother. She couldn’t get Sipha in school by herself. 

The ride to school was long. Sipha immediately climbed onto Claudia’s lap and slept most of the way. She had woken up really early due to her excitement about starting school.

Sipha’s Aunt Alice went along too. Interestingly, she has been a major influence in Sipha’s life, although her brother (Sipha’s father) has not. Alice’s baby was along too.

Sean was on baby duty for part of the ride.

Our first stop was to get all the uniforms and other clothing Sipha needed. Below is the neighborhood of the uniform shop.

Alice is helping Sipha with trying on uniforms, below.

Then all the clothing, bedding, etc., had to be stamped with her name. This was a fairly lengthy process. Unfortunately, we had to guess on the spelling of Sipha’s name. We didn’t see it in writing until seeing her birth certificate later in the day.

If there is any consolation, name spelling is often fairly fluid in Africa, as well as what name people go by. An ominous thought for the rest of our day….

We arrived at the school fully prepared, we thought. Naomi had visited the school and got details on all the necessary items to enroll Sipha. Except one wasn’t listed on the paperwork. Each child has to have a doctor’s report from a specific hospital for admission. We didn’t have the report. Sipha couldn’t start school without it.

Given the distances and our tight schedule, we went ahead and paid the tuition and fees, toured the school, and left Sipha’s belongings there. 

Sipha is attending the Salvation Army School for the Visually Impaired. Her dorm was a fair walk from the office. The administrator showing us around got several kids to carry Sipha’s stuff to the dorm. We followed at varying paces.

Sipha and I walked together, with Naomi, above. Everyone else was way ahead. Naomi and I traded off on photo duties, with my phone.

At one point a woman called out to Sipha by name. She must have asked the people in front of us what her name was. When we walked by, she stopped us to meet Sipha. It was a sweet, welcoming moment.

Below, Sipha’s dorm-mates having lunch.

And the dorm itself. The dining room is attached. As is the dorm mother’s room.

Outside the dorm. 

After the tour, we dashed off to the hospital in Kikuyu to get the medical form. Sipha had been seen at the hospital a year or so earlier, so it should be an easy task. But it was not to be.

We first had to pick up the file from the prior visit. In that visit, Sipha’s paternal grandmother had gone with Naomi and Sipha, and she ran the show, it appears. After much discussion and the production of Sipha’s birth certificate, it was determined the grandmother had provided an alternate name for Sipha of “Quincy.” The father’s side of the family appears to have called her Quincy for a while. 

The name change led to someone assuming “Quincy” was male, so that box was checked on the form. In addition, when Naomi produced her government ID, it highlighted that her wrong birth date had been provided on the form. 

The confusion was fairly overwhelming and took multiple people to keep it moving ahead. Virginia, Alice, and Naomi kept pushing. 

In the end, it was determined the easiest way forward was to just trash the bad file and get Sipha re-examined by the doctor. No one had mentioned that option before, apparently, due to the extra cost. But that’s why I was there—to pay.

The doctor was not in until the middle of the following week.

So much planning has been done. Naomi will take Sipha back to the hospital to get the exam and letter. 

With letter in hand, Naomi will hopefully be able to take Sipha back to school and leave her. 

I’ll report back in a later post.

The following day, we headed out on another long drive to St. Chavara Secondary School, where Tuko Pamoja has three sponsored girls. 

We had met the head teacher, Evelyn, once before. 

Our first stop when we arrived was to meet with her. She was fairly stern and formal with us as there was significant confusion as to what girls we were sponsoring and some misinformation provided to her by another organization. We got that straightened out and she warmed up. 

We had hoped to teach a self-defense class there. We weren’t sure it would happen. I was hoping to get at least one grade of the girls. 

Virginia had already brought it up to them that we could teach. We provided details about what would work. Evelyn left the room to make arrangements.

She came back and told us she was pulling all the girls in the school out of class until lunchtime for us. We had 90 girls for 90 minutes. This is a big group and short time window. We usually have a couple hours. But we adapt. Always.

Luckily our entire group in attendance of five of us was trained to teach or help with the classes. This was “all hands on deck”! We had Wangari, Sean, Claudia, Virginia, and me.

There were a number of girls we knew in the class. We not only saw our three sponsored girls, Ruth, Susan, and Shirleen, but also saw three girls Ginger and I used to sponsor: Wangari, Beth, and Dorcas. It was fun. Lots of hugs.

Evelyn stayed in the room for most of the class. Another teacher, Pauline, stayed for the whole thing. This always helps with the girl’s engagement, when they see their teachers taking it seriously and learning it too.

On the first technique the girls were trying themselves, I went to Evelyn to try it. The girls erupted in cheers when she did it.

Later in the class, two male teachers and the assistant head teacher, also male, came in to participate. I had already informed the girls that we don’t teach men or allow them to watch. As soon as the guys came in, I stopped and made them leave. This was also met with MUCH cheering from the girls. 

A gardener came in later to watch, with similar results.

Below, Sean with Dorcas.

Wangari teaching.

After the class, we met again with Evelyn and Pauline. Their reactions were similar to what we’ve seen before. We go into a school and say we want to teach the girls. The teachers are understandably cautious. After observing what we do and the value the classes bring to the girls, we are always invited back. Evelyn said, “You are welcome to come back again and again and again.”

And we will.