Leo Nimapaka rangi
Tomorrow we will be starting to renovate the other two classrooms. There are two reasons that we waited to do them; one, we didn’t know if we would have enough money, and two, because Standard 7 is still in class currently. For the next week and a half they have moved down to the standard 4 classroom, which we are completely done with.
Yesterday we had a liter of green paint stolen from us by some guy in the village. He came up to me when I got there looking for Alex so I sent him in Alex’s direction. Then a few minutes later he came back and poured out the can of paint into a water bottle with the bottom cut off. He was speaking very fast to me in Swahili and kept saying Alex’s name. I figured he was getting paint for Alex or something along those lines. Then he walked out and starting walking away from the school. I went to go ask Alex about it because something seemed off, and he said that he had never talked to him. We both recognized him, because he had been one of the villagers working on the construction of the classroom. I talked to Mr. Kadeghe (the headmaster) about it, and he left and came back and informed us that he had informed the sight manager as well as the village elders. He was very upset about it, and was very sweet. We told him that it wasn’t a big deal and he just looked down and shook his head and said no it is not okay. We haven’t seen the guy since. My question, is what in the world did he want a liter of green paint for? It isn’t enough paint to do much of anything with.
Anyway we have Standard 4 and 5 classrooms done, and are about half done with 1 and 3. Painting takes a very long time I’m figuring out. It is extra difficult, because acrylic paints do not exist here. We are using oil wall paints that are meant for painting an entire room. They are sticky and drip and don’t mix well. We are doing what we can with what we have, and it actually looks really good. We still have a lot of work to do before the 13th though. We have to paint the walls and do all the teacher aides in 3 classrooms. We need to clean all of the rooms and desks, because they are all filthy and layered in dirt. We have to finish purchasing the school supplies and put together the bags for all of the students. We have to make English charts and flash cards and I’m sure a few more things I am forgetting. We are going to keep working hard (8am-5pm) everyday and hopefully we will finish it before the school opens.