See you soon Kimilili!

Dear friends and family,

our last day in Kimilili is coming to an end! In 30 minutes we will be taking the bus back to Nairobi (12 hours drive, although we heart stories about busses beeing 4 hours delayed because they ran out of petrol 10 km before reaching the destination...)

The last days have been very emotional. It is hard to go, we made friends and met new "family members". 

But we agreed to come back next Christmas to see how the progress is going and to further support CBSM with their goal to become sustainable.

When we arrived four weeks ago, we found a hut in the middle of a field. With your support, we managed to transform it in a proper school. We will write a final report within the next few day. 

 A few impressions from the last two days.

The biggest supermaket (the selection is huuuuuuuge!)

A real African by now!

The chicken is ready to cook...

Afternoon sports activities with the children (with new toilets in background)

Making jewelry, even the boys enjoyed it!

Of course the girls where happy, too!

Children dancing for us to say "see you soon". New classroom in the background

We had to dance as well!!:) The kids honestly were much better!

The "real" Katja and Bruno! Finally I found them!

A real good tasting last dinner in Kimilili. (Even if it doesn`t look that good!:)

We spent the night out at "our" club!:) Had a little headache today!

We decided to sleep outside underneath thousands of stars!

Kenyan hairwash style:)

Our "goodbye" presents from the teachers! (The one in love with Alex!) :)

Monthly run rate

Dear Friends

Our days in Kimilili are counted and one of our last goals is to transform CBSM into a sustainable school. For this, we’ve developed a so called “run rate” indicating the costs occurring on a monthly basis. The below run rate reflects the changes planned but not yet implemented, (e.g., two new trained teachers) to meet the requirements of the ministry of education and to improve the professionalism of the school.

This is our run rate:

Teachers‘ salaries:

Head teacher:                                                                         80 Euros         

Deputy head teacher:                                                               70 Euros

Trained Teacher (upper classes) à 60 Euros (2x):                     120 Euros

Early Childhood Teachers (lower classes) à 50 Euros (2x):      100 Euros

            Assistants (not trained or undergoing training) à 35 Euros (4x): 140 Euros

            Cook and guard à 30 Euros (2x):                                             60 Euros

Teachers’ lunch:                                                                                   40 Euros

Students’ snack (required by ministry of education for lower classes):   25 Euros

Stationary (chalk, books, pencils…)                                                    10 Euros

Repair and Maintenance                                                                      5 Euros

Water consumption                                                                             10 Euros

Exams (need to be bought and photocopied)                                       15 Euros

TOTAL:                                                                                            675 Euros

The above numbers have been compiled and verified by us with the support and information from the head teacher, the ministry of education and the board members. We also reviewed the book keeping, also there is not a lot to review. There only income is school fees paid by those students who can afford it financially. Currently, around 50 students are paying 2 Euros per month. This leads to a total income of around 100 Euros per month!

As you can easily see, the math doesn’t tally. Currently our teachers are all volunteering. As CBSM School is currently not able to pay teachers’ salaries, it is impossible to recruit and/or maintain trained teachers (Please note: donations on our account will continue to support CBSM School’s sustainability in the future. We managed to establish a trustworthy system to control use of donations. If you’d like more information, please let us know).

There is more news regarding financials: we bought the first plot (not the whole land yet, but the part where the toilets are built on!). All settled with attorney and witnesses signing the contract in a dark back room. Felt a bit like in a mafia-movie…

Today we also picked up the first 24 uniforms for needy kids. They are really neat and we had great fun:

Sponsored by Marco

Two school girls...

Very big hug from Kimilili!!!

Alex & Agnes

Mud fight

Dear friends,

Thousand`s of unpublished comments requested pictures of the girls-mud fight. Here are today’s pictures:

Candidate Two...

Candidate One...

Stamping the mud...

Throwing the mud against the wall

When we went for a lunch break, we were desperately longing for a shower. But the water was off again. The only option we had was to use the water tab outside the house to do at least a bit of cleaning:

Back showing a clear sign of Alex' hand...

Regarding the classrooms, the second layer of mud is completed and the doors and windows are installed. To finalize, we need to cement the floors and add a third layer of mud where required.

The teacher`s toilets also have doors and are heavily and happily been used.

In the morning we completed the fencing as well as the new gate.

And finally our CBSM sign is up!

New gate...

In the afternoon we decided to mend some of the kids’ uniforms. Some of them were in really bad shape. Lucky enough, Alex is experienced so Agnes took over the part of sewing on the buttons…

Board members jumping in to support our sewing session

In the evening, after our IT lessons, we had the first round of interviews for trained teachers. As most of our current staff is not trained or only trained for lower classes, we agreed to add two already trained teachers for the upper classes and to train two of our current staff members. Those of you who read the story about our roommate might be alleviated to know that one of them will be Matrine (the other one being the guy in love with Alex). (Please note: no donated money will be used for the training. We decided to pay for it)

The second round of interviews will be held tomorrow so hopefully we have a decision by tomorrow night.

Today has been a long day so let’s call it a day! :)

Lala salama,

Alex & Agnes

Everything is flowing!!!

Dear friends,

the weekend is over and so much has been going on, that the CBSM school has a totally new look and feel! Now everyone can see it is a school, not just a hut standing in the middle of a field!

Everything is flowing (and this word-for-word!): we have running water!

Water for 250 kids (here one kid is washing her hands...)

Now 250 kids can wash their hands and quench their thirst. Before that, the older kids had to carry heavy vessels filled with river water so that the school students had something to drink. Washing hands was just not possible as the water wasn’t sufficient.

 Furthermore, the water has been used for the heavy construction going on on our grounds.

For example, this Saturday we with the support of community members constructed the mud walls of our two new class rooms. It was fun to chop the ground (ok, that part was less fun), to add the water and to mix everything using every body parts available. The mud pulp is then added between the wood constructions. Now it needs to dry for a few days before the second layer is added. Furthermore, doors and windows still need to be fixed.

How is the weather in Switzerland / Germany? Are you enjoying the snow ball fights? We had a fight over here as well using mud balls. That was fun! And that evening we were praying for water not to be off again…

Two new school classes

Alex insite one of them (doors, windows and flooring still missing)

Meanwhile, one community member constructed seven new school benches for the new classrooms. We used the same wood supplier and with the increased bargaining power (and the memories of aching backs after the transportation of 146 feet of wood for the first 4 school benches) we got transportation included. As you can see, we are growing wise with the tasks over here… J

Seven new school benches

The toilets are also making big progress.  The students’ toilets start looking like (Kenyan) toilets:

One student infront of the student's toilet

And the teachers’ toilets are even nearly finalized (only doors are missing, although we do admit this is a very important part of the toilet):

Teacher's toilets

The land purchase made progress as well today. This morning, the landlord and CBSM members (us included) went to measure the land with an official surveyor (= land measuring guy). Bad news is, that the purchase of the land is much more expensive than previously expected. Main reason for this is as simply as two little white girls using the wrong measuring unit. While the Kenyans were talking about a plot being 50 x 100 feet, we assumed “meters”. Therefore, the land is much bigger (and therefore more expensive) as we estimated around 1.5 plots but in reality it’s nearly 2.5 plots that need to be bought with the agreed prize per plot. Lucky enough, with your support we are able to pay a first installment that will pay for 1.5 plots and fix the prize for the remaining land.

Have a great start of the week!

Alex & Agnes

Greetings from Kisumu

Dear Friends,

Wow, that was just wonderful! We had an amazing two days! 

Simply relaxing...

No handshaking, no visitor book, no “how are you?” (also we must admit, that regarding the latter, people are very creative: we got a “how is you?” and a “how are yous?” over the last few weeks in Kimilili...)

Our highlight of the travel:

Flushing toilets!!! What a great invention!

Lake Victoria (the second largest fresh water lake in the world) is just impressive. Most of our time in Kisumu we spent in a boot touring the lake:

Our boat...

Fishing on Lake Victoria

We have seen a lot of wild animals including monkeys, crocodiles, hippos (!) and all kind of birds. We didn’t realize how fast some of the animals can move until we went crocodile hunting in slippers / flip flops...

Agnes got attacked only by one animal:

Two little harmless frogs...

...suddently jumping (no, no hidden prince...)

 What we liked even more than the flushing toilets? THE FOOD!

How great is Heinz???

Mmmhh, no Ugali, Chapati or Rice: just Fish and Chips!

Have you ever tried to eat grilled fish in hot tomato sauce without cutlery?

Whole fish...

... and leftovers...

Freshly collected off the fields...

...Yummi...

We really enjoyed the two days in Kisumu. Less enjoyable was the trip back home to Kimilili (Yes, it really felt like coming home when we finally arrived). We got up at 5 am, had to take 5 overcrowded Matatus (on the way to Kisumu we only had to take two) and the other passengers were just not willing to have a shower that early in the morning before going on a journey…

Enjoy your saturday! 
Love and kisses from Alex & Agnes

The sun can't shine every day...

Dear friends, 

without the „downs“ one would not realize the „highs“. Today is probably one of those days, were Kenyan culture just doesn’t seem to match.

My favourite...And one of the 250 reasons to get up in the morning...

We needed to get some money from the bank to pay for the toilets and other investments, so we went to the local bank early in the morning. First surprise: a big queue. Well, no way around so we line up. After a quick 20 minutes it’s our turn. “How much do you want to withdraw?” the officer asked incredulously after we told him the amount. He goes to the back office and after a few minutes he comes back: “There is a limit of 1000 Euro per day”. “Ok, we’ll just be queuing for the next five days then…” (we need the money to pay the land). He disappears again (followed by looooooong waiting). The little branch is overcrowded, even three employees sharing the same desk. After 45 minutes he reappears. Meanwhile, we had the brilliant idea to distract money from two different accounts (Alex and Agnes) to half the time spend in banks… So we hand him a second credit card and guess what: loooooooooong waiting.

We got out of the bank after nearly two hours. Tomorrow same procedure again… :)

We left to go to the police station. The officer in charge is a board members friend and when we met him, he urged us to see “his police station”. Some handshaking later we leave again heading towards the school.

Still no running water, but the water man is supposed to came at two. At that point, we are still confident that we will have water by the end of day. 

We head back into town for lunch. Tomato pasta and fruit salad with mango juice. We are tired and somehow we seem to feel, that we didn’t have a day off since we arrived in Kimilili, quite the contrary: we got up early in the morning during the weekends to build fences, school benches and to smear cow dunk. We take an hour off to relax before heading back to school. 

Still no water. The water man was on the ground but somehow water is still not running. The water guy has left again and no one knows what’s going on. Apparently the pipes that passes our land belong to our neighbor (how can water pipes BELONG to someone???) and he doesn’t want us to use these pipes… A few phone calls later we get the okey: tomorrow morning we’ll have running water. Ahaa... Ok…

But the new school building made huge progress today. The structure is built up and now only the mud walls are missing. We decided to hold a community event this weekend to engage parents to support us with building the wall. So hopefully we will have enough volunteers to finalize the building over the weekend.

The student's toilets also made some progress:

And we found someone to start with the teacher’s toilet. (A big thank you Anna and Marco to fund this investment!)

Our daily IT training is progressing well and our students are fast learners. (Tobi, thanks for you donation, you made it possible for them to come as you are paying for the transportation for the whole group for the four weeks!). Very soon we can start a D.-office in Kimilili as our students will be perfect in Word, Excel and Powerpoint! 

We decided to take two days off and head to Kisumu tomorrow. Kisumu is the 3^rd biggest city in Kenya and is located close to lake Victoria. “Humid shores, untouched national parks and tranquil islands” might just be what we need right now… :)

We will be back on Friday night (in time for the community event on Saturday).

A big hug to everyone

Alex and Agnes

PS: Andy, I was right today in my email: you were the highlight of my day!