Back at Wema!

            After a long two-day journey that included three flights, I have finally arrived back at Wema. We have a group of six volunteers for this trip. All the volunteers are students or recent graduates, including my brother Alex, of Harvard. We brought over duffels of donations, which included 13 more laptops, most donated by families from my high school, for the computer lab and over 100 books, most of which are brand new and donated by Houghton Mifflin, for the library. We have begun to organize all the books and laptops. I am so excited for the impact they will have.

            The directors, Teresa Wati and Steven Juma, along with their nine children have warmly welcomed us. We were even able to take a complete family picture of them. This was their first family picture. Of course, Teresa wore the hat of the “Man in the Yellow Hat” from Curious George.

            It is so inspiring to see the progress that Wema has made in the last year. The well is completely functioning and the school has been utilizing the clean water. Soon, Wema will open up the well to the community, so that they can benefit from it and Wema can make a little bit of money. Construction has started for the Secondary School and new dormitory. Right now, the Secondary School is attached to the Primary School, but this new building will allow for more classrooms and space. There is only one cramped dormitory right now, in which the students sleep two to a bed. The new dormitory will be built on top of the Secondary School.

            The most exciting news came just a couple of days before we arrived at Wema. Class 8, which is the equivalent of the eighth grade, received their scores from the KCPE, Kenya’s national exam that determines the Secondary School the students will go to. Eleven of the twenty-nine students received a score in the 400s. The exam is out of 500 and a score above 400 basically means they received an A. It is the best Highway Academy has ever done on the exam. The students and teachers are ecstatic. This reflects the hard work of everyone.

The students have just started to arrive back at Wema, and I am really looking forward to teaching them on Monday.

Unfortunately, the Internet is not strong enough for photos for this post but hopefully will be able to post some soon.