Adventure Pride School

I was tired that morning as I meandered into the slum. There were glass paned butcher windows butted up to the key-hole doors in the mud and stick houses. There were chickens and kittens picking through the trash in the narrow lanes. Women with large drums of grain atop their heads and broad cars somehow managed the same tight space between mud storefronts.

I didn’t truly wake ‘til I met the bright eyes of a woman rolling out chapatti, a round flat-bread. Seated in the center of the road, she prepared her bread over open flames without taking note of what her hands were doing. Her head oscillated up and down the lane.

“Habari” I muttered, pushing out the greeting so she wouldn’t hear my poor pronunciation.
“MZURI, SANA!” she beamed. There was no need for her affirmative reply. Her eyes had excitement and peace while her hands continued what they had always done.
Continuing, I felt jarred awake and somehow grounded in Kibera (a Nairobi slum) myself, excited for what my expedition of the day had in store: a visit to Adventure Pride School.
 

Students poured out of the weathered, yet well-constructed church building. I slipped inside. Its high ceilings, in respect to surrounding mud houses, and white washed walls were the first hint of the uplifting intention this school invested in the lives of these students. The ethereal energy amongst the focused students remaining at their desks and the solitary light bulb in the center of the great room, was hint number 2. Good things are happening here!

After being ushered into an adjoining 4x4 mud office where 2 smartly pressed headmasters gave me the facts*, I was allowed to freely interact with each class. Budding off the great room were three mud classrooms. The first mud classroom I entered, baby class, was full of 4 and 5 year old faces gawking at the white girl. I bit my lip to keep from chuckling at the wide eyes and adorably chubby cheeks. I listened to a bit of “wind, sun, sky” parroted in high pitched voices---English class. The students in each mud-room sat at low wooden benches regardless of the class age. They were tightly packed side to side on each bench and long wooden tables butted up against the backs of the preceding row of students. In one of the classes in the great room, this room houses 6 classes total, the students stood to greet me with, “Hello Madam!” I led an interactive question game for a bit with this boisterous group.

On the way out to the final mud-room class, I passed a 20 gallon tin pot bubbling over hot stones--- Lunch! (some of the students’ only daily meal). I asked the final classroom, 14 year-olds, what they wanted to be when they grew up. A surgeon, a teacher, an astronaut, a trustworthy politician!!! In this little mud room, lit by the early morning sun, these teenagers have a deep understanding of where they are in the world, TRUE hope in where they CAN go, and an honest joy in the process.

“And, madam, what do you want to be when you grow up?”, an earnest face asked:)

 

*THE FACTS.

-the school hours are from 8:20am-3:30pm. However, they open their doors at 6am to receive students and close up around 6. Most students spend these 12 hours in the safety of the school walls! This is family.
-6 core subjects are taught: English, Kiswahili, Math, Science, Social Studies, Life Skills/Bible Based study
-the school purifies their own water using the sun, corrugated tin and water bottles-GENIOUS and sustainable:)
-Thursday is the one day of the week the students have P.E. Throughout the year they will put on dramas, and enjoy other creative arts.
-the school hopes to buy new uniforms for its students and is in desperate need for expansion.
-the headmasters were slum children themselves. They both have lived with want, schooled, went to college and now pour all of their lives and resources into these children.