Meeting the Children of Achungo

By Christy Tonge

We woke up under our mosquito nets in our new home, eager to meet the children of Achungo. It was Monday morning…time for a brand new school week. Vincent, one of the teachers, met us at the Tausi and led us the quarter mile walk along the road to the Achungo gate.

First, we went to the “baby side” where the Preschoolers have class, and there’s a large room where breakfast porridge is served, as well as lunch (and supper for the kids who live in the Boarding House here). It was a mid-morning break for breakfast, so there were kids of all ages in their brown Achungo uniform, lined up with their cups for porridge.

Again, we faced the “all eyes on us” experience.
Kids stuck together in tight clusters, staring at the Mzungu who had arrived.
I went over for a cup of porridge, hoping it would create opportunities for interacting with kids. Not so much. They stayed in clusters, casting stares in our direction.

Fortunately, there were some kids who had no inhibitions--the Preschoolers. They became our haven. We watched them playing gleefully in the yard, and their insatiable curiosity, combined with our attempts to reach out, opened the door for our first interactions.

Hey, I recognize that butterfly backpack! How wonderful to see kids wearing the very backpacks that our friends back home had sponsored. We had purchased them at Target and sent them ahead with a visiting group 3 months before our departure, and they’d made it! :)

Next Vincent took us on a tour, starting with the Preschoolers when they were back in their room after the break. We were met with a warm welcome by teacher Diana, and 2 dozen precious, bright-eyed children. From there, we walked the path to the nearby property where the classrooms for all the other ages were. Vincent took us into each and every room from Kindergarten to 8th grade and introduced us, translating for the younger children in Luo, their local tribal language. The kids all sat in rows in their wooden bench seats. When we entered, they stood and politely greeted Vincent in unison, “Good maawning, Teacher.” There was such order and respect…a very different feel than an American classroom. As we greeted them, more wide-eyed stares fixed on us. I smiled on the outside but sighed on the inside. Starting over was hard.

After our initial introductions, it was class time for us, too. During the next period, Barry and Shayla attended Swahili class with 2nd grade, and Trevor and I chose to visit a math class in his grade—”standard 7”. Again, we were struck by the polite attentiveness of the kids, listening throughout the entire period to the teacher’s explanation at the black board, and quietly taking notes.
We met one  or 2 teachers at a time throughout the morning when they had a free period. We visited a different class each period, taking in the sights and sounds, sometimes in Swahili, sometimes in English. In the 8th grade room there were posters on the walls that students had made about AIDS.

 
It was eye-opening all over again, just like it had been in Uganda, to realize that every child here likely knows someone who had died of AIDS. Tragically, for many of them, it was their own mom, dad, or family member. As I looked at their hand-drawn visuals around the room, I was hit with the sobering reminder that suffering and loss are part of the fabric of life here in East Africa.

For lunch, we walked back to the other property  with teacher Salim, our “first friend” we’d met in town the night before. As we talked, I could see that he was passionate about Social Studies, and that he cared deeply about the kids.

We tried to reach out to the students at lunch time to initiate informal conversation, but they were intimidated. It was still mostly stares from a distance. After our close relationship with the kids at Ilula, we had arrived here ready to develop the same kind of friendship, and we hadn’t expected so much hesitation. But we realized that the kids we’d grown so close to at Empowering Lives were used to having Mzungu visitors, and it was far more foreign for these kids to have much interaction with Westerners. For the rest of the day and for the next few days following, we grafted into the routine at Achungo, reminding ourselves that it would take time before they felt at home with us. Nevertheless, our hearts were sinking on the inside when our efforts failed, especially when some of the kids even scattered and ran when we walked in their direction to greet them. This is going to take longer than we thought.

Meanwhile, we continued enjoying the connection with the little ones who gravitated toward our playful antics (and who couldn’t resist Barry’s silliness!).

 

 

 

It became our routine to start each day in the Preschool classroom. We taught them English songs, and soon enough, they had “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” mastered, in their sweet Kenyan accents and animated hand motions.

When they practiced writing alphabet letters, we got to join in as “teachers” as they came to show us their work when they completed a letter. I noticed that the line-up to show Teacher Trevor and Teacher Shayla, was always longer than the rest!

 
With the older kids, we got to take part in classes, flag pole gatherings, meal times and break times.
  Day by day, we started forming connections, first with one or a few of the braver kids in their class, who became a bridge to the others. The biggest breakthrough came through music! Mercy, one of the brave ones in 4th grade, pleaded with us to come to her classroom during the morning break with the guitar to sing songs. Once we started, no one left for recess. The whole room broke out in song, first with a few songs that we led, and then they took over from there! Everyone joined in, with clapping and motions and laughter.
I loved seeing how music was such a part of them, and how much JOY filled the room. From there, we had “representatives” from other classrooms asking us to visit their class too.

The doors opened for more interaction from there. We got to lead collaborative games at PE, and see their playful and silly sides begin to come out. 

We taught them some things, but they also graciously taught us—
sharing about their culture and their traditions and more. Some adopted us as their pupils and taught us words and phrases in Swahili, and in their mother tongue, too.

Little by little, as they saw that it was safe to interact with this crazy Mzungu family, our relationships began to grow.