I woke up early today because I thought we needed to meet Lawrence at 10 again. I was wrong, we were meeting him at 12 so I had a leisurely breakfast and got ready. As well as being the CEO of KSTS, Lawrence is also the director of a well established teacher training college and his wife is director of a primary school. In short, they are taking over the education of Kenya one school at a time.
We had lunch at the teacher's college and it was good to see another school and another way young Kenyans are educated. Lawrence is clearly a very successful businessman and he knows his stuff when it comes to education so he is a great contact for me to know if I consider teaching in Kenya.
After the tour of the college we walked a few hundred metres down the road to his wife's primary school. There were 11 classes ranging from 3 yr olds to 11 year olds and we were introduced to every class. Kenyans take pride in welcoming guests as they say good people are visited. The three of us ended up introducing ourselves to every individual class and it was funny trying to think of different things to say to each class.
Being put on the spot is a regular occurrence in Africa and they seem to have no qualms in making you stand up and talk to people. Luckily the three of us have no problems talking to groups of people but if you do have public speaking issues then i highly recommend visiting schools in Kenya to overcome your demons.
After the primary school visit, Lawrence dropped us in town. He had a few things to do and we arranged to meet up again at 7 for dinner at Lawrence's house. We didn't have anything to do but we were all pretty exhausted from the constant public attention. I've never been introduced to so many people in one day and its hard work saying the same thing with the same level of enthusiasm every time. This is another trait that I've had to develop, after constant explanations of why I'm in Kenya and answering the same questions (how do you cycle over the water?) a beer was warranted to relax with.
We had a quick drink and returned back home to get picked up again by Lawrence. I was expecting a big house and I wasn't wrong. We were invited into their huge lounge and within seconds we were given the wedding day album. Lawrence and Grace got married jut a few months ago and 1000 people attended so you could imagine how many pictures they had. I spotted a DVD case on the footstool that was under the album, I knew what was coming next.
After half an hour of "wedding day part one" dinner was called and we were treated to a lovely array of traditional African food. During dinner I thought it would be a good game for each of us to give each other a sentence to say seamlessly in conversation. We agreed on the sentences when we were in town and they proved to be the main talking points of the evening. The best being T-Man's outburst as he was about as subtle as a meteor. Not only could he not properly remember his saying of "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" as it came out "I have some coconuts at home" then as he panicked with the awkwardness of the brash topic change, he added "I have to eat lovely coconuts" but this prompted Lawrence to call Grace and cut open a coconut for after dinner.
The innocent saying then escalated further with the production of opening the coconut and deducing whether the coconut was off or not. As the smell buzzed around the room I found it very hard to contain myself knowing that the only reason we were sat with a smelly open coconut in front of us was because of our little game. My saying prompted a conversation on how quail eggs help reduce high blood pressure and Malin's prompted her to sing a Nicky Minaj song at the dinner table but to really appreciate the humour, I guess you had to be there!
At around 11 the three of us did the whole tired eyes, flick of the head and tactical yawn thing. It was a good night and the first time the three of us had been invited for dinner anywhere in Kenya (first and maybe the last!). Lawrence is a really good guy and on top of his great hospitality he has also loaned Team Norway a car for the rest of their stay.
Torbjoern has been after a car for a while now and the cars here are so expensive. Being white, there's no way you can find a bargain so they have managed to cut a deal in which Lawrence gets the car back when Team Norway leave. There are a few other stipulations to the deal but to find a decent car, a decent person who's selling it and a reasonable offer that has made life a lot easier for Team Norway is just another amazing chain of events stemming from my coaching workshop.
I hope the car thing works out as its hard enough buying a decent used car in your own country, let alone in Africa! As soon as we got home we all retired to bed still giggling away at the coconut fiasco. It was a long day but a good one. It's nice to be introduced to lots of people and paraded around but I definitely can't do it everyday!
No comments:
Post a Comment