Kenya 2016: Did your high school have pigs?

We began our day at the BLISS high school visiting classrooms.  The teachers often seek to include us by asking questions.  John Palladino was thrown a curve ball when the English teacher asked, "Could you provide an inverse predicate using American English?"  GULP.  His performance was worthy of an Academy Award suggesting we often use different terminology and asking if he could quickly check her textbook.  Extremely fast thinking (or very sneaky) on his part. 

Jeff and Margaret Punch provided dual rabbit dissections for the Science classes.  I suspect not many married couples have attempted this half way around the world!  Apparently they met the challenge as students crowded around and even stood on tables to get a better view.  We decided not to include photos of this although a number of students wanted to know if you could still cook the rabbits.  Paul Carson spent a good part of the day giving talks on cancer … a topic the students were curious about but not well informed.  

Some of us avoided academic dangers like John faced with his grammar question by walking around BLISS visiting parts of the school not often found on our high school campuses … like the pig pen.  It is even more impressive this year by the addition of 2 sextuplet sets of piglets.  These will eventually be sold to raise funds for much needed materials.  Along with the animals, the school has an impressive garden that provides much of the food the school uses in its daily feeding of students.  

Speaking of feeding students, the youth on this year's trip (Abe Ellison, Jeremy Punch, & John Xydis) are providing a "typical" American sack lunch for the Eighth Graders at Gichunge Primary tomorrow.  The afternoon was spent shopping and the evening making the lunches.  The menu is one you may be familiar with: Peanut butter & Jelly sandwich, juice box, bag of chips and a few cookies.  They plan is to talk about what schools are like in Michigan and then share a typical lunch.  When the teaching staff heard the plan, they decided they wanted to be included so we are bring along sack lunches for all of them.  Not sure what they will think of P&J, but it should be fun.  We also have a number of school supplies to present which we know will be appreciated.

As you have your lunch tomorrow, think of us.  We will be explaining the savvy nature of a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich paired with a juice box and topped off with bag of flavored chips.  This may be as strange to our Kenyan friends as a high school with a pig pen.  We have much to learn from each other.  I hope we do.

The Kenya Mission Team