Sunday June 1, 2009

After cleaning the house and visiting the school we went to a little outdoor bistro run by the nuns - really a beer garden. Joseph ate many meals in this little garden where the tables were placed in little wooden porches. You ordered your eggs and potatoes, we just ate and talked.

That evening the headmaster had asked us to his house for dinner, which was a very nice meal; his house was spotless, and the many coursed meal was delicious. Of course, since his house was on the same side of the street as the schools, there was no electricity! We had some conversation, and his wife, Innoncence, presented me with an Obama ktanga - which was the same as what we had seen in the Smithsonian African museum a few months before. I was so happy for the gift. We had bought some Almond Roca as a house gift - which the headmaster found very odd.

Apparently in Africa, candy is really only for children. After the meal, Joseph blurted out "so when are you going to open the candy" - always one for the social niceties my Joe, especially when it came to chocolate. Either the headmaster did not hear him, or he did not understand him, thank goodness!

Joseph loved to eat, and he loved sweets. When Oz, our German au pair came to stay with us in 2000, he was appalled by the amount of candy wrappers that he found in Joe's pockets. I always thought that since Joe did not have a weight problem (if anything he had trouble keeping weight on), his teeth were strong his complexion good - let him eat as much chocolate as he wanted. He certainly ate enough healthy food! I'm glad we didn't put too many limitations on him, he was self regulated and really an easy boy to raise. The only thing we worried about with him was his absent mindedness, and I hope to god that was not what killed him. Time and time again we told him to pay attention, when he was young I would do role playing with him to try and force him to be more aware of the here and now. His mind was always going a hundred miles an hour, way ahead of what was occurring in the present.

Ndanda school

The school seems very large, and there were many students in town. Joseph seemed to be well known, and well liked, as many of the students greeted him, and many wanted to meet us. On the last night we were in town (Monday) two of the students asked to come by the house and visit with us. They spent about 90 minutes hanging out. There is often no electricity, and really very few forms of entertainment, so there is a lot of visiting, and Joseph loved to talk to people.

In July after we had visited, two students finally told him that the cloth wall hangings that we had hung as decorations had the sayings: . “I’m behaving out of goodness, you out of vanity.” The other says “I regret I ever knew you.” Apparently, the cloths are a way to communicate with your spouse. Joseph thought that it was hilarious that he had had many visitor in the month, and they had been talking about the sayings on his wall - what did that mean? Joseph took down the hangings that night.

The buildings of the school look quite beautiful from a distance, but they are poorly maintained and falling apart. There is rarely any electricity, the school runs out of money to buy food for the students(there was a food riot while Joseph was there and the army had to be called to maintain peace on the campus), there are not enough textbooks, pencils or paper. Poor management somewhere along the supply chain. Joseph had worked with Fordham Prep for a textbook collection of old science books to be sent to the school; I assume all of the collected textbooks are in the library. Joseph said the library was very bad, many of the books in it were propaganda.

After we cleaned his house, we toured the school, Joseph showed us his Physics lab and equipment; very basic stuff but functional. One of them most haunting memories we have of Africa is walking up the street at night to go to the guest house, and seeing all of the students studying under the European side of the town's street lamps. They would pull their desks and chairs out after dark and study under the dim light. Around 8-10 students per street light. Americans have no idea how much they are given.