Last school visit

Today, I joined the PKSS group once again to visit a school, the last day I could have as they are all closing for summer. We were visiting Uasonyiro primary school, on the northern boundaries of the park.

 On the way we stopped by a house that the PKSS group have donated money to help fix, originally the repair was going to be on one of the walls, however they ended up rebuilding the house as it was going to collapse. They didn't actually choose the woman to donate the money to, rather the community itself decided who was in the most need. Doing it in this fashion prevents jealousy within the community, as they have chosen, rather than outsiders just coming in and giving. What was really interesting about visiting was learning a little about land ownership in Kenya. So one can either own land privately, as in buy it, or the government owns it, and it is communal. So Maasai and Samburu tribes tend to live north of Ol Pejeta, and they are pastoralists rather than farmers, so they don't stay in specific areas for their whole lives but drift between lands. Usually the pastoralists just live on the communal lands, not owning it, but the problem is that the government can decide that it needs the land for something-a conservancy or a ranch for example, it can take it, which can make for very unstable living situations.

We then went to Uasonyiro, and ran part of the cultural exchange that is going on with its sister school ASIA Abedsford school of Intergrated arts North poplar, one of which is a really interesting one called
which involves filming the kids preparing their lunch, and showing what they eat, in both Kenya and Canada and swap the films so that the children either side can see what the others eat. The definite highlight was when the kids all performed tribal dances, which I got involved in, it was absolutely breathtaking; the colours and beads, beats and musicality, all of it!