2nd October
Today was a very exciting day for us all because we were going on a school visit that Lyn had arranged last year when she met a small group of students and their teachers that were on a once a year outing to Sheldrick’s to see the baby elephants. The founder of the school, Lucy Muthoni Kiragu started the school in 2000 with 3 pre-schoolers. Now there are over three hundred pupils and 30 staff at the school. As well there are 30 orphans who are educated and housed by the school and are mostly looked after by Lucy and her family. 
I was waiting for Lyn and Peta in the reception area when Lucy, Antony and their daughter Monika arrived to meet us at our Hotel and I recognized Lucy from a small photo Lyn had showed us the afternoon before and so I introduced myself to Lucy. Not realizing that I had seen her photo, Lucy had us all laughing when she said “wazungus are like gods” as she couldn’t believe how I could recognize her, and of course we were equally surprised to find we were the first non Kenyan people to visit the school. Whilst we had no idea what the facilities at the school would be like, we had brought some things with us that we thought would be helpful. Lots of things had been donated to us by other people like a digital camera, stickers, books, beanies, and an old laptop computer which were all appreciated, but perhaps the most useful thing was some money that my aunt Flora and my friend Helen had given us. After converting this to Kenyan shillings, we went with Lucy to a schools supply shop where I was truly amazed at the quantity of schools supplies this could buy. They bought dictionaries, reference books, readers for all ages, chalk, pen, pencils, crayons, inks, exercise books, reams of colored cardboard for charts for the rooms and Lyn, Peta and myself added money for large jars of powder paint, boxes of brushes, drawing paper and of course skipping ropes and soccer balls! We had also bought, from the side of the road on the way from the airport, a large world map for their wall. Lucy, Antony and Monica then joined us in our van and Robert drove us to the school which was about an ½ hour drive out of Nairobi in Kikuyu. Naturally, the children were extremely curious about us and we were taken into each classroom where we were greeted and introduced to the children who sang to us and then we had to explain how Lyn had met Lucy and why we were there.