Instructed by Marcus to bring the rather
ambiguous items of baby wipes, and a packet of biscuits on our first trip to
the village, we both were unsure as to what we were going to experience over
the coming four days.
We were to help with the ongoing HYT
1Village project at Kimenyulo Primary School alongside 6 trainees, Freddo (HYT’s
head trainer) and Musa (deputy head trainer).
As we arrived on site, we were pleased to
see that work was already well on its way. A new classroom block had already
been built and plastered, whilst work on a new kitchen, and a water tank (which
our predecessors Tristan and Freddie had raised money towards with their 20km run
in July) was ongoing and looking promising.
We were first introduced to the teachers
and headmistress of Kimenyulo, who all proved to be truly happy for the help of
HYT. One teacher in particular stood out to us, Irene. After Florence had told
her that Irene shared the same name as her grandmother back home, she quickly
'adopted' both of us as her grandchildren and fed us copious amounts of chai
and unfamiliar fruit and veg!
Then the work began. We had been tasked
with painting the new classroom block, 'hand in hand' - as Musa had described it
- with other local trainees. Whilst we were painting, we found that an audience
of students was gradually growing outside the door and windows. They were
transfixed at the sight of two girls doing manual labour. The headmistress Elizabeth
had later explained to us that this was not common in the area, and that she
was tremendously pleased that her students were seeing this - she even picked
up a paintbrush herself and helped out on a couple of walls, in her smart suit
and heels!
Over the next two months we are both
looking forward to seeing the work at Kimenyulo develop, and also to work at
other HYT projects. We have both decided that aside from promoting the
Haileybury Youth Trust, the main thing that we personally hope to achieve
during our time here is to make the prospect of girls doing hard manual labour
and various other male dominated tasks, less of a spectacle, and instead a
ordinary and feasible thing to all the students at Kimenyulo.