From Philips' Desk

The second month of the year and so far, things are going really well. We had sixteen new kids enter the program, ten boys and six girls but one boy decided to leave and so the number of boys went down to nine. They had their two week orientation which started from the first of February up to the seventeenth. They had a good time and there after they joined the literacy program. Since most of them had never been to school, then it proved to be a little difficult to join them with the current beginner’s class which has been making great improvement the past year. this forced us to create another class which will now be the beginner’s class and the current beginner’s class be the intermediate class. The beginner’s class now has six students i.e Salim Mohamed Masud, Fuardi Guyo, Simon Mwangi,Moses Ndungu, Dennis Amufa and Paul Njane. The intermediate has the old beginner’s class students together Nelly Nyawira, Lucy Wairimu, Dennis Maina and Eugene Kariuki. The middle class has just one addition and that is Rehema Mishi and the advanced class has Brenda Auma, Dennis Kimani, Emmanuel Odhiambo, Juster Gatwiri and Shamim Wakio added. This means that beginners class has six students,intermediate has eleven, middle has seventeen and advanced has thirteen students.

This month has had so much reshuffling between teachers so that we can utilize the time that we give to them to the fullest. Musa still has social studies with advance, middle and fast track classes, Irene has English and Swahili with middle and advance and English fast track. Hellen will be having Social Studies with intermediate and middle class, English with intermediate and Swahili fast track. Whitley has science middle, advance and fast track and also English beginners class and Barrington has Bible with all the classes.

The kids are still working hard in their studies and although there is some ups and downs because of the new students, things are generally going well and we cannot complain too much. The new intermediate class is doing well with the added students and so far this month we have been doing operations of whole numbers i.e. additions, subtraction, multiplication and division. We also did that with middle class and so far their comprehension is good. This means that we have covered all the topics for grade four and so we will be moving to grade five in the beginnign of March.

The advanced class was working on scale drawing, operations of time and speed and started on area. Since the class is doing so well this year, my goal is to see how well they will cover the sixth syllabus and by that it will determine if they will be registered for the national exams.

(Bari and Whitley are two interns serving with us for the next 8 months)

Medical report.

These were the cases that were referred to hospital this month.

1. Francis Ndungu – he had malaria and amoeba.

2. Naomi Waithera- tooth extraction.

3. Priscah Kerubo- tooth extraction

4. Amina Hama – tooth extraction.

5. Mohammed Adam – cleaning of teeth.

6. Eunice Muthoni – filling of tooth.

7. Mercy – urinary tract infection.

8. Cecilia Mwinza – infection in the breasts.

9. Shamim – pregnancy test and pre natal check up.

10. Paul Njoroge – backache and amoeba.

11. Dennis Kimani – deep cut on the knee (stitching)

12. Teresia Wambui – chest infection.

13. Rehema Mishi – chest infection and amoeba.