Sunday, August 1, 2010

Audits and Schools

Lately most of our time has been spent auditing the water projects that have been done by LDS Charities over the years.
Audit 1: We spent 3 days traveling with auditors to check sites done in 2009. The auditors will send the reports in to the government of Kenya and to the Church.
Audit 2: Our area office in South Africa has required that all water projects in the Southeast African region be verified to see if they are still working. When the reports are sent in they will reassess what has worked and determine the future course of water projects in the region. We hired monitors to complete most of this work. By the end of August we will have to have completed the assessment and send a report to South Africa.
Audit 3: LDS Charities has 4 major water projects (165 wells/sand dams) being completed within the next month. South Africa wants us to check 25% of the sites to make sure the work is being done satisfactorily. We will spend the next 2 weeks on the road with a monitor, verifying sites with GPS markings if available.

About one-half of our projects are done at schools. This is a picture of one of the schools we visited where we had installed a well. Most of these children are girls (I think). Although you can see by the haircuts that it is hard to tell since in the countryside most hair is close cropped despite the gender. To determine the sex of a young child, the key is to look below the waist for pants or skirts. Color also doesn't seem to be male-female oriented. All children at this school wore pink shirts and royal blue pants/skirts. Almost all females in Kenya wear skirts. However, in Nairobi some of the younger women wear pants. But as an older woman walking on the streets of Nairobi in my exercise pants, I do get some curious looks. (I would never wear shorts to exercise here as I do in the States...I didn't even bring them.)
You can see the drainpipe in the background that is connected from the gutter on the roof to a big water tank. This is one of the major ways of getting water in Kenya...water catchment from the roofs, which works well if the roof is corrugated iron sheeting, but not if the roof is thatch. In rainy seasons, this is the easiest and cheapest source of clean (?) water. Most of the schools we visited have catchment systems and do not pump water during rainy season. Thought you would like to see the visual art on the school wall. The schools hire professional artists to paint educational pictures for the children to memorize. John especially likes the fact that most schools have a large painting of the GI system.


This is a variation of jump rope they play in Kenya. The game uses a long, circular rope (the younger girls were using a circular rope they had made of a heavy grass). The rope is held by a child at each end. The girls jump inside and outside the rope with both feet inside the rope, then the space is narrowed and the girls jump both feet inside the rope, then outside the rope. As they jump without missing, the rope is raised so that it could go from ground level to hip level if they are very good. They learn to jump amazing heights. I'm not sure the U.S. school children play so actively during recess/lunchtime. The Kenyan children have 1 1/2 hours for lunch because many go home at lunchtime. I have seen many children eating lunch from plastic buckets which they bring from home. The buckets do not contain sandwiches, granola bars, bagged chips, boxed drinks like our grandchildren bring to school. Kenyan children bring a bucket full of rice, beans, corn...in other words, leftovers...my forte!





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