More life in and around Nairobi

At the school in Mukuru, they've received some assistance to put in a new high-efficiency stove system.  There are two stoves, that use wood for fuel, the big one on the left and small on the right.  This will save them money on fuel costs, previously they used charcoal.  The women artisans here were joking "have you ever seen women building things like this?!"  Indeed, that's a bit unusual to see in Kenya (but of course good to see)

I bring a newspaper along when I visit Mukuru, which is always in high demand.  Here teacher Martin (left) is with the WaSH staff - Dennis, Irene, and Elphis.

Charcoal balls normally used for cooking.  With the new stove, they won't have to use these anymore.

Cristina knitted an afghan for Alex's birthday.

On the way to Mathare school, there are always herds of goats to dodge.  Mathare is apparently located between the market, the abattoir, and grazing grounds (although goats aren't picky about what they call grazing grounds!)

Weaving through some of the narrow alleys to get to Mathare

Meat?  Often a good question...

Evan is 14 toilet paper rolls tall now

The birds have found our feeder, and we're enjoying them immensely.  Here a female Baglafecht Weaver.

Firefinches are some of the common birds at our feeder.  They're not very skittish and beautiful birds to watch.

Fellow MCCer Jodi (education coordinator) and I (Doug) ran a weekend workshop for teachers on science teaching and WaSH.  Here an exercise on designing good experiments.  The idea was to get teachers interested in designing small projects with students that address WaSH issues, increasing the effectiveness of science teaching, while boosting student engagement of WaSH.

At the workshop, teachers designed mini-projects and made a poster with their results.

One group's poster on their miniproject.  They surveyed residents on how they handle garbage.  100% of residents said they had garbage picked up for disposal.  Interestingly, another group assessed amounts of trash in the same area and found (not surprisingly) that piles of trash are very common.  So there's a discrepancy in what residents say about trash, and what actually happens to it!  This highlights some of the challenges of collecting information, for instance getting good survey data.

A Christmas gift for the boys was a trip to the go-kart place.  Alex is on the right, Evan on the left, with a couple of friends.

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