Day 8 - Assembly, Swahili Lessons, Common Goals, and Games

We met at school at 7:30 today, most students walking in clusters with those who lived around them. Once all of us had arrived, the Banjika school held a general assembly. They started off by singing their school song, and then the head of school and each teacher all welcomed us to their community. We then introduced ourselves to the entire school by stating our name and then our grade. We also sang the national anthem as our “school song” since we don’t really have one. After the assembly we had a long morning check in with only Menlo just talking about our experiences so far in the homestay, and any needs or questions needing answered. Once everyone finished sharing, we had a tea and snack break with everyone. After this snack break we went into a classroom where Nolan taught us some key Swahili phrases to use at homestay. Then our homestay siblings came to teach us correct pronunciation, and answer any questions we had. Then we had lunch, and had some team building exercises to get more familiar with each others names. We also had some conversation starters to help break the communication barrier between cultures. Finally to end our day we went to the classroom to go over our collective goals that both Banjika and Menlo wanted to achieve on the course of this trip. Once all of the school activities ended we went to the main field to play pickle ball and soccer. Then we walked home in clusters.

- Aidan and Reed































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