It is 10:15 Monday morning and after a three-week break the girls have returned, eagerly diving into Daraja Academy’s second term. As I type a group of five girls are running from their physics lab to English class. Laughing as they go, Mary K., the girl leading the group unknowingly dropped some thing. It must have been small, a pen or pencil, because from my office 20 yards away I missed it… but Lillian didn’t.

Mary K. (we have two Mary’s) and Lillian became very close last term and both blossomed because of the friendship.
Mary’s mom works very hard to provide for a family of kids with no father around, while Lillian’s father was killed in a road accident last October, four years after her mother died from a bad headache (meningitis). Many people become removed and unapproachable after such hardships, but not these two. Their dogged determination to embrace life is truly inspiring. I watched as Lillian slid to a stop, ran back for the item and returned it to her friend. They hugged and like a clip out of a movie, draped their arms over the other’s shoulder and disappeared into the classroom. Honestly, I would be embarrassed to make this stuff up!!!

I am not sure why, but seeing our students in their navy blue and grey Daraja Academy uniforms never gets old for me. Perhaps it’s because I have seen the condition of most of their other cloths or it could be that they seem to walk just a little taller when they wear them.

I had a feeling that the students would be excited upon their return to campus, but I didn’t expect what we got. Huge smiles, bigger hugs, some girls giggled uncontrollably and others cried. Benedicta, our head prefect had a hard time keeping a straight face each time I spoke to her. It got to the point where I actually began to wonder, “is this girl laughing at me? Do I have something in my teeth?” I finally asked her what was going on. Still giggling, with a huge grin, through crinkled up eyebrows she responded as if the answer was plainly obvious, “I’m at Daraja.”

Saturday night, we had a welcome back party. The MS Kenya volunteers were slated to go to Nanyuki town for a night of “20-something-fun” but five opted out when they found out that the girls were returning.

We had a great dinner, listened to music and wrapped up the night by playing, “Skits in a Sack.” First, the students were broken up into five sets of five, with each Danish volunteer then joining a group. Next, each group was given a sack of five mystery items. Andy, Mr. Charles and I had an extremely good time collecting random items for the skits. To give you an example of just how random the items were, one sack held: a paint roller, a baseball mitt, a length of chain, a neck brace and the stringy side of an industrial sized mop. The groups were given 30 minutes to prep their skit, the only two rules being — 1) every member had to speak at least one line and, 2) every item had to serve a purpose in the skit.

Though it would have been fun, we purposely chose not to include teachers and administrators in the skits. When an adult is added to a group of students, even with the best of intentions, that groups dynamic . The Kenyan curriculum is rigorous and often by their teens many students have had the creativity beaten out of them. We are trying to reverse that process. Computers can regurgitate information; leaders have to be able to think creatively.

And creative they were!

I could not believe how great the skits were! They were all hilarious and extremely entertaining. One, mocked the hypocrisies that are witnessed on any given Sunday at church, another was a slapstick adventure showing the arrest of a grandparent-napping witch doctor and her assistant.

I am embarrassed to say that I severely under estimated the girls; I just didn’t think they would be able to do such an incredible job on their first attempts. This is not a mistake I will be making again soon.

After the last skit and another round of hugs, the girls returned to their dorm and curled up in their beds for the first time in 3 weeks. The girls are back, they are a force, and I sincerely cannot wait to see what they are capable of doing once unleashed on the world.