Facebook

Updated the Facebook page, asking for donations! Hopefully, this and my messages on my wall will help me with the Christmas drive...

Diplomas

I realized that I need to make some sort of reward for people giving money to the school. I decided that a diploma would be a good idea. It is hard to find ways of encouraging people to give and a diploma is an easy way to show our appreciation. Still, you can't make it to advanced, it is after all charity. The money is so much needed and I really want to encourage people to give. I also need to find ways to market the school. Facebook and e-mailing is te easiest way right now, but I need other channels too! The most powerful is word of mouth, but being in Kenya makes that kind of hard. Next summer, I will spend time both in Sweden and in Washington D.C, and I need a plan to make the most of that opportunity. Right now I'm so busy in school, so I guess I have to take the christmas brake to figure things out.....

Christmas cards

I finally sat down do design the Christmas cards for the Christmas fundraising. The idea is to post them on facebook, have all my friends and family buy them as gifts. They can give as much money as they want in the name of a loved one to the school. I'm really hoping I can "spread the word" through Facebook, but I think I need to be very persistent in reminding people of the opportunity. We also started a fb page for the school and I'm going to post it there too. I have to personalize every card, but for once, I hope I will be very busy doing that closer to christmas. I also got the good news that a distant relative and her friend wanted to donate some money to the school! She sent me a message on facebook that she deposited 13.000 Kes on the account! The group from Northern Sweden also got a donation of 120.000 Kes! Instead of giving christmas gifts to their clients and partners, they are giving the money to Excellent school. I quickly had to design a christmas card for them and send it by mail.

The special Christmas cards for the big donators!

The regular ones.

More laundry from the Nest

OK - second batch of very, very wet clothes from the nest. I'm starting to feel I made up for the time I missed during the Macbeth rehearsals and performances. But unfortunately, this is a never ending story.... I start to sympathize with my mom who does the laundry all the time. She thinks this is a good way for me to learn to do my own...

Christmas Market with the Swedish Society in Kenya

    Selling lottery tickets and Swedish specialties.



Saturday was a fun, but busy day. We started the day out early, going to the Swedish school with prizes for the raffle, Swedish candy and caviar to sell and my poster from Excellent school. We started by hanging all the posters. This is one of the demands from the Swedish Association, every project that has received support need to display the result on the Christmas Market.
The board were busy with setting up the tables for selling the Swedish products, setting up the café and restaurant where Swedish christmas food would be sold.
I continued by helping out with organizing the prizes for the raffle. A lot of companies around Nairobi had donated the prizes and some of them were really good. Like two nights at a resort on the beach and a painting from a well known local artist. The other Scandinavian countries were also participating, and it was a lot of fun to see what they were selling. The Market opened by noon and I spent the next four hours selling lottery tickets, helping out in the kitchen, manning the tents were we were selling things and chatting with Swedish people. I had a good day, but was dead tired when I got home.
The money earned will go to projects in Kenya, another opportunity for me to apply for funds to Excellent. school.
I had a good time, but I also worked really hard and sold all the lottery tickets. It was nice to talk to a lot of people from the Scandinavian countries and there were many familiar faces. It was however, hard work and I was dead tired after the market. Even though I enjoyed it, I'm glad this event only comes around once a year!

 

The nest and laundry

Friday was free from school so I managed to go to the nest for a short visit. I didn't have much time, so unfortunately I made a mess in the room with the one year olds. They were, as always, very hungry for attention and I was hardly inside the door before I had two babies in my arms. I forgot to close the door behind me and one "escaped", so I had to put the two down and run after the third. As I let go of the two I held, they started crying and after lifting in the escapee, he was crying too.
I hugged them some more and played with them for a few minutes, but they just wanted to be held.

I had to go down to the laundry room, because I heard that due to the heavy rains we're having in Nairobi, they have a hard time drying the laundry. I volunteered to bring the wet laundry home and dry it in the dryer in our house, but got a bit concerned when they brought bag after bag after bag...... My reflection on this trip is once again, how lucky I am. To have a dryer when it is raining is very practical especially after it's been raining for days. The staff hardly had any of their cloth diapers dry and my parents just put disposable diapers on my butt! Imagine the hard work they put in, and being so dependent on the weather, luckily it is mostly sunshine in Nairobi!

    Pouring rain and lots of laundry

   Hanging diapers

Football self-evaluation and reflections

 I missed the last training sessions due to my Drama production, but I think it's been a big challenge being on the JV team this year. I didn't get to play in the games as much as I wanted, which made me negative at some stages during the season.
When doing a full IB, it is difficult to remain positive when you could be home studying as you "warm the bench". The thing I was enforced of, yet agin, is the importance of team work. To keep your friends motivated, to participate in training and to be positive during games is very important to get good team-work. Winning also contributes, but that is a result of practicing. I'm not so sure I accomplished that this season. I got frustrated and upset when I didn't get to play and I got angry with the referee when they made strange calls. I also got quite angry when my team mates didn't show up for practice, but still got to play in the matches.
Our football season was mixed, with brilliant results at the beginning of the year but with defeats in the end of the season. We did not progress as far as we had anticipated, therefore I am angry because this season cannot be compared to the last one. Even though we reached the final last year, hopes were even higher for a return there.
I'm proud of that I didn't quit and that I was working with my bad temper all through the season. I truly love football, but I think I'm not going to do the tryouts next year. It is just too time consuming. Maybe Taekwondo is more for me: you develop quite quickly and it is an individual sport, and maybe this is one of my conclusions from this  experience. I will not achieve my goal of being on the Varsity team next year, but I will absolutely continue to play for fun. My new plan is to do the pick-up games at the U.N, maybe not every week but always when I'll have the time to spare, and always just to have fun!

Po, our captain, is making the crowd laugh at Sports Celebration night.



















Meeting Rosslyn

My coach gave me credit for being one of the most reliable players and always giving a lot of energy to the team!