ARTSCO

Due to the issues of timing, we will not be having the Bollywood theme talentshow. Now we are planning some possible visits to an orphanage and the possibility of painting a mural. We also have planned for us to bring our own artwork to the meetings just to share and inspire. We have recently gotten a donation from Fota and are planning an art show with some local artist. We are also thinking about doing some artistic activities on some of our meetings. 

Paying for the national exams

The Kenyan National Exams are coming up. When  writing the exams, the school need to pay for it, the transport and overseeing and food for all the children and examinators. Because our fund raising for the new rooms went quite well, I can now help Dixon with the fees. It's going to be a total of 32.000 Kes. I'm also giving him the 120.000 Kes for the last rooms. I'm going to do a christmas drive for getting money for the renovations. My mothers friend also promised to give money as birthday gifts, so some more money will come our way. The National exam is the whole basis for getting in to secondary school, so I think it is very important that the students get the chance to do them. This is the first year Destiny provides the student the chance to take the exam. Destiny started only 3 years ago, and did not have 7 or 8:th grade the first year, and no 8:th graders last year. I really hope that they will perform well this year and I know from visiting the classes, that everything they do in grade 8 is to prepare for the exam.

Slum tourism

I found this interesting article online. I don't see myself as a slum tourist, but my mother says that we bring tea, copypaper, pens and candy to "pay" for our visit. After all, we are intruding on their school day when we come. The project in Destiny has been running for three years and most of the people living in the area have their kids in the school and knows that we help with a lot and are not just tourists. We visit the same place every time, so people there knows us. It is very sad though that tourist come to just get a tour of the slum and look at how people live there. I'm glad that they can make some money from it on the streets. I don't think slum tourism seems to be a nice thing to do and I hope they don't ruin the reputation of the people who goes there to help.
Article about slum tourism

Hanging out in Destiny

Thursday and Friday, I had no classes because of the parent - teacher conferences so I managed to go to the school in the slums. When we go there we usually take a big highway, go through the whole slum to the big road on the other side and then back into the slums again. There is another quite big road we can take, but because of all the attacks and bombings that has been taken place on that road we hardly ever use it. Today however we did. Nothing has happened there for some time so our driver thought it was safe. My mom told me to close the windows and take of my earphones. This road divides the Mathare slums from Eastleigh, the somali neighbourhood in Nairobi.

Once in school I was really treated as a rock star. The kids wanted to touch my skin and my hair and hold my hand. Usually they can be a bit shy but I think that because all the older classes were away, they got the chance to spend more time with us. I'm always surprised by how happy and sweet they are, even though they lead a tough life in the slums. I'm also very happy for helping them building toilets and a shower and Dixon is saying that the new toilets are much safer for the smaller children.

I also visited a class in grade five who were in one of the rooms we payed for. They were also very happy and sweet. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with me. Usually I do most of the photographing, but today I got to be in the pictures.

Running water in the toilets

Toilets that you can flush

Hanging out with the 6:th graders

Talking about Maths

Participating in class

Painful training

Stretching is important in Tae-kwondo. It makes me more flexible and something we need to do every time we train. It can be quite painful, but we are not always doing it this tough. We spent a lot of time on the stretching during our last session, but we also had time for some kick combinations and finished with 60 kicks in 60 seconds. Hard work!

Swedish society year meeting

As always, I helped out on the meeting with the Swedish Society. This year, we were selling salmon wraps, hot dogs, drinks and snacks. Unfortunately, there were not so many people there but enough to make it a fun event. I always like to help out at these functions because I always meet new Swedes in Kenya and it is nice to speak Swedish and reconnect with other Swedes in Kenya.
My mom is not going to be in the board this year, so I really hope that they will contact me when they need help. They always say that I'm great at selling things in the functions, so I hope I will be able to continue helping out.

My new belt

I finally got it! It only took 6 months after my grading. I'm very proud of my 2:nd dan black belt. Now I can proudly wear a black belt with my name on it. This is the first black belt that has the name on it, so it is very clear to every martial artist that I have a high rank. This belt has two golden stripes and for the next grading in Korea in two years, they will only add a stripe for my 3:rd dan. I feel very proud to wear this belt because it shows my progress and dedication to Taekwondo. I've learned so much over the five years I've been training and developed a lot. My coordination, balance, flexibility and cardio has improved and I know some korean, the tae-guks and the mental part of martial arts and that is a big thing! I also have a great coach, who supports me in all parts of my life - not only tae kwondo!

In the gym

I'm actually getting stronger! It is encouraging to get results and now I feel safe enough to do a few exercises in the gym without Tom. The wights are a lot heavier than when I started out and I started to enjoy the training.

Success!

I got the message from my Sweden that we managed to raise the 120 000 kes needed for the two rooms in Mathare. We had to pay for the landlord to go down to Nairobi and negotiate the terms of the 4 rooms we wanted to buy. We already had money for two rooms, but needed more time to get the other two. Dixon managed to negotiate that we would get the other two if we payed before end of december. It was a bit stressful, not being sure of if we would be able to raise the money, but we made it, with a lot of help from a friend in Sweden. Now we can fully pay for the rooms and the next project is to raise funds to rebuild them and build desks and blackboards. I am still very surprised that a small room with corrugated iron sheets as walls and no floors can cost as much as 60 000 kes each. But I guess that there is a lot of people in the slums, so the rooms become very expensive.