Selling the pads

My mom got an email from a friend. She lives in Sweden but is from Congo and has started a business providing solutions for paying services through a mobile phone (something like Mpesa). She has a company in Nairobi and comes here a lot. On one of her visits, I gave her some pads. She showed it to a friend in Sweden who is involved in a project in Somalia and really wanted to buy pads to send there. Our friends company would sponsor that. If she did, I would be able to make them and maybe earn some money to give to the school. She wanted about 400 so that is quite a lot, but maybe my mom could help out and we are allowed to take some time to make them. I'm going to do a small calculation to see how much they are (it varies from what materials we use).

Bras, panties and pads drive in ISK

There is a bra, panties and pad drive in ISK. I'm thinking that I should contribute with our washable ones. I have a few bags at home, but I also have to focus on the making of a hundred new ones for the school. It is still so surprising to me that this is such a big problem in Kenya. These pads are going to Laikipia, and the washable ones will last them so much longer! I guess I should talk to the teacher in charge and explain my idea and how the pads work. I can always give him the leaflets I made to explain the pad project. I'm happy that the drive doesn't end until January. That makes it possible for me to use the holidays for sewing them.

Ziggys accomplishments so far...

Ziggy is really doing well and I'm very proud of him. We prolonged the sleeping time to five hours now, so we still have to get up at least once a night to go out with him. He comes when I call him and never does his business inside. He's been eating a lot and is growing fast, but sometimes he overeats and vomits. I've been taking him to Karura forest for walks, and he is social with the other dogs and is walking well on the leach. The vet told me that he has fleas, so I treated him, but he is still scratching himself. Sometimes he is begging at the table and tries to jump up on the kitchen counter to get to food. I guess that he is testing borders. In a few months I'll take him to puppy training class.

Help for grading

My mother is doing her 2:nd dan taekwondo grading or 2:nd dan simsa. As a senior student, my job is to help and support her. This means that I have to help her with the korean, poomses and encourage her and that my own training is non existing. She needs all the time she can get with Max, our coach. It is a good tradition in taekwondo that the higher grades need to help the lower grades. Max told me that when he didn't know the poomses, his coach threw him out of class, and the senior students helped him to learn. It is quite tough and many different things to go through during a grading, especially on the higher levels. An interview about your mental approach to fighting is crucial and the grading usually takes 4-6 hours. I also put in the application for my 3:rd dan grading. I'm not eligible to do it in one year, but the application process is very long, so I might as well do it now. Everything is being handled by the Kenyan Taekwondo federation, so they and my coach decides when it is time to apply. In that sense it is good that I have to support my mother now. I'll get  a refresher course of the things I need to know, mainly korean terms and the poomses (movement patterns). I still know that I have to work hard to get my third dan. The toughest part of the grading is fighting the simsa kwan. They are usually 5:th to 6:th dan and it is hard to put up a good fight with a guy who ranked high in the world championship. The grading is also a  time for learning from the simsa kwan, so you are not meant to know everything he is testing you on. This is hard to know in a grading situation and every time I've thought I failed. After all my gradings I've been physically and mentally extremely tired and it takes a couple of days to recover. I think we are going to take a break over christmas after my mothers grading! I hope she is going to make it and I know I will help and support her as much as I can.

Diplomas in Oakland

This lovely image was posted on Oaklands Facebook page. I'm glad that they still use the Diplomas I made for them last year! Next year, I will try to make different diplomas, and maybe update the posters and leaflets I made last year. They are doing really well now, with lots of students.

Pad progress.

I have been a bit busy lately, and are finding it hard to take time to make the pads. There is a lot going on including studies for the exams. I've got some pads done, but I really need more. I was planning to bring about a hundred, but we'll se if I can focus and do it. I think I need to ask my mom if she can sew the remaining.

My art in the art exhibit

I'm happy that some of my pieces made it into the High School art exhibition. We have been working with prints for a while, and this is my contribution.

Christmas market in Swedish school

As always, I was helping out in the Swedish market again. I was selling candy, saffron buns and other swedish things. I also helped out in the kitchen, making the usual christmas plates with ham, herring and salmon. They were really good, but I like the christmas smorgasboard we make in our house better.

Success in the gym

Since starting training in the gym, I improved more than I could ever hope for. I'm lifting quite heavy weights now and I've gained a better control of my body. It is very encouraging to improve. In the beginning, I didn't feel I did so good and only compared myself to the rest of the family,  who works out regularly in our gym. Now I'm proud to find that in some exercises, I can lift more than my mom (and she is really strong and spends a lot of time in the gym). My commitment to continue has increased and even my trainer is impressed. My mom always says that how you build muscles is determined both by how much you work and how easily your parents gains muscles. This was not so much fun to hear when I started, but now I realise that I easily get muscles. I'm going to continue to work-out one to two times a week and do taekwondo two times a week and MMA at least one.

Creativity is flowing in ARTSCO

We decided a couple a weeks ago in ARTSCO to create some art just to inspire each other. This is what I came up with:

Destiny rooms

After a big mess, I finally got the recipes for the rooms we bought from Destiny. To make a long story short, we had to get different rooms than the ones we planned to buy. These are a bit smaller, but quite expensive. The fact that we had to pay 20.000 kes for Logistics was a bit surprising and I don't really understand what that is. There is almost always a problem with corruption. You have to pay someone to get the right to buy a room. Technically it is a bribe. Kenya is famous for being very corrupted and it's sad that even in the slums there are money changing hands during a simple transaction. I'm not sure that that is what this is, but I need to investigate further. We did not buy land, we just purchased the rooms so that is also a bit confusing.
The next step is to find out what it will cost to do basic renovations and to buy desks and blackboards. I think that the only way to buy rooms for the school is to look at what you're buying and ask yourself if you think it's worth it, even if you know that some money goes to other things. This is also the only way we can follow up. Look at the cost and what you got for the money we put in and see that it's really there after the constructions or renovations and then report it to the donors.