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Another One of Those Kenyan Days - Joytown Day 9


 Both last night and this morning the four data-collecting students (Matt, Anna, Nicole, and I) had a team pow-wow about our progress and plan for the day, one of the last days of data collection. We arranged all our subjects, times and wheelchairs to be used and sent each other off with a smile.

Today went pretty much nothing like our plan.

We had forgot about Murphy's strong residence in Africa. ;) After a bizarre chain of our subjects being either sick, gone on school trips, or just plain unable to continue I found myself walking down the road with Ms. Rispin to our Joytown secondary school (high school) neighbors in search of extra people to help fulfill our study.

However, regardless of plans, today went amazingly!

I really enjoyed spending time with the high school-ers who have some pretty awesome dreams for the future and similar interests. I talked with one pair of girls about music and the different instruments they would like to play if their school had them (i.e. saxophone and violin). It was awesome to relate with them on something that is so close to my heart and my own time in high school. I was once again struck with something that has come up in almost every new far away place/country/city I've visited so far, people are people! I was also super impressed with the high school-er I worked with, John, and his level of interest and motivation for participating in the study. He gave some of the most in depth answers to the feedback questions on our study wheelchairs, explaining things in terms of pressure and forces and laws of physics. Which all made sense when I discovered he wants to be an engineer!

Another favorite moment from the day was walking into our research building (the school chapel hall) that was swarmed with children both inside and caked around the windows. The room was transformed into a flurry of people fixing wheelchairs, team members finishing up data, kids racing around madly in wheelchairs, giggling, picture-taking, and happy chatter.

This light-hearted spirit continued as we donned our swimming "costumes" and jumped into the refreshing school pool. This was quite unlike any swimming I've done before as we gathered an audience of about giggling 30 kids. We got even more giggles and cheers as we performed various jumps into the pool. One group of boys were in fits of laughter as they danced in and out of the splash zone of Matt's cannonballs.

We finally packed up and headed home (SACDEP) as the kids were called for dinner. Our joyous attitude continued as we stuffed 12 people into our green 10-seater van in true African-style. At dinner we took some time laughing and talking with each other, enjoying the Friday evening and discussion plans for the weekend. Ha, plans… If they work out, we are set up for a true safari weekend! We are all eagerly praying for lions and cheetahs and various other unique sightings to cross our path between now and Sunday. I better make sure my camera, or maybe just my brain, is charged. ;)

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