4th of July in Kenya

Hello all!

Today has been a fun day.  I do miss the fun activities that take place all over the States for this holiday.  Even so, I was still able to celebrate the day here in a small way.

My English class started today.  So, I made a cake, took decorations to class and taught a little bit about the holiday to my Kenyan students.  I sang the Star Spangled Banner, My country tis of thee, and America the beautiful to them.  They had the words and tried to join in a bit.  I explained that the national anthem was written about a battle and the fact that the flag was still there meant that we hadn't lost :).

I asked them to sing their national anthem as well.  They managed to stumble through the Swahili version which is pretty good for people who live in the middle of nowhere and don't hear their anthem all that much.  There is also an English version of the anthem.  I had a couple of Turkana friends who have gone to school come in and write the English words on the board for us and we tried to sing it.  I know the tune, but didn't do so well at matching the words to the tune.  Oh well, at least we tried :).  My students enjoyed this beginning to our class.  They usually have some sort of test on Monday afternoons to start the class.  So, cake and songs were much more fun :).

Kenyan national anthem - it might be a bit messed up as they did it from memory and seemed confused.

After my class, I invited myself to my teammates' house for dinner.  They have some visitors.  So, I took my decorations and helped them decorate the table.  I also decorated their cake for them like the one I did for my class.  We had potato salad, baked beans, homemade buns and hamburgers.  It was a real treat and fun to spend the evening with fellow Americans!  So, even though there were no fireworks, we still had a fun day.  I hope you also had a good holiday.

not bad for improvised decorations :)