July 2017: Day 5 — The Walking School Bus

Our morning was monumental and we’ll always remember it!
The bus that TWSB has been working to provide to benefit three schools: Yonatan Netanyahu Memorial School, Hadassa Primary School, and Semei Kakungulu High School picked us up from the guest house and dropped us off at Putti Village!

A year and a half of work, research, fundraising, and legal documents have gone into this bus so when it arrived at our door step, we were speechless.
The two drivers: Isaac (School Bus Driver) and Shabyan (Taxi Driver who operates the bus when it is not driving students to generate revenue) picked us up smiling the whole way. It was a joyous occasion.

Compared to the bus we were in yesterday, which struggled up the muddy, windy roads, riding in our very own, significantly newer bus made us feel like royalty.

We arrived at Putti to children whose happiness mirrored our own as they understood the positive effects that the bus will have on their lives and community.

We quickly got to work laying more bricks. We finished building the remaining two walls which completed the construction of the main supporting walls.

Liz ran an educational planting workshop during which she taught the children how to plant seeds and made a beautiful mural that explains the process. Additionally, she came close to completing the building of the compost bin and planted tomatoes, onions, and green pepper. Liz’s work is helping to ensure that the garden fulfills it two goals:

1. To improve nutritional diversity and help provide students with much-needed iron through growing crops such as spinach and dodo (a leafy green).
2. To improve agricultural best practice by integrating agriculture into the curriculum.

Micah put her teaching skills to use and developed a lesson that aims to improve primary (grade) 1 and 2 students’ literacy skills.

Aaron continued teaching the teachers how to use the SiMBi app most effectively as well as how to use the other incredible content on our servers (intranet systems) such as everything on Kahn Academy Lite, TED, and much, much more!

Sarah, Eli, and Elliott finished laying bricks for the classroom compound. It was a good day.

Following a busy day and a delicious dinner, JJ Keki, Enosh (Spiritual leader of Putti Village), and Seth (Head of S.K High School) joined us at the guest house for a class (or two) of wine. We discussed our work and its impact and we’re feeling incredibly fortunate to be working with such incredible communities.

‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’
- Margaret Mead

Originally published at https://thewalkingschoolbus.com on July 24, 2017.