Saturday, March 28, 2009 Comment0 Comments

Long time no update. Sheesh I am slackin. Well there is actually quite a bit to catch up on. First and foremost there was finally some direct contact with our site in Kenya! Earlier this week Meredith and Danielle (our Student Program Coordinators, they are awesome fyi) got to chat with Paul (our main contact in Nyeri). It was actually really the first time anybody had gotten a hold of him so thats awesome. And actually they set it up so that the whole group (Nick, Caitlin, Deanna, and I) will Skype with him soon and get to meet him and ask questions and what not.

What Meredith and Danielle found out: There are about 150 students at the center right now and they are split into two age groups, Primary Age and Professional Training. Our main focus as far as helping out while we are there seems to be with agriculture/horticulture education and training for the children. Looks like we are gonna roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty. BUT.......the coolest thing (in my opinion) that they found out was that Paul really wants us to play/teach the children there Softball, as he feels they would really enjoy it. I was like HOLD the PHONE!! I freakin love softball and baseball such things, so I am freaking pumped. Its gonna be sweet. Maybe one of the kids I teach softball too will end up a stud KC Royal haha. (*)

Ok back to business:
Nick (the musical guru) has finished out benefit CD! The compilation is called Nyimbo, which means Songs in Swahili. In case you weren't listening yesterday, our whole group was on 91.9 KSU radio for an hour yesterday promoting the CD and our Service Trip. It was sooo much fun and just so awesome. We decided that we are pretty much celebrities now. But the CD is seriously incredible! Yesterday was the first time I had heard any of the tracks so I hadn't been able to fully promote this thing to my friends. That is no longer. THE CD IS AWESOME AND I MORE THAN HIGHLY RECOMMEND (in fact, I will say you MUST) getting yourself a hold of one of them. The CD consists entirely of local (Manhattan area/KSU tied) artists doing original stuff. (PS track 9 is Nick himself)

WHERE?!?! (you're asking this right now---I can tell)
This Wednesday, starting at 8pm, the Kenya Service Team 2009 (yes thats us) will be having a CD Release Event/Party at Radina's in Aggieville. I really encourage anyone and everyone (bring a friend) to come out and support us. The event is free for everyone and is a great opportunity to hear a few of the artists from the CD live and just talk with us. We are always more than willing to answer any questions and just tell you all about our project and ourselves. The CD will be available for people to pick up, all we ask is that you make some sort of donation. (*just an interesting side note: the CD covers are actually going to be hand-made by us, we are legit). So yeah, this is just the first in a series of events that we will be having to benefit our trip and hopefully raise funds for ourselves. Hope to see everyone there on Wendesday!!

(*) Seeing as Paul is hoping that we can teach the children Softball, he has also mentioned that if we can to bring as much equipment for it as we can. So if anyone has extra gloves (baseball or softball. used is great!) or balls laying around, we would love to take those off your hands for a great cause. Let me know if interested.


Asante sana (thanks much) na Kwaherini (Goodbye to all),
Jamie

0 comments:

Post a Comment