19., 19.1 November 12, 1967: Letters from Barbara and Frank to their folks

19.

November 12

Dear Mom and Dad (Line, from Barb)

Here’s another week gone by. Tuesday a boy slipped while playing football and dislocated his shoulder. Frank and I took him down to the hospital in Embu. The doctor gave him an anesthetic, and he and three other people pulled and yanked on the arm until it went back in, then taped his arm to his body and put him in bed until he woke up. We went out to wait in the car until he woke up. When we went back in about an hour, darned if he hadn’t pulled on the bandage while he was waking up and dislocated it again. By that time, the doctor was gone and there was nothing to do but go home and take him back the next morning.

The next day Miss Williams, one of the English teachers here, and I took him down again. Frank had to be somewhere else giving a test. We were there at 8 in the morning and waited until 11:30. All this time the doctor was doing his rounds in the wards and dozens of people were waiting everywhere. I don’t think I have ever waited so long for a doctor in my life. Then I think all that saved us from more waiting was that Miss Williams found a nurse and asked if the doctor was ever going to be in and would she please go and find him for us. The doctor is Chinese and very pleasant, but he takes his own time about things. So he went through the same routine again and got the shoulder back in place and taped it up twice as good. This time I stayed with the boy while he woke up and held on to him, so he wouldn’t thresh around so much. At last check this morning he is almost ready to take the bandage off.

This test that Frank was having to give was the Kenya Primary Exam, the sort of final exam that tells whether a student is going to pass on to secondary school. It is given after several years of school. He was the chief invigilator (overseer?). There are schools all over the area, in fact, all over Kenya that were giving it. 

I was glad his school was very near Embu and right on the tarmac, because as per tradition, it rained part of the day, and some of the roads were very bad.  Diane went with one of the other teachers just for the fun of it, and to give her some company. They were forty miles out in the bush. They left here at six in the morning and got back around six in the evening. She really had a good time and got to see some different country. Where she went was near an irrigation project that raises rice. The soil was very balack and it was muddy as heck, even the Land Rover had trouble getting there. It was on a flat plain with very few trees and a river close by and very hot. (We can notice the difference in altitude from here to Embu. It is always hotter there.) One of the teachers there was a former student of St. Mark’s and took good care of them. He took them down to the river to eat their lunch and entertained them, and sent home eggs and smoked fish. We haven’t eaten the fish, but the eggs are good. I don’t know if we will eat the fish, they sort of look like old leather!

About a week ago the principal had me turn in a list of books and equipment for the next term and said to ask for a gas stove, so the girls could learn to cook. So I turned in a long list of dishes, pots and pans, and the stove. Last Tuesday everything came! I was amazed! Even the stove came! I guess the fact that there hasn’t been Domestic Science for a while is mostly to blame, but I still can’t get over what happened. We had one pair of scissors to cut with. I had been taking up my three pairs to use in class. So I ordered eight new pairs, and that sure made a difference in the sewing class.

Remember the class with nineteen in it? Their dresses are going to be ready to wear. They have been working a lot on their own time. They certainly are not perfect but guess that’s the only way to learn to do something. There are two of the girls that still can’t treadle the machine right, but we have some machines with a hand crank, so they can get their dresses finished too.

This Monday and Tuesday are the Second Years’ final exams. Then they will just be around for the next ten days. Everyone says they will still come to classes, but I’m wondering just how true that is. It is a strange arrangement to us. This one exam is about the only measure of what they know that counts. They don’t give report cards or term grades that mean a thing.  Frank’s already fussing about it and trying to get an idea started that it is better to have several tests than just one. I think he will do a lot more here as the principal seems to like a lot of his ideas.

Looks like the rains might be over. We’ve had three days with just one small shower. I will be glad. Things were starting to feel rather damp in the corners.

Saturday we went to Fr. Hall, about 40 miles away, to see what was there. It is bigger than Embu. It has about thirty shops and over half of them were yard-good shops. You never saw such an assortment, and most of it was selling for around five shillings per yard. Even pretty nylon for that price, I couldn’t decide what to buy so didn’t bring home any. There were three different shops where ladies were knitting on knitting machines like the one I saw at the Boise Fair for $330. I didn't ask the price of the sweaters, but they were sure pretty. 

All for now, Love, Barb

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19.1

November 12

Dear Folks, (Cochrane from Frank)

This week was mainly taken up with administering the Kenya Primary Examination. It is given to all students finishing Standard or grade seven on November 8th. They go to great expense and bother to administer it. I was chief invigilator at the school with the most students to oversee, and it was a headache; two and a half pages of printed regulations that I had to see were followed. I had eight assistant invigilators and everything would have been easy if you could have trusted them. I don’t think they helped any students, but I was supposed to return all unused copies of the test. I tried to keep track of them all, but ended up losing four copies. If I had known then what I know now, I would have forgotten about it, but I figured they would count them and find me short, so I wrote a report on it and turned it in. They looked at me as if I was crazy when I turned it in. I wasn’t thinking fast enough, or I would not have turned it in when I saw the look on their faces. All those students who took it had seven years work hanging on that one test.

Tomorrow we have a test starting here. It will take three days and cover all the subjects our students have had here in two years. This will be the first exam some of them have had since they started, so it should be interesting. I had to write their science exam, and they have been crying their eyes out because I don't know what they have had. They are right. They are going to cry louder when they see the exam. I wrote 106 questions to do in one hour covering a full field of general science and most of the questions take some reasoning. They won’t finish it, but I figured they might as well know what they have missed. If that missionary whose place I took had forgotten religion, and worked as hard as he could, they might have been able to get 50% on this test. There is one thing about it, praying isn’t going to put knowledge in their heads.

Now as soon as these exams are over, we have to prepare for Open Day, next Saturday Guest of Honor is Mr. Tom Mboia, the Minister of Works for all of Kenya. I don’t know what kind of showing I’m going to make with only four weeks of teaching to draw from. I also found out the other day that I am supposed to attend a workshop during part of our December vacation. I will probably get a lot of useful information out of it, but right now I’m not happy about the prospects. Enough of that garbage.

We all took a drive down to Fort Hall yesterday afternoon. It was about forty miles away. It’s a lot bigger than Embu, but still not much of a place to buy anything. On the way back we stopped in Embu to visit an AID couple over here under NEA. (Lindleys) It was quite enjoyable It is funny how nice it is to hear an American talk. You aren’t even aware there is much difference until you hear them! Some of the British are all right by themselves, but most of them are just plain jack asses.

Milton and Amy have finally learned to ride the big girls’ bikes and that is all they do in their spare time. They ride up and down the hills here in the campus like they were old veterans and have a great time. Kiva feels like she has been left out, because she can’t ride a bike and she doesn’t understand why she can’t.

She and the little African kids next door get along great. They play by the hour and they can’t understand a word each other says, and they don’t even know it. There must be some means of communication that we have lost.

I just took a break to fight a small invasion of ants. This country has more ants than the whole northern hemisphere I do believe. They fly every time it rains and about three or four days later, the soldier ants start crawling all over everything. At least their head looks like the pictures of soldier ants, and their body makes you think they should have some name like that.  

Diane was accepted into Kenya Girls’ High, she will start January 16. Now to get all the required clothes.

Love, Frank