Just Another Day in Kenya

Day 5
7:30 Breakfast
10:00 Tent Breakdown Demonstration
10:30 Natural History Class
12:30 Lunch
3:00 Trip to Kazuri Bead Factory
6:30 Dinner




In Our Tent

   "The camp staff gave us a tent breakdown demo, they were hamming it up and acting silly while doing it, but we learned how to do it!" Here in camp there are 20 Kenyan staff members who do all the daily activities, like cook food and clean up, they dig the toilet holes and set up the teaching tents. We are responsible for setting up our own sleeping tents and had to be taught how to do it. By the end of our trip, we were pros at it!


Kazuri Bead Factory

   Since we are getting university credits while on this trip, we had to be enrolled in courses. The courses had the same amount of teaching hours as those offered in Canada and we had projects, tests and lectures. Some days were harder than others to get all my course readings and homework done! Today students (from one of the courses I wasn't enrolled in) went on a trip to the UN, it would have been such a great experience.


Hand Painting the Beads

   The Kazuri Bead Factory was an a compound in the area. Kazuri is the swahili word for "small & beautiful". There were lots of women making all the beads in the factory. Each worker is trained to do all the jobs, so they don't only do one thing day after day. Each bead is shaped and hand painted before being fired over night. The phamphlet that I picked up said, "The founder of the company, Lady Susan Wood, started with two woman workers and soon discovered that there were many other women in the villages around Nairobi, most of whom were single mothers, who were in great need of regular employment. Driven by the desire to provide such opportunities, Kazuri has grown and today we have a large workforce skilled in the manufacture of hand made jewlery."10 years ago today I learned that a "factory" isn't an assembly line of faceless people. Next time I look at the things I enjoy and appreciate I will remember the smiles of these lovely ladies.



Inside the Factory