I couldn’t finish this story about school without mentioning sports. I love soccer partly because I can play it well ( I played for the school team in middle school and my class team at MHSK) and also because almost everybody in Kenya just loves soccer. At MHSK, we had games like basketball, volleyball, handball, soccer, swimming and yeah, that’s just about it! However, the further you go with your education the less your need for sports is perceived to be. Therefore, since I was a junior we had a 40-minute-long sports class once a week. This wasn’t so bad for the freshmen and sophomores because they could play some more during their free time from 4-6 PM after school. Juniors and seniors for the most part would just sleep for that one hour because of the tiring days we had. 
​
I don’t play much at Bearden currently because it’s not yet boys’ soccer season yet. Luckily I got a bike from one of our friends and it makes sure I have something to do every day after school, apart from justifying why I can eat pizza every day for lunch at school! J We also have a really nice soccer coach at Bearden who I am really looking forward to working with next spring.
 
That basically sums up the major change that I have had coming here. It is less stressful and I still feel tired after a day at school because they are also mentally challenging which is a good thing. I am eager to see what other changes I may have to experience during my stay here but still, I thank God that it he made it possible for me to study here.
 

​Let me give you an insight into what a day at Moi High School, Kabarak (MHSK) looks like. On a normal weekday, seniors are expected to be in class by 5 AM while juniors, sophomores and freshmen are to be in class by 5:30 AM. At 6 we would go and have breakfast at the dining hall till around 6:20. ( It still amazes me how the 1000 of us managed to have our meals within that short period of time!) Juniors and Seniors would then have classes begin at 6:30 till 7:20 after which we would go for School Parade; here we would sing the National Anthem and get any announcements there were for the week.
 
Classes for the whole school would then begin at 7:50 and go on till 10:35. We would then have a tea break up to 11 AM. From there classes would proceed for the next two hours after which we had lunch at 1PM till 2PM. After that, classes would continue up to four. (These were my hardest classes because I was full from the lunch I just had and the weather was more often than not warm and just perfect for a nap J. I always struggled to keep my eyes open.)
 
We would then have a break until 6 PM where one could go back to the dorm and maybe wash clothes or change for sports or even just sleep. However, juniors and seniors had to be in class at 5PM for remedial classes until 6PM. Supper was served for the whole school at 6 and would end at 6:30. Night preps would then begin at that time. Unfortunately for Juniors and Seniors, we would again have remedial classes from 6:30 to 7:30 while sophomores would have their remedial classes begin from 7:30 to 9:30 when they would end and everybody then went to sleep after that. Sometimes teachers would decide to keep students in class longer or ask them to wake up earlier than 5AM for extra remedial lessons.
 
So you may ask whether we had any time to revise our notes or complete assignments, well, the time for you to complete assignments was the time that you did not have a teacher in class so you may decide to get up earlier, or go to bed later than others or eat your lunch quickly; you were to avail time for yourself. And that is the reason I know a lot of stuff!!!At Bearden however, I have a pretty simplified program. Classes begin at 8:30 and break at 1 PM for lunch. I then have one remaining class which begins at 2 and ends at 3:30. No night preps, no remedial classes, sometimes no homework! J. For some classes we can even just take a walk around school or just play games at the gym. It’s a really relaxed education system compared to MHSK and quite frankly I love it!

​I have already spent about 6 weeks in the US and 3 weeks since I last wrote my blog so I definitely have a lot to tell. Many a time we have discussed with Leoma topics like how heaven is, college and how to cook (I started off with eggs and that didn’t go as bad as I expected J ). However, one major topic that always seems to get me emotional is about school. Not that I hate it or anything. In fact, I like school! It’s just that the differences I have seen here, at Bearden, with my school back in Kenya, Moi High School-Kabarak (MHSK), are just too big to not talk about. 
 
First of all, I was in a boarding school in Kenya which means I was at school for eight months a year; the first three from January till March, then from May till July and finally from September till early November. In between the terms we had short breaks for four days before returning to school for the second half. That seems like quite a long time at school, right? Well it is L and you will not believe how much we missed home.
 
I remember the time I was a freshman in high school from a day middle school. I was homesick by like the second week of school and always wanted to call home just to talk to my parents and have them assure me that it will be fine. I said tried because having phones in school was illegal. Actually, having any electronic device for that matter was not allowed. Even having earbuds was illegal, even if you didn’t have a phone or iPod or anything. You were only required to have books and pens. But that doesn’t even hint for you what life was like so allow me to do the honors.
 
At MHSK, it was a rule to always have the full school uniform on. So strict was the rule that you could even get punished for not putting on your tie. * Currently shaking my head and rolling my eyes *. We were also expected to have our own supplies in school, enough to last you for 3 months. These included things like soap (for taking cold showers and washing your own clothes) , toilet paper, stationery, blankets, pillows and sheets ( which went on your bunk bed) and shoe polish. All these items would all be squeezed into your own 20 by 60-inch locker in your cubicle where you stayed with eight other students; 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores, 2 juniors, 2 seniors.
 
You get to live with those other 7 people so long that they become like brothers to you and share in most of your best high school memories. When I think of them remember how we used to tell many stories at night, dance and let out our frustrations about classes we didn’t enjoy. However, interactions did not end there because there were about 200 other people from the remaining 24 cubicles from different backgrounds and who you could socialize with and make lasting friendships with., like I did. J
 
I love being in a day school like Bearden simply because you come home every day, and eat cookies and ice cream, and watch Hawaii Five-0 before you sleep.
 
In contrast, most Kenyan high schools require that you be faithfully in class for most of the time. They don’t want you to go home for ‘unnecessary stuff that only makes you fail your exams’ like weddings and graduations and sickness.
 
Then there’s the food issue! You were to only eat the food provided in school which was mainly rice with something like beans or beef stew. For all suppers but Saturday’s, we had ‘ugali’ which is like African corn bread with kale and beef.
 
If you wanted however, you could bring your own food with you from home: fruits, bread, milk, jam or butter to put on your bread, sugar to put in your milk and maybe coffee or tea bags J. I know it doesn’t sound like much but trust me if you still had these by the time the school term was almost coming to a close, you were like a small ‘king’ or ‘queen’ and everybody wanted to make you happy so you could at least share some of your riches with them.
 

When Ben and I arrived back in the US after 30+ hours of travel, we took a day to recover. The next day, however, I was in touch with the Knox County Education office to try to determine how much I needed to pay them for Ben’s tuition. Since Ben is not my court-appointed son, but only my self-selected son, and since neither he nor his parents are US citizens or even permanent residents, I have to pay the cost of his education. So, I contacted Mr. H to ask him for the amount that I owed. He promised to get back to me that afternoon or the next morning. As I understood it, ntil I paid, I couldn’t register Ben at school.
 
Thursday came and went with no word from Mr. H. On Friday, I decided that Ben and I would go sit in the office, as it is much more difficult to ignore someone who is sitting outside the office door, looking at you every time you go in or out. It is a good African technique. Ben played with my iPad and I played with my phone for two hours! Finally at about noon, Mr. H said he still didn’t have an answer for me, and I should go ahead and register Ben at school.
 
What I hadn’t realized was that an orientation was in progress at the school from 8:30 – 12:30. Needless to say, we missed that. After grabbing some lunch, we headed off to school.
 
We got in the registration line, and after some 20 minutes or so, we got to the table with four computers on it. There was a form that needed to be completed, but it had nothing to do with registration! It was about a dog. Apparently, the school has a therapy dog that visits classes, and they needed permission for the dog to visit in Ben’s classes. Otherwise, it lived in the school office, and wasn’t to be abused by the students. Having signed that electronically, we moved to the next queue.
 
We were in a lengthy queue of returning students registering for the new school year. There was another place for New Students. I decided that was where we needed to be. The lady at that place didn’t really seem to know what to do with us, so after a bit of discussion, handed us off to someone who did. She found another lady to take us to the Guidance Office where we could ENROLL! At last we were on the right track, or so we thought. The Guidance Office had a sign out front to say, “New students enrolling should return Monday between 1:00 and 3:00.” UGH!
 
I picked up a packet of papers for a senior enrolling. Then our guide suggested finding the ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. We found her in her classroom, and she was certainly VERY helpful. After explaining our situation, she asked Ben if he would like to take an Algebra 1 placement test. He agreed, and she brought in about 10 pages of problems. He worked through those while I played on the iPad. On Monday, we found that he was the first student she had tested who actually passed the test, and he only missed three questions!
 
On Monday, we headed back to school just before 1:00. Ben took his English test while I sought to get him enrolled. While sitting in the Guidance Office, which I now consider my second home, I was impressed with the way the staff handled the students. How they kept track of that many people asking that many questions I do not know, but I did notice all the staff are women (definitely good multi-taskers!). Some new students were given quite a talking to by one staff person – “You must take responsibility for yourself! Will you promise to get up in the mornings in time to get to school on time? You need to complete your homework and have it ready to hand in! You have had two chances already, and you need to take this seriously. “ To another student she said, “If I’m interviewing you for a job, I don’t want to see your academic record. I will know in five minutes of talking with you what that is. I will want to see your attendance record. If you were absent a lot or late, the interview would be over! I need to know, as an employer, that you will turn up to whatever you are supposed to be doing!” Good advice!
 
After going over all the paperwork, I needed two more documents. One of those documents required a visit to the Health Department to get Ben’s “shot record” on a Tennessee form. Until they had those, we could go no further. So, when Ben completed his English test, we headed back home again.
 
On Tuesday, we found the Health Department and completed the necessary forms there. We were told to phone to check if the documents were completed before we returned in the afternoon. When I phoned, they had had some difficulty reading the copies they had made, so I brought the originals and Ben. It turned out he needed three more shots, which didn’t really make his day. However, by the time we finished there, we still had time to go to school to hand in the documents.
 
At 3:45, we were back at school, Ben taking his Algebra 2 test, and me back in the Guidance Office. I handed in the last two documents and felt I had climbed Mount Everest in the process. Now, they needed to figure out where to place him and what classes he should take. It was decided that Ben should come in at 10:00 to take his Geometry placement test.
 
I had a meeting on Wednesday, so when Ben finished his Geometry test, I came to pick him up, only to discover we were not finished yet. The main office, namely Mr. H, had put a hold on Ben’s enrollment process, but had not said why. I knew why. They wanted their money! So, Ben couldn’t start school until that was resolved.
 
So, on Wednesday afternoon, I finally got in contact with Mr. H and found out the number I had been waiting for. Having made arrangements to have this sum in my bank account, I was able to go to the office and give them a check. In the banter with Mr. H, I asked him to contact the school to let Ben in. He did phone the principal, but at that time of the afternoon, it was soon forgotten. So, when I brought Ben in for school at 8:30 Thursday morning, no one knew anything. GROAN! Back home again.
 
As soon as I got home, I started phoning and emailing Mr. H. Finally at 10:00 he phoned me to say that Ben was now cleared to start school! WHEW!
 
At 10:30 we got to the Guidance Office and had to wait our turn to be seen. They weren’t sure whether to enroll him as a Senior or a Junior. The problem was that he had completed 2/3 of his Junior year (Form 3). Kenyan schools start in January and end in December. In any case, one of the ladies informed me, Ben could graduate as a Junior! I looked at her in amazement and she assured me it was true.
 
We sat around until 12:00, watching lots of students coming by and overhearing some interesting conversations. One of the students was graduating early and already had a job lined up for the summer. He was going to be in an office, and was lining up his staff from his fellow students. That young man definitely qualifies as an entrepreneur.
 
Eventually, the Senior Advisor came out with a tentative schedule for Ben and said he could start classes that afternoon. They discovered he played soccer, so the coach was called to meet him. The coach contacted three of his senior students on the team and had them come to take Ben around school and to his classes. They seemed to be very nice young men. Unfortunately, one class was taking a test but the other was going over new terms: capitalism, communism, etc.
 
Finally on Friday morning, I dropped Ben off in the morning. As we drove up to the school, he was texting madly on his phone. I asked if he was contacting his friends to meet him and he said, “yes”.
 
Later in the day, he saw the ESL teacher who told him he had successfully passed his English test and all the math tests! The classes that day were not terribly interesting. One class had no books, so students just played on their phones. In another class, the teacher made no effort to do anything, so the students played on their phones. In Art class, a requirement to graduate, the students were asked to color their names. Ben couldn’t believe he was being asked to do that! I wondered what I had paid all that money for! Still, he met more students and began to make friends. It is a huge school, and they have more students this year than ever before, so I guess it takes them a week to get people in the right classes so they can properly start!
 
On Saturday, Ben pulled out a number of forms for me to sign. One was from the art teacher, asking for $40 for supplies and for me to sign for permission for Ben to use those supplies. I expect none of my “tuition payment” will make it to the art teacher for supplies, so I’ll need to send a check. Another of the papers began, “After reading this, complete the following information.” There was nothing else to read, so I wrote “what?” next to the “this”. The final paper outlined the courses that Ben had to take to graduate, and to affirm he could complete those requirements by May! I needed to sign that and write a typed letter outlining the plan and motivation for graduating a whole year early. It looks like we may succeed in our plan after all.

When I started to seriously try to get Ben to come to the US, I had no idea what I needed to do. One thing was clear, I would need to act as his guardian, and for that I would need some kind of official document. I went to see my attorney and asked if he could provide such a letter for Ben. It took a couple of months, but finally his office came up with several pages of legalese that Ben’s parents could sign.
 
In the process of working on these papers, the legal aide mentioned that it was expensive to sponsor a foreign student and that I would need to work with the Knox County School officials to get the proper paperwork. It turned out she was more than right!
 
After some phone calls, I got in touch with the Transfer Office. The gentleman there had attempted to get four other students to the US in the past, but none of them had come. This did not bode well, but we gave it a try.  Together, we completed the required forms and submitted them. In that process, I learned that in order to educate a child in Knox County, in 2016, it cost $9,200. Since Ben is not my adopted child or court appointed ward, I have to pay those fees. My taxes that I’ve paid don’t count for anything. In addition, he needed assurance that I had money to pay for Ben’s housing, food, clothing and activities. He asked how much that would be. I said, “Do you have children?” After some thought, he moaned gently and said, “$22,000”.  I sent him documentation that I have that much money, though not in one place.
 
Then the waiting began. Part of the form had to be signed by the parents, and I assumed incorrectly that the embassy would send the form to the parents in Kenya. The school was to send the forms, but neither of us seemed to know that. After I had left the country, I was informed that these forms had to be posted/mailed or faxed, they could not be emailed! It is hard to believe that is the case in this day and age, but so it is.
 
I pleaded with the gentleman in the Transfer Office to please send the form via courier and I would pay him when I returned. He posted the letter.  It didn’t come and didn’t come to Kenya. Our goal was to apply for the visa by the beginning of May, but by the end of May we didn’t have the paper for Ben’s parents to sign. Finally, I appealed to my dear, long-suffering cousin, Harriet, to intervene. She went to the office and got a second copy of the documents. She sent them by courier at considerable cost, and would you believe it, BOTH sets of documents arrived on the same day!
 
Finally at the beginning of June, all the paperwork was in and the application was completed. It took about two and a half weeks to schedule the interview with the embassy staff. On Saturday before the interview was scheduled, Clène discovered that she had the wrong date in mind.  The interview was two days earlier that she had thought! Ben was collected from his school, and they all went along with every type of paper they could imagine they would be asked for. In the end, the interview took less than five minutes, and Ben was given permission to travel to the USA. In another two weeks, Clène was able to collect his passport with the visa inside.
 
On the 26th of July, Ben finished his school exams and on 31st July, we got on a plane for the 30+-hour journey, arriving just before midnight to Knoxville on 1st August! 

I have never written a blog before so I guess this, like many other things, should be exciting. It is!! It is my first time in the States and there are a lot of things going on in my mind even as I write this. But first, let me give you a summary of my first week in the US.

Our journey here began at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Kenya. I clearly remember how I felt that night. I was having mixed feelings; part of me was excited for this new adventure and the other half sad because I was leaving behind many of my friends who I had grown up with and most importantly my family. Believe me, it is all exciting when you know you are going to the States until you actually go there. Then is when it begins dawning on you that you are beginning a totally new and different life with different people in a different place!! At that point you think of how you need God to help you not to ‘explode’ because He now becomes the only familiar person in a totally different society.

After meeting this happy Somali family at the waiting lobby, we finally board our British Airlines plane. It was quite a big thing in my life because it was my first flight and as we entered the plane, I thought it was going to be a really good experience after I saw the business class place until I realized we were going to the Economy class at the back. The flight wasn’t as pleasant as I expected it to be and I wonder why? (My light couldn't turn off and my TV wasn't working so maybe that could be the reason. I don't know L) I loved the beautiful view of London and Heathrow International Airport. We then flew to Dallas, a long almost 10 hour flight and that’s where you thank God for your teenage ‘sleep reserve’ as it surely came In handy. We then took a flight from Dallas to Knoxville, but I was mostly sleepy that time so I wasn't even able to be up and enjoy the take off like for our previous two flights.

Fast forward to Knoxville now. We got to move around the next couple of days as I learnt to settle (I still am learning really J) here. We went to the mall and I was and still am fascinated by how automated things are here like the doors that open on their own, although we have few of these back in Nairobi, the organization of people and time keeping. (This is such a big deal in Africa. You’ve probably heard of the saying there’s no hurry in Africa. IT’S TRUE!!) I’m impressed with how people observe traffic rules here, the variety of things here to buy, the simplified way of education here which I really thank God for and the Wi Fi that’s actually fast (YAY!!). Being here just gives you a new perspective of life and exposes you to very many opportunities of things to do with your life.
​
I have only been here a week now and I have so many feelings right now. Sometimes I’m not even sure what I feel because it’s like once you begin to experience something new, something else pops up and another and another and you are just not sure what to do, what to say when someone does something, how to respond to certain situations; it’s like you are a child now and you have to learn things all over again. But getting to talk to my second mom J and sister actually helped me realize it’s not so bad after all. I’ve decided to live one day at a time really. I have a feeling I am here for a reason and I’m not quite sure what it is yet. Trusting God is what I’m doing now and praying His will for my life will prevail. 

It is true to say that I like my own company, and living alone is something I’m very comfortable with.  I can eat, sleep, work, or watch television when I want, if I want. No one makes demands on me, and that is fine with me. I set my own schedule and don’t need to check in or out with anyone.
 
That being said, I am a social introvert, one of those uncomfortable mixes where I need to be with people some of the time, often to talk through ideas and plans. I need input and companionship, even if it does tire me.
 
So, how did I end up inviting a 16-year-old Rwandan boy from Kenya to come and live with me for a year? It seems unlikely and uncharacteristic at best, but within the next few days, Ben and I will leave Kenya and after some 30+ hours, will arrive in Knoxville, Tennessee.
 
I met Ben’s mother, Clène Nyiramahoro, in about 2010 through a mutual friend, Liz. Clène had completed her MA degree at a local seminary in Nairobi and was teaching in the translation degree program at yet another university. The numbers of students in that program had declined severely over the previous years, and was about to be closed altogether. Clène needed a job and I needed someone who was bilingual in French and English to help develop a website for the training program that was being set up. That was the beginning of a long and fruitful work relationship as well as a personal friendship.
 
Clène seems to be good at everything she puts her mind to. She easily accomplished the French translation for the website, then proceeded to translate the book about translation into French. As the training program began, she taught a variety of classes, and did them well. She could teach the same courses in French, thus helping to ensure that the English and French programs were at the same level and standard. Within a short time, she had become a vital part of the training department that I was running. Now, I don’t know what we would do without her.
 
As we had social occasions, I got to know Clène’s family: her husband Deo and her six children. The next to youngest, Vickie, turned out to be gluten intolerant, and I was able to help Clène find the appropriate food for her. I used to make her gluten-free cookies.  The middle daughter, Aviel, was terrified of dogs, as we discovered when we had dinner together at a house with LOTS of dogs. Then I met Halle (short for Halleluya) after she graduated from secondary school and was applying for various scholarships to universities in the US. She did some volunteer work for me, helping to catalogue 4,000 books for our library. She eventually got a very good scholarship to Wellesley in Boston.
 
Due to the sudden death of a mutual friend of ours, I ended up helping pay school fees for Ben, the 4th child in the family. He was very bright, but the school he had been assigned to for secondary school was not a very good one. Students there had the reputation of burning down buildings, which parents were then obliged to pay for. By a miracle, he was accepted at a private school in Kabarak, the 3rd best school in Kenya. Each time I paid his fees, he sent me a handwritten thank you note.
 
As I was usually in the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I invited Halle to come for a visit over the holidays. She came to be with my cousins and me that first Christmas, and we all fell in love with her. After I moved back to the US in 2016, she came again with Clène to celebrate with us. Clène and her family were hoping to be able to move to the US to work on PhD’s, and to bring the family. However, that didn’t work out, at least not yet. However, in one of the notes Ben wrote to me, he expressed his great desire to study in the US.
 
In February 2017, I had started to re-read notes that people had given me, for Christmas, birthdays, and the like. I read one a day and prayed for that person. One day, I pulled out the note from Ben about wanting to study in the US. He was in his Junior year in Kabarak, so if he was going to study in the US, it was time to make that happen.
 
We had learned from Halle’s experience that even the best Kenyan school did not adequately prepare one for a US university. There were many things she needed to learn, like writing essays and believing that professors would actually HELP you when you didn’t understand things. Her teachers in Kenya usually just said, “You need to read more.”
 
And so, the process of bringing Ben to the US for his Senior year of high school began.