Archive: Around Town

"How many of you speak Swahili?" James Nowak asked Theresa Arsenault's third period class.  All the kids withdrew into themselves, muttering "I can't speak Swahili."  Then Nowak pointed to some words on a banner taped to the black board.  "What about these words?" he asked?  "Hakuna matata?  Simba?  Rafiki?"


The kids were delighted to recognize these words from Disney's "The Lion King."  "We do speak Swahili!" they said.  Nowak then proceeded to teach them more words, and had them shouting responses to his greetings in no time.  That's how the Partnership of African and Lansing Schools (PALS) Partnership Week presentation began, and the kids couldn't help but respond to Nowak's enthusiasm, and a clearly understandable presentation that they could relate to, because it was about kids their age in Lansing's sister school in Kenya, Mbaka Oromo primary school.

Before and After:  Mud and cow/dung classrooms that melt when it rains will be replaced by more durable brick rooms.  On his last trip two classrooms were built until they ran out of PALS money.  The Kenyan government will put roofs on the classes.

Nowak is a retired High School teacher from Fairport, just Southeast of Rochester.  With partners Bill and Joanne Cala he formed "Joining Hearts and Hands," an altruistic organization focusing on Africa.  His sister, Lansing resident Caroline Rasmussen knew he was going to Africa and told him about the local organization looking for a community to partner with.  While there he identified the Mbaka Oromo school as a good match.

"I'm ecstatic that this community started the PALS organization," says Nowak.  "They want to teach their kids about altruism and compassion.  It's absolutely awesome.  If the whole community can embrace this project I think the world will be a better place." 


One person who has embraced it is 5th grade science teacher Arsenault.  While studying birds this year her students made a book about birds from our area and their own original drawings.  "The students' drawings are really quite beautiful," she says, showing the book.  It will be sent to Kenya with a request that the children there draw their local birds to show Lansing students.   "I think that's how you get to altruism," Arsenault says.  "When you have a relationship with someone, when it becomes personal."

Nowak spent three months in Africa on his last trip and helped build new classrooms and provide supplies to the Mbaka Oromo school.  He explained that they currently have 10 classrooms and 10 teachers to service 514 students.  He told the Lansing kids that most of the children are very poor, and that being hungry every day is normal over there.  180 of those students are orphans, he said, because the HIV/Aids outbreak is severe in Africa, killing 99% of the people who get the disease.

He showed pictures of the school and the African students.  He explained that the old classrooms are made of a combination of mud and cow dung, which melts when it rains.  One picture showed a student playing in the messy mix, helping to make a floor for his school.  New classrooms funded by PALS are of brick, made to be more lasting.

A key point in the presentation was the notion of sustainable giving.  One student, Jonathan, told the class about a Chinese proverb that says, "If you give me a fish I'll eat today, but if you teach me to fish I'll eat for life."  Nowak told the kids he bought some desks, but quickly realized the better approach was to teach the Kenyans how to make desks.  In the same vein he purchased fabric so that they could learn to sew school uniforms.

The presentation finished with a game of "Kenya Jeopardy."  Kids teamed to answer questions about what they had just learned.  And the information stuck -- they racked up points as Nowak gave them high fives for remembering.

Nowak, who will be going back to Kenya for two months later this month, says  "Eventually what we want to do is get teachers and people from this community to go and visit this school, and maybe have some of (the Africans) come here."

PALS Partnership Week activities were arranged by Maureen Bell.  Nowak visited Judy Hinderliter's Middle School English classes and Tucker Winter's High School English classes as well as Arsenault's Middle School science classes, and showed slides in a "Family Night" presentation at the High School cafeteria Wednesday night.  Winter's class was scheduled to write letters to their Kenyan counterparts on Thursday.  

In March PALS plans a "Live the Life" event in which Lansing students will eat like a Kenyan student for one day as well as giving up all electronics.  Middle School students will raise funds for a lunch program at Mbaka Oromo, while High School students will raise money  for AIDS orphans at Kuoyo Secondary School.

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