VICTORIA YOUNG WOMEN'S GROUP, NYAOGA

These are several members of the Victoria Young Women's Group in Nyaoga. Many of them dropped out of school at a young age, so the major focus of the group is adult education. These 12 women have just returned from taking the national 8th grade test which qualifies them to continue on to secondary school. They were all confident that they had passed. The older women threw a small pep rally upon their return to celebrate the completion of their testing and their primary education.

This is the classroom where they meet. The two-room schoolhouse was built by Give Us Wings in the same compound as the clinic. The other room is going to be used for the village's first Cyber Cafe, to generate income for the clinic (keep in mind that the village doesn't even have power lines yet, so this is a big step).

This is Tabitha, one of the members of the group, with her child while performing an impressive balancing act. She has something like seven kids.

This is Synthia, another group member.

This little boy is the child of one of the group members. The children often come to class with their mothers and play outside. I thought his shirt was funny.

This is Milka. She is very outgoing and has invited us to her house (twice) by saying, "Why haven't you visited my house yet?" "Well I don't know where you live." "Just ask anyone, they can show you."

So of course I went to visit her and we were discussed the world map she had hanging up and where in the US me and my family lived. She offered me tea and I explained that I couldn't drink tea made from water from the lake (it's horribly polluted and diseased), and the next thing I know there is a cow in the front yard and she is milking it. She didn't actually have tea (it's expensive despite being produced in Kenya), so she just boiled milk and added sugar.

She is a tailor as well and thinks I need a traditional African dress.

These are some group members on their way to take the test (along with their youngest children). The test takes 3 days and they had to go to another city to sit for it. So everyone piled into three "taxis" and headed to Oyugis.