Our Last Week Begins

After a fun and restful weekend, our group gathered for breakfast at 8:30 AM. 

We made a quick stop at a nearby gas station to pick up some snacks before leaving for Orkeeswa this morning! Since we arrived after tea time, most students were already in their second class of the day. We saw a few students training for basketball on the courts as we met with Peter, the founder of the school, to talk with him and hear about his own story of how he decided to build Orkeeswa.
After lunch, we participated in Form V Project Class, where they discussed initiatives and business ideas as a solution to problems they identified in their communities. Orkeeswa offers Project Class for Form I, III, and V students to assist in developing creative and unique solutions for challenges in local communities. We began with discussing the definition of entrepreneurship and valuable traits for building and sustaining a successful business. When I think of entrepreneurship, I think of businesses and the process of how people begin from scratch to address challenges they observe. Some valuable qualities people mentioned included courage, passion, and open-mindedness, explaining how a skilled entrepreneur must be willing to persevere, have confidence in their idea, and be able to creatively overcome various challenges they face along the way. After the short discussion, we were shown three different cards each marked with different qualities necessary for an entrepreneur: knowledge, skill, and attitude. We were asked to divide ourselves into three groups depending on what quality we thought to be the most valuable for a successful business. Most of the Groton students, including myself, represented the attitude category. We shared that it was impossible to make a meaningful impact in the community without a positive and convincing attitude, even with the most unique initiative in mind. While both knowledge and skill are essential for success, the acquirement of those values is rather difficult without a positive attitude to effectively embrace and communicate the content. One can possess great knowledge and skill; but their eloquence and spirit are deeply rooted in their attitude. Even when facing adversity, a positive attitude uplifts and encourages the team rather than emphasizing the emotional burden of the challenge, allowing them to overcome difficulties more efficiently. I really enjoyed participating in this class and loved hearing opinions agree and clash. We ended class with a moment to reflect on challenges in our own communities and how we could address them as both students and soon, adults in the real world. This was such a meaningful class and I appreciated learning more about how different students viewed the same problem in various perspectives and proposed different ways to address them. 
The day ended with the filmmaking group shooting a scene of Maasai dancing being performed at Assembly. It was incredible seeing the students dance so eagerly and how the whole school eventually came together to join the performers, dancing and cheering altogether. Everyone has put in lots of effort into this film project, and I really look forward to watching the draft of the film at the end of the week!
As we begin our last week with the Orkeeswa students, it is amazing to think about how we all bonded so quickly over the last two weeks. Even saying goodbye at the end of the school day everyday brings bittersweet feelings, but I am so happy and grateful for the Orkeeswa friends we have made, who make saying those goodbyes so hard. I cannot wait to make more fun memories with them and look forward to our safari day tomorrow with the Form V students!