Recess: Monkeying Around

(Click into the picture above to see the monkey in the center of the photo)

The older children (grades 3+) go to school from 7 AM to 6 PM so I see many of them walking when I head out to run at 6 AM. While this is a shockingly long school day by American standards, both parents typically work and education is seen as the only way to get ahead. A significant number of children must earn scholarships or they cannot go beyond 8th grade. Education is only “free” below 8th grade. “Free” is in quotes because they still have to pay school fees even for the poorest schools. We’ve heard ranges from 10,000-30,000 KSH per term (there are 3 terms in a calendar year) which equates to $125-$375 per term. In a country where an unskilled worker makes $1 to $5 a day, education is extremely expensive.

School starts for my kids between 8 and 8:30 AM. Kenya time is significantly looser than American time so we just start when the majority of the kids have arrived. We break at 10 AM for cocoa (or tea for the teachers) and snack. This is supposed to count as “snack” but I’m pretty certain that this is breakfast for the majority of children. The white bread and margarine that they are served is in stark contrast to the organic, peanut-free, health food required by many schools at snack-time in the US.

They typically eat in about 30 seconds and then scamper off to play. We dish out the bread and cocoa before retiring to one of the classrooms for a short tea break. On my first day, however, my cup filling duties were interrupted by blood curling shrieks from the children. I looked up to see them scattering away from one side of the play pit. I met Mary’s eyes and she said “Oh, it’s the monkeys, they scare the children.” Um, right.

Apparently the monkeys congregate at snack time to pick up bread scraps left by the kids. The teachers throw stones at them to get them to leave the kids alone while they’re eating. I actually saw a monkey catch a stone one of the teachers threw. These are not your average play-ground pests. The problem quickly became clear, however, when after snack the teachers threw the large scraps that the kids dropped to the monkeys. I really try not to question my fellow teachers who clearly know much more about Kenyan education than I do but I had to ask, “Isn’t that enticing the monkeys to come at snack time?”. Mary said, “Well yes, but where else would we put it?” “In the trashcan in the classroom?” I answered. “Well they’ll just come in the classroom” (and indeed later that day a particularly brazen monkey did launch a classroom attack for our trashcan). I suggested collecting them in a plastic bag and tying up scraps, etc. but these ideas were met with confusion. It just wasn’t a big deal to the teachers who knew that ultimately the monkeys were harmless.

My first inclination was to solve the problem to try and prevent the kids from being frightened but the Kenyan teachers didn’t see that as necessary so I dropped it. Life doesn’t need to be free from fear here, that’s not seen as a “right” of childhood. I’m not sure where I land on this specific monkey issue but I do understand their larger point. So, now I spend snack time pouring cocoa AND throwing rocks at monkeys.