Lambwe Deaf School - Ecumenical Encounter in Kenya 13/13

[kichuna481982]

super

[rachelb823]

COOL- they use ASL? or similar?

[jubilatewest]

Probably similar - I'm not an expert in sign language. At least an American volunteer was able to communicate with them.

[victorianyst]

Kenya has its own sign language. Unfortunately, American volunteers keep coming in (which is nice) spreading ASL (which is a pity...)

[jubilatewest]

BTW - can u understand them, especially what they are singing at the end of the video? We had it translated, but I don't remember exactly.

[rachelb823]

Mostly about Jesus's love, wonderful, amen. :-) There's a few words in there I don't know.

[seth1987]

Ugh. The emphasis should be on an EDUCATION. Not brainwashing them into being a Christian...

Not to mention parading them around like a bunch of animals. Geez...someone give them the education they deserve and treat them like the human beings that they are.

[rachelb823]

It's a Christian school, of course they are going to learn about Jesus, in addition to everything else. I have visited Deaf Christian schools before, both in the US and other places, and they have an excellent education. Better than any national education. Please watch your attitude. It's inappropriate for you to judge them like that. They are happy children singing a fun song- and doing a great job! :-)

[seth1987]

You must have missed that they are performing for a group and the group is getting a tour.

And no, Christian schools are not always that great. Often they fall into the trap of focusing too much on teaching kids to think as they do, then actually educating them.

I'm not judging. I'm stating what I observed.

[jubilatewest]

You're invited to come to Kenya and visit the school to observe on the ground. (Unfortunatelly, at the moment it's closed due to the turmoil in the country.) But better come alone, otherwise the kids would again be performing for a group, as they did when we visited. The dances they performed were the very ones they had performed successfully during contests with other schools for non-handicapped. These dances are traditional, rooted in the different ethnic cultures the kids hail from.

[jubilatewest]

They really enjoyed to perform for us, they don't have visitors very often, since the school is in a remote part of Kenya.

We spent one day with them, in classes, for lunch, on the compound ... bringing some donations to help build another classroom (to emphasis education).

The tour took place two days later: We hired a bus and the whole school went for an outing to visit a workshop for handicapped, and to Rusinga Island, the first school excursion ever in Lambwe Deaf School.

[jubilatewest]

But I have to admit, it's not a great school. It's not great for many of the kids to be forced to sleep without mosquito net in an area where malaria and sleeping sickness are endemic, for some classes to be taught in classrooms far too small and too dark, for the school not being able to offer vocational training for the school leavers... It's not a great school, it's a poor school, a very poor school indeed. You might want to assist this school in becoming great. Don't hesitate to help.

[MSUKimberly]

The text to the song is "Jesus' love is very very wonderful, Jesus' love is very very wonderful, Jesus' love is very very wonderful, Jesus' wonderful love". They ended it with "pray", not "amen", which probably is just marking that it's a prayer in addition to a song.

The only other time I saw the kids signing is right before the dance, where the girl said welcome to the (Lambwe, I assume) school for the deaf, welcome here for our dance.