Easter in Maisha Mazuri – an exciting cultural exchange!
For Easter, I brought some Bavarian traditions with me to the Maisha Mazuri Children Centre. We had amazing days and a rather colourful program. It all started with a highlight on Good Friday: dyeing Easter eggs. We boiled and dyed a total of 120 eggs while the children were obviously having fun!
On Saturday, we played a game we in Bavaria call “Oascheim” – which basically means as much as “pushing eggs”. Two rakes are set up in a way that a path is created. One rolls their egg(s) down the track into the grass where a small stone, in our case the small token, is placed. If the next egg hits one of the eggs already lying in the grass and the tile falls down, it belongs to the former player. Since some materials were not available in Kenya, we needed and found creative solutions. Fortunately, the right material could be found on the current construction site at Maisha Mazuri. Everyone understood the rules quickly and the fun could start! But what a shock: some of the eggs were still a bit raw! The children quickly cooked them again, however, some lost their colour, but the children did not mind – the easter eggs were gone (eaten) pretty fast anyways!
On Easter Sunday after morning church, we celebrated the next highlight: the Easter bunny had brought a small, chocolatey-delicious surprise for every child and whether on top of the electrical box, in the trees or on the roof of the woodshed – the hiding spots were very creative. What a fun afternoon!
Vroni
