Monday is clay day at Augustine’s School. Just below where the school is located there is a deep erosion gully that makes a layer of black clay easy to get. All the kids go to the gully to get clay to work with. Art projects are not a featured part of the standard Kenyan education. Augustine, the school’s director, is the man with the deep voice you hear in this video. He is a blacksmith and values craft. He is leading the clay working session you see in this video.

Augustine’s School is an outdoor school. The outdoors in Samburu is a wonderful place for running a school. For craft projects, like clay, there is no clean up! The kids bring the clay back from he gully. It is dry. They use small rocks to pound the clay into a powder. Then, just add water! Imagination does the rest. And, the space is endless, so whether working with ten kids or fifty, the space is flexible. Villagers often come to the school to watch what is going on.
Unknown's avatar

Published by William Rubel

I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.

Leave a comment