Madame Juma’s Four Gems
I appreciate this opportunity to share some of my experiences with you from my recent trip to Kenya where I was able to visit a few schools in Kakamega which partner with CES-Canada. Most striking was the high level of appreciation every head teacher and student had for the program CES has put in place.
I quickly noticed that the students selected have at the following things in common: a background of abject poverty, death of parents, and very brilliant minds.
These are boys and girls who have refused to allow their immediate past to dampen their dreams. A majority of the students want to be lawyers, doctors and dentists. And their teachers say “Yes: the proof is in their scores!
While I found every story at each school I visited unique, I will share one from Shikoti Girls High School.
Ms. Juma is principal of Shikoti Girls High School. She had four CES sponsored girls from her school visit with us in her office. Even before the CES girls were called into the office to speak with us, Ms. Juma had summarized their history for us. She is very close to the affairs of her individual students.
Each girl’s story is moving, especially when you hear it reported by Ms. Juma. She has gone beyond a school principal to a mother figure and mentor. This was not a role school administrators took upon themselves when I went through boarding school in Kenya in the late 70s!!
Four CES girls were asked to speak to us about themselves and their dreams for the future. One in first year of secondary lives with her widowed grandfather because her single mother works as a “live-in maid” in Kisumu town. This girl is determined to leave University an accomplished medical doctor.
Another beautiful girl expressing herself in very clear English told us her mother is lucky to make Ksh 50 at the end of the day from selling vegetables she has grown in her garden (just for perspective, a bottle of pop costs Ksh 40 right now in Kenya). Regardless, this girl has eyes on a career in news casting and no one is talking her out of it!
Third is a tall girl who tells us she is “the second most influential student” in Shikoti by virtue of being “assistant head student”. She is in her third year of secondary education. She has no memory whatsoever of her biological parents. Ms. Juma had to request the Nuns (Catholic Sisters) to keep her with them over April holidays because she literally has no roof over her head outside of boarding school. Naturally being “head and shoulders above” other girls in her class, she tells us she has her eyes set up high, very high indeed, as a flight attendant.
Fourth is a rather small girl with a smile we all commented on as having a “sunshine effect”, which considering her circumstance was nothing less than miraculous. She is the class prefect (someone who helps with class order) in Form 3C. Unlike the other girls, she witnessed the successive deaths of all adults charged with her care. The latest death was of her uncle, just a few weeks ago. Before she came into the office to share this with us, Ms. Juma had already given us some background details. We learnt that this smiling little girl kept vigil at her dying Uncle’s bed every single time school broke for holidays. Aids related deaths can drag on for months, even years. Ms. Juma (with tears welling in her eyes and a tremor to her voice), recounted to us when she had to say “enough is enough”, that her student must stop taking charge of her dying Uncle and begin to catch up on her holiday home work as well as getting back to being a young school girl on holiday. Ms. Juma intervened and relocated her (by this time I was barely holding back my own tears).
Despite such a difficult home life, she has not lost her appetite for life. In fact she has a taste for culinary services. With an eye on good food, her senses tell her a nutrition-based career is on the table. Through CES, she says, she will literally taste her dream some day!
As I recount these stories I realize I came out of this CES visit with a thankful heart to God for having my own daughters grow up so blessed!
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to visit CES Kenya and share in the good work being done there.
Zabde-Ezra Ayienga,
Founder, BBCF-International
July, 2009
