Alex Haynie, nicknamed “Aliki” by some of his new Strathmore friends, is an associate at Strathmore University Foundation now in Kenya until December on a three-month exchange assignment to further the collaboration of SUF with Strathmore University.  A 2008 graduate of Princeton University from Pennsylvania, Alex is interning with three of Strathmore’s departments: athletics, community outreach, and alumni development. He is keeping a journal of his experiences and impressions.

 

This past Monday, November 17th, I visited Ikumbo with Strathmore graduate and Ikumbo resident Davis

Karambi, as well as nineteen Australians who are currently in the middle of a work camp, constructing a science laboratory for Ikumbo Secondary School.

 

Set forty-five minutes away from the nearest paved road, Ikumbo village provides a home to 5,000 people.  Ikumbo is a distant suburb of Meru town, which is located in the Eastern Province of Kenya. Ikumbo Secondary School is a brand-new high school, conceived and realized through Davis’ leadership and help from American supporters and Strathmore University Foundation.

 

The entire trip to Ikumbo was an incredible adventure which I will discuss below, from getting there to meeting the people at Ikumbo School.  A crazy bus driver, a ten hour trip (that should’ve been four hours) through the rain and mud, sleeping with flies landing on my face the entire night, and pit latrines all made for an extraordinary experience.  The trip was certainly well worth it and I am fortunate to have witnessed a community which has really come together and taken the initiative and bettered the situation for the youth of the town. 

 

Davis Karambi and his dream

 

Davis Karambi grew up in Ikumbo, where some of the elderly people only speak the local tribal tongue, called Meru.  Until recently, Ikumbo had only a primary school and no secondary school, and so out of the 40 kids that would graduate from Ikumbo primary school each year, only about 4 would go on to high school.  High schools in Kenya are often boarding schools, and the fees associated with the schools are so high that many kids, especially rural youth, cannot afford to attend.  Davis and his family couldn’t pay his school fees either.

 

Davis, however, graduated first in his class from primary school, and the village pulled together (in a classic Kenyan harambee) and raised enough money to send Davis to the nearest secondary school, which was a boarding school.  Again graduating at the top of his class, Davis was awarded a scholarship to Strathmore University. In his application to Strathmore, he wrote of his dream someday to build a high school for his village. And so he made it  happen. Davis now works with the Clinton Foundation in Nairobi, but he frequently goes back to Ikumbo to continue the project that he started with the help of donors around the world, including Strathmore University and many individuals in America and Spain. 

 

Along with community leaders, Davis has seen the building of Ikumbo Secondary School, which now provides over 90 students with an education, and has virtually ended the amazing drop-out rate of Ikumbo Primary students.  Davis is certainly doing his part to repay the generosity of the people in his town. 

 

The Ikumbo community began to plan a secondary school for their village in 1998, but it wasn’t until nearly nine years later that permanent construction began.  The village members had managed to build two semi-permanent structures out of wood that provide classrooms for forms I and II (ninth and tenth grades in America), and after Davis met American Matt Gartland at the Clinton Foundation in Nairobi, the two mobilized donors in the United States.  The American donors’ generous contributions were channeled

through Strathmore University Foundation to Ikumbo, and in 2007 a classroom for form III students and an administration building were built.  The construction of the administration building qualifies the school for government funding of staff, supplies and electricity.  With another generous donation, this time from Strathmore University, Ikumbo has been able to construct another classroom, which is used by form IV students and enables kids to go all the way through high school at Ikumbo Secondary School.  Australians from Warrane College of the University of New South Wales have also raised funds for Ikumbo, and 19 Australians are currently building a science laboratory for Ikumbo Secondary School. 

 

It was amazing for me to visit this remote village and see people like Davis and other community members mobilizing support for a great cause that will educate and empower the people of Ikumbo. 

 

Kenya’s Rough Roads

 

Though the school is a worthy cause, it wasn’t the easiest place to travel to. 

 

We left Nairobi around 2pm on Monday afternoon, and we stopped for supplies at Thika town, which is a distant suburb of Nairobi.  I was traveling up to Ikumbo with the Australian group, and they needed provisions to last them for two and a half weeks (there are definitely no Wal-Marts near Ikumbo, so they

stocked up on bottled water, toilet paper, snacks, etc.).  After this stop, we traveled on a bit more, blazing up the highway.  The country roads of Kenya consist of two lanes—one in each direction, and the roads are unlined, which makes depth perception much more difficult—we had some close calls with cars passing us going the opposite direction.  Our bus often got stuck behind vehicles that were moving slower than we were, so our driver would pass the cars, trucks and buses in the oncoming traffic lane—again, we had some close calls!  (Our driver didn’t seem to mind passing trucks when were rounded bends and going over hills and couldn’t see what was coming, so the twenty of us in the bus were on the edges of our seats the entire time!) 

 

We stopped for some rice at one small outpost, and then the driver wanted to pick up some fish at another small market.  At the fish market, several young guys pressed fresh fish up to our windows trying to sell them to us, but the driver was the only taker.  We drove further, and nightfall came, making the traveling even more dangerous and scary. 

 

We finally arrived at the turn-off to Ikumbo, and we only had to drive thirteen more kilometers on a dirt road until we reached the town, dinner, and bed.  It was 9pm.  After waiting for a while, we were told that we couldn’t drive on the dirt road, because it had recently rained and the bus would get stuck in the mud.  So we would arrange for some four-wheel drive trucks to pick us up.  At about 11:15pm, three tiny trucks approached us, and we transferred our gear to the trucks, just as it started to pour.  One truck-bed was packed with luggage, and the twenty of us crowded into the backs of the other two trucks.  Huddled together under a canvass flap, breathing in lots of exhaust from the truck, we collided around in the back of the truck bed for what seemed like two hours, but in fact was only thirty five minutes.  The adventure continued!

 

Kenyan Hospitality and Visiting Ikumbo’s Schools

 

At midnight, we finally arrived to the Nyagas house in Ikumbo, and we were warmly welcomed with hot food and one of the few buildings in town with electricity and flushing toilets.  We all sat in the Nyagas living room and ate and talked and thanked them for having us, but were outdone as the Nyagas praised the Australians for donating so much time, money and effort to help the village. 

 

By 2:30am, I settled into a room in Davis’ grandmother’s house up the road from the Nyagas.  I was

fortunate to get a bed, and passed out quickly, despite the creepy crawlers that surrounded me in the room.  I woke up to flies and mosquitoes buzzing over my body, but I just put a shirt over my head and passed out again.

 

I woke up in the middle of the night again and had to use the bathroom, er, pit latrine.  I passed through some corn fields and by some banana trees and flashed my torch (the word for flash light) onto the pit to find my way.  Peering down the latrine, I shrunk back as my flashlight exposed hundreds of cockroaches a few feet away. 

 

The next morning the whole group met up and walked down the dirt road a few minutes to the Ikumbo Schools—the primary and secondary schools are very close to each other.  It was an orientation and relaxation day for the Aussies, so we were all introduced and shown around the place, and I got well acquainted with the area.  Beside the schools, fields of crops occupied the space, and people travel around via bicycles—there are almost no cars in town.  The narrow dirt roads and huge number of machetes carried around all the time (for farming) were also part of the introduction to very rural Kenya.

 

Back at the schools, hundreds of primary school kids ran around a big open field and chased soccer balls, and then some of the students made their way over to us.  Fascinated by wazungus (white people), the children felt my arm hair and wanted to touch the soft hair on my head.  I was delighted to be able to practice my Swahili with them.

 

We toured the school and the site where the Aussies would be working, and while the buildings aren’t the same as American classrooms, the progress that has been made in such a short time is remarkable, and the students can now continue their learning!

 

Thanks to many benefactors around the world, Ikumbo village can offer its youth education.  The Kenyan government should even bring electricity to the village soon, as a result of the great investments being made into the town.  Irish students are scheduled to visit Ikumbo in July 2009, so the village can be sure to experience continued assistance.  I’m very blessed to have been able to make the trip to Ikumbo, and I’m glad I got to meet the people of the town and see all the good work of some very motivated supporters.

 

[Editor's note: see a related article about the Irish students' planned 2009 visit here.]