Kisumu

Today I want to share a story, a memory of an experience I had teaching at a rural school in West Kenya as a young woman. I hope I can bring you there for a little as you read.

Ojolla Secondary School,
Darajambili, West Kenya

I can remember arriving at Ojolla with heavy bags and brimming enthusiasm. What did it matter that there were 50 students in a class and I was going to teach African Oral Literature? At 24 I could do anything I thought.

Really the teaching was relatively easy. It was the rats in my hut, the black mamba snakes, malaria and dysentery that provided the, “What the heck am I doing here?” factor.

But the students, the girls, their beautiful hues of brown, honey, cinnamon, ginger, mahogany and chocolate. Their kindness and humor. The evening voices, singing acapello – songs carried across the grassy hills. Watching them sit in small groups doing one another’s hair. The view of Lake Victoria shimmering in the distance, imagine this was the source of the Nile? Laughter and the respectful greeting of Mwalimo, teacher.

But who taught whom? Ruth Mbeyo died of cholera, fifteen years old. So sick she ran away from school to get home. She must have known she had more then the malaria the Headmistress had casually diagnosed her with. 

Her funeral was held at her family’s farm. Before we reached the rural home by foot you could hear the drums beating and the women wailing. I was sad, but honestly I was frightened: frightened of the site of Ruth’s dead body, the continual crying, the crowds of relatives and friends outside the simple cement house. Would the parents turn on my school’s leader and blame her for their daughter’s untimely death? Wouldn’t I have?

At night back in my own hut I couldn’t sleep. The final burial scene etched into my heart. As Ruth’s simple coffin was lowered into the red earthen hole dug in her family’s yard everyone sang a joyful song, throwing handfuls of dirt on top of her box in the ground. The song ended with the crowd waving one last goodbye.

July 29, 2009 1:05 PM