Mr. Toinya

I mentioned that Mr. Toinya left towards the start of this term, which was about two months ago now. Shortly after he left we exchanged one or two calls, promising to meet eachother to talk and catch up, but neither of us really followed through. Then, the other day I ran into him in Maua. He was getting a letter typeset at a local computer shop, and I was picking up my cell phone battery.

He told me all about his new school, and here's the run down:

It is maybe two years old, and it has one classroom of its own. The rest is rented (for free) from the neighboring primary school. This is the situation all accross Kenya. The primary schools are much older than the secondary schools, so they all have classrooms and big sports fields. Even with my school, the land was donated by the primary school, and the soccer field that we use belongs to them. So Mr. Toinya keeps very busy running to Nairobi for 4 days and then back to talk to the secretaries for the member of parliment for our area, then back to talk to the parents of his school, all in the hopes that somehow they will find funds to construct more classrooms and a laboratory. That is what the letter was for when I ran into him, and then after I said hi to him, he rushed me along with him to the public planning office to deliver the letter for materials estimates and the official stamp of approval. Then we went to sit in a cafe to have lunch so that he could explain all of this to me.

He also told me, that his students understand the struggles of the school, and are very dedicated to coming early to school and going home late in the home that spending an extra half hour with their books will make them more successful students. And the issue of funding does not really stop at that infrastructure; Mr. Toinya, the principal, is the only official employee of the government in this government school. All six of the teachers are recent graduates of secondary school themselves, and are paid directly by the parents of the school. I think that I have mentioned that these teachers are usually the hardest working, which I think is because they can be fired very easily, but why should those who are paid the least, and have no experience as teachers work the most?

Mr. Toinya hopes that his consistent moving about will put enough pressure on the government to make some foreseeable change, but what about the other principals that don't spend as much time running around trying to seek funding for their schools? Or what about the school that in his absence is run by people who themselves graduated from secondary school within the past two years?

These are the struggles that I hear about not only from Mr. Toinya, but from almost all of the new days schools in Kenya. I don't know what the answer is, or what the effect will be. Hopefully these students will not lose hope and will see the value of sending their own children to schools. Maybe by that time these issues will be sorted out. In my eyes, which generation really has the right to feel like pioneers. I think that all generations have that right and obligation. We all want to change our world and improve on our parents' world. I hope that this generation of Kenyans can hear stories from their grandparents about how life used to be, and come to the conclusion that education, even if it has problems is improving their lives. I hope that it is true... I hope that their lives are improving, and I hope that their children will be born into a better world. With Somalia so close by, it is easy to think that if a generation here in Kenya gives up hope in education and reason the result could be ugly.