A Day in the Life of a Student in Kitui

At the Village there is a school sponsored by the Hotcourses Foundation in the UK and the Honorable Jeremy Hunt - a member of Parliament. It serves children of various ages from preschool (3yrs) to Standard 7 (about 13yrs). School is open six days and nights a week and the schedule goes something like this. The Village wakes at sunrise (6 a.m.) You can hear the children as they begin to rise in the 26 houses scattered around the village. Fires are lit in the early morning darkness. Everyone brushes their teeth outside, no sinks inside! By 6:40, students are gathering a handful of firewood to carry to school, maybe a half mile or mile away. This wood is used for the 10:00 cooking of porridge and lunch foods (beans and rice) on a fire in the back of school. The students come to school and one of the older students unlocks the many classroom doors. Each room is separate and has an outside door, library included. The students pull all the desks out of the room and begin to sweep and wash the floors each morning. Overnight the high winds carry dust and dirt into the classrooms and library. Each student has planted trees (saplings) around the school so they are watered ever morning when the water is on. I arrive at 6:50 to open the library for computers. At 7:45 or so, a teacher arrives, gathers the students and they all run laps. First the small children, then the older ones. There is an assembly and singing, dancing, a scripture reading outside, and the raising of the Kenyan flag. Announcements etc. follow. Various classes begin until 10:00 when porridge is served. Lunch is at 1:00 and clubs and games, studyhall etc. at 3:15 until sometime after 4:00. Then the children walk home. Even the 3 year olds are on their own to get home, sometimes assisted by older students but not necessarily. Once home, the students get into old clothes and begin washing their uniforms in the outside troughs and cleaning their shoes. The wet clothes are hung on bushes and fences to dry for the next morning. Then the students cook dinner. The grandmother is there to oversee and sometimes cook but it is usually the older children who cook. By 7:00, the older students are back at school in the two classrooms lit by solar light. They move desks from other classrooms and jam into the two. There they study independently and go over work from the day. This is called preps and happens six nights a week from 7-9. A guard escorts the students back to their homes in the dark night.

The students are very motivated to do well and study quite a lot on their own. The goal is secondary school, which for these students, is boarding school. More later - and hopefully pictures.