Mary and Nancy

Nancy before she started
secondary school

Tough. That is the word that can describe the kind of life she had before she joined Rangala Girls High School. But she had faith, and knew that one time, she would find a place where someone cared for her while she was trying to get an education. That is Mary Adhiambo Owino, a 17-year old girl who lost her parents when she was barely 15, and had to rely on relatives to get her going. That was until Teach A Child — Africa came along. “My aim is to get an education,” she says. “And the teachers understand that.” A First Former, Mary joined the school in 2007 after securing 317 marks in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations. She sat for her examinations at Ukwala Division’s Siranga Primary School where the top pupil scored 378 marks out of a possible 500. She was the second best pupil. The first child among three, Mary lost her father in 2003, and her mother the following year, forcing them to start living with their ageing grandmother. With that kind of a background, life was definitely not going to be easy for Mary and her siblings. But she did not lose hope, and continued with her primary education, despite the fact that at times, they barely had any food to eat.

Normally, children in such situations would drop out of school and try to earn a living doing menial jobs so as to feed their siblings and ageing grand parents. It requires courage, faith and hope for one to balance her studies, and menial jobs that would come her way and still manage to remain in school — and even get the kind of marks that Mary got.

“Life in school is not bad. It could have been worse just staying at home with nothing to do,” she says. “I am an orphan, but I am coping, and in school you cannot tell the difference between those with parents and I.” Her day in school starts at 4.30 am when she, together with some of her classmates, go to the water point. “We go there early to avoid the bullies.” Officially, bullying is not allowed, or even condoned, but when students are on their own, the younger ones tend to be on the receiving end. It could be considered a problem, but it is not as rampant as it used to be in the 80s when bullies used to get expelled, and sometimes they could even cause other students to go on strike when they were punished.

In Rangala Girls, the official hour for waking up is 5am, and by 5.30am students are supposed to have showered and be ready for manual work which takes 15 minutes. At 5.45am, they go to class for morning preps, the study sessions that Kenyan schools favour to while away the hours. Lessons start at 6.20am, and each lesson is 40 minutes. They have three lessons, and then break for breakfast. “The schedule may seem tough, but I am coping,” she says, and philosophises. “It is preparing us for the tough life ahead because nothing comes easily.” On Mondays and Fridays, the students attend the morning assembly. On other days, they go to class straight after breakfast.

Mary with her younger brother and sister

Mary’s day is just like that of her friend and classmate, Nancy Adhiambo Obiero, also an orphan who hails from Ukwala Division. A second child among four, Nancy scored 305 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations which she sat for at Yenga Primary School also in Ukwala Division. The leading pupil scored 355 marks.

Having lost her mother in 2003, and her father 2005, Nancy was left to care for her younger siblings as her elder sister is already married. Even though she used to get assistance from a village elder, sometimes she had to work for other villagers to earn some money, which would go into buying food for her siblings. But even then, she did not lose hope, and just continued with her studies because she knew, and even now still knows, something good will come out of it. “I want to be an accountant,” says the 1990-born. “I just have to work hard or even harder than I am working now, and I will make it because I would not like to live the way I had lived before. I did not even know where the next meal was coming from.” In school, they are served lunch at 1.50pm, but there is a tea break at 11.35am. Classes end at 4pm, then they go for games till 5pm and dinner is served at 6, after which they attend evening prayers and then go back to class for evening preps. They go to bed at 10pm. “I would not call the schedule rigorous because it is a learning process all through,” Nancy says. “We learn to be independent.” The school’s diet cannot be described as first class, but in a country where just about half of its population lives below the poverty line, it is not only sufficient, but also balanced.

Mary and Nancy at school

Apart from being friends, Nancy and Mary are joined by a common thread, a strand that puts very many children in Ukwala division in particular and Kenya in general in difficult situations, and out of school: Both of them are HIV and Aids orphans. The only difference between them and thousands of other children like them is that they have sponsors to put them through school. Getting someone to sponsor a child in school is not easy. Because of the run away poverty levels, there is a breakdown in the extended family system and other structures that would act as safety nets when parents die and leave young children behind.
In most instances, it is a case of everyone for him/herself and when the surviving children are girls, people tend to take advantage of them and they end up in more difficult situations. This forces them to get married at an early age to men who do not take good care of them. They also still have to work for others to feed their families. This creates a vicious cycle of poverty and getting an education is the last priority as all their energies are directed towards one basic need: food.

Secondary education does not come cheap, as Nancy and Mary know only too well. The school needed Sh 27,950 from each one of them in the first term. Even though the amount reduces in second and third terms, the total per year is still high, and out of reach for people who used to fetch and ferry water to people’s homes and earn an average of Sh 10 or less for each 20-litre pail. But being girls, they still need items like sanitary towels which the school does not supply free of charge. Female Members of Parliament have tried to push for legislation that would force the Government to supply sanitary towels to needy girls but at the moment it is still being treated like an activists’ noise even as girls are forced to skip school during their menstrual periods. These are however not their only needs. Schools require students to have games kits and buy their own toiletries. And the prices of these items are not in any danger of reducing. As it is, Mary and Nancy will require at least 3000 dollars to study up to Fourth Form and even after that, who knows. With your help, Mary, Nancy and others like them will receive the support they need to complete their secondary education and unlock their potential.

Clay Muganda, 2007