Fresh Tracks: CoKF College Application Workshop Week 2

Every hand in the room went up. This was in response to Ken’s question: “How many of you will be the first person in your family to attend University?”

We were at dinner at the Ngong Hills Hotel, in a very modest conference room, wrapping up a celebratory meal for the 30 high school scholars that spent the past two weeks taking part in the university application workshop that we put on.

This was just one more moment that made me catch my breath. After two weeks we are starting to connect with a lot of these kids, build friendships, and starting to get a glimmer of an understanding of what their lives are like. Not a single day has gone by without some reminder of how incredible it is that these kids are doing so well.

We came into this trip knowing that the CoKF scholars were very talented kids who grew up in Kibera, an extremely poor neighborhood. Two weeks later, we are only scratching the surface of understanding their backgrounds, but the more we learn, the more incredible these students become.

Its one thing to hear that Kibera is a slum, and get a general understanding that its residents are poor. Its something completely different to walk home with one of these kids, across the tracks, down the dirt walkways, ducking under laundry drying, stepping over open sewers, squinting to keep the wind from blowing dust in your eyes, trying not to slip on the steep downhills, feeling ashamed and out of place passing a couple feet from a mother giving her kids a sponge bath, and finally coming to their home – at most a 10 x 10 shack, with a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, glowing faintly by the power of pirated electricity.

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Being from even a modest north American background, simply making that walk is intimidating. The thought of spending a single night in one of their homes, nearly unthinkable. And yet these kids grew up here, and through sheer determination not only survived, but have thrived. Even at the surface, they are impressive.

The form three student (grade 11) who moved into a shack on his own with his cousin at the age of 13 who has just been elected head boy at Nairobi’s most prestigious boarding school. (think Exeter equivalent)
Another form 3, who had to walk clear across the slum every morning to get to primary school by 7:00am, who is now leader of the band at Dagoretti High, another prestigious school.
The quiet third form girl, who is ranked number one in her class of several hundred students, and who scored the highest grade in the entire district on the high school qualifying exams.

The list goes on.

Everyday these kids show up at 8:30 for the workshop (on their school break), having completed hours of homework we assigned them (most likely by the light of a kerosene lamp, or a single dim light bulb), eager to learn. It’s hard to picture the life they go back to when they leave the classroom in the afternoon and head home. As the week goes by, bits and pieces of their stories come out through essays, writing assignments, and conversation. My awe, and sense of wanting to do anything I can for these kids just goes up.

There is the quiet form 1 boy, whose single mother is HIV+ and sells beadwork at a shop around the corner from the CoKF office. When he originally didn’t make the cut for the scholarship, his mother came to the office everyday for over a month to ask Jeff if there was anything they could do. Jeff finally tracked down a manager of a local bank branch who agreed to put up the sponsorship money for an extra scholarship. It comes out in one of his writing assignments that during the 2008 post-election violence that tore Kenya apart, their home was robbed, and then burnt to the ground, making them internally displaced persons. That, and his neighbor and close family friend was killed. All this happened when he was supposed to be studying for his high school qualifying exams.
There is the sweet form 2 boy, who smiles a lot, and scored the highest marks on the practice SAT we had the crew take last week. He has been taking in most of the academic awards given out at his school. About a year ago, he came home from school at the end of the term, after claiming top awards at the prize giving, and showed up at his family’s shack in Kibera to find a locked door. After waiting a while, he spoke with the neighbors and learned that his family had moved away over a month before. He showed up at Jeff’s, Program Manager for CoKF, door later that night, and has stayed there every school break since. Jeff has recently tracked down his mother, in a town upcountry, but they have yet to set up a meeting so that the student can see his family again, or learn why they left.
There is the form 3 boy who had to hide his neighbor during the post-election violence to save him from a mob intent on killing him for being from a different tribe.

Every essay, every conversation, peels away another layer of each of their stories, every one more incredible than the next.

It’s important to remember that these kids are thriving at schools that are populated by the richest, most priveledged kids in Kenya. When they enter in Form 1 (grade 9), most of the CoKF scholars are shunned by other kids - the stigma of coming from Kibera immediately putting them at a disadvantage in the eyes of the other students.

It takes months, if not years, to prove to their peers at the prestigious boarding schools they are attending that just being from Kibera doesn’t make them a lesser person. In fact, to me, these are some of the most incredible people I have met. The odds are stacked so highly against them it is not even funny. And yet, every day they go up against these odds, and they are making it.

Watching the 30 of them joke and laugh, and play around during dinner it strikes me how not only are each of these individuals incredible, but there is something truly magical about the group as a whole. 34 students ranging from high school freshmen to seniors; girls, boys; Muslims, Christians; loud and boisterous, shy and reserved. They cover a wide spectrum. And yet, they share a common background only they understand. They understand each others’ challenges. They don’t feel sorry for themselves because they know that the next guy or girl over has it just as bad, if not worse.

The only reason this group is together is the CoKF scholarship they each have. But the community that has been created through it is amazing. They understand each others’ pasts, but just as importantly, they share each others’ dreams of a better future, and have a mutual understanding that education is their key.

Their sponsors, mostly in the US and Canada, may have provided the financial opportunity the scholarship represents, but this group of peers is what is going to egg them on, and push them to make each other proud in the face of the challenges to will continue to be in their way.

There is so much more to this story, and the emotions it evokes than I can put down on the page. After two weeks I am left feeling humbled and inspired, without the capacity to imagine any situation I could put myself in and legitimately feel sorry for myself when I can see how optimistic, driven, and successful these kids are even in the face of more challenges than you or I can even begin to imagine.

The past two weeks have certainly provided a lot of food for thought.

Photos from the home visit walk, Dinner, and the Workshop: