Rotary High School

This afternoon we had a tour of the Rotary Highschool. It is a very small, very low performing school, with a well equipped computer room and science lab, compliments of Rotary. Originally it was built as an inner city school with very low fees intended to make High School accessible to all children. Then last year the government pronounced free education for all (of course, nothing is really free, but the fees for government public day highschools went down to 4500/= (the /= means Kenya Shillings like our dollar sign). Needless to say, enrolment dropped significantly as the fees at Rotary High are 12,000/=. It’s hard to tell if the project is a great success or a miserable failure, depending on who you talk to. The school at full registration has 160 students, one class of 40 students each Form 1 through 4. Today as we toured the school, the Form 1’s had not yet arrived, there was about 20 Form 4’s and a class of only about 7 Form 2’s. Apparently this is not unusual as parents are still scraping together the fees. We will visit again in a couple of weeks and will hopefully see more students.

Right next door is Kakamega Primary School, attended by over 2,000 students. Of course the school was not built to support that many, so there are tents serving as portable classrooms all over the grounds. Last year during the violence, apparently UNICEF did very good work here providing “Schools in a box”, tents and latrines for displaced students. They are still up and running now. It feels really good to see the impact first hand.

Have I mentioned it’s between 25 and 30 degrees here everyday? Have I also mentioned that all the school uniforms include a sweater. We see babies wrapped in fleece blankets and people in toques is not an uncommon sight. I’m in love with the babies sweet little faces. Today there were two little ones (maybe three years old) on the back of a bodaboda, cheek to cheek, holding on all on their own. Too much.