Inspiration Comes in Many Forms (Kate)

On Wednesday, at Lekigi, I had my faith in the future restored by an old man who used to be a poacher, a handful of children growing up in poverty and a teacher who defies all odds.

I wrote last week about Lekigi. It is a small community of squatters living on land that they claim rights to despite the land being owned by a Kenyan rancher. The details of the legal battle that has been waging for the last two decades are not too important. What is important is that there are now close to 70 families living in Lekigi and most of them include children.

Lekigi is the slums of an already poverty stricken area. Other schools don't want to be associated with Lekigi, teachers don't want to teach there and until recently the school was struggling to make any progress with its students. The change came around two years ago with the arrival of a man named Edson Kithinji to be the new Head Teacher at Lekigi Primary. 

Though Kikuyu (the largest and wealthiest tribe in Kenya) Kithinji has moved into the Lekigi community with his young family while many of his teachers choose to live in surrounding communities and commute to work due to the isolation of the community. It was Kithinji who first reached out to Nancy two years ago about starting a Conservation Club at Lekigi saying, "children are children no matter where they are from and under what conditions they are growing up." The students of the Lekigi Conservation Club bring hope and empathy to that statement. They are energetic and excitable, they like giving hugs, and on Wednesday they listened with rapt attention and curiosity as Tenai, a mzee, (elder) told them stories about how the land had changed over the last seventy years.

Tenai teaching the Lekiji Conservation Club

Tenai is of the Masai tribe, was born in 1937 and grew up in the Laikipia region. As a young man, he was a poacher, hunting elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes, buffalo and anything else that would bring a price. But in the 1950's he met the Small family when they purchased the Mpala Ranch and through Sam and George Small he learned about conservation and grew to a deep appreciation for wildlife and their importance to the people of Kenya.

To awestruck Lekigi students, Tenai spoke of grasses that came up past his knees and Elephants with tusks taller than he is. He spoke of plethora of birds and rhinoceros and he spoke of rain and forests that these children will never see. He told stories of tracking huge herds of Elephants and of a species of tree that used to live along the river but is now all but extinct in this region. He warned of over grazing, and stooping down, pointed to the little shrubs poking out of the dry red dirt telling the students in quick Swahili that these tiny bits of green are seedlings, which, if left to grow, would become big green bushes taller than them, but that the goats roaming across the land keep any of the bushes from getting more than a few inches tall.

"Keep your herds small," he tells them, "do not raise more cattle and goats than you can feed without destroying the land. The wildlife here, they are my life, they are my friends. I go out tracking them and they come to me to say 'hello' because they know I am their friend." The students all whisper among themselves and Alex, Helen, Nancy and I smile, because a more perfect tie-in to our Lorax adventure from the previous week could not have occurred had it been previously rehearsed.

The students hang on every word Tenai speaks and are so clearly inspired and awed by what he is telling them that I tingle with excitement over the incredible teachable moment I am witnessing and wish desperately that I will still be here next week to see the stories the children write about what they learned from this afternoon with a mzee. 

Watching children be inspired is the reason why I teach and I was so lucky to be a part of this afternoon, but for me personally, the inspiration for the day came not from Tenai and the stories he was telling, but from Kithinji, his enthusiasm, his teaching philosophy and his general demeanor and presence with the children. There are always those teachers that have this undefinable aura of authority and inspiration. After teaching for four years I am beginning to understand that it comes partly from hard work, partly from experience and partly from a deep undying belief in the potential of children and the good that can be accomplished by listening to them, loving them and believing in them.

Kithinji challenging students to think deeper about something Tenai had told them

Kithinji loves his students and truly believes, in the words he used to convince Nancy to start a conservation club at Lekiji, that all children deserve a chance. His optimism is infectious. Once I began talking to him, I couldn't tear myself away. For someone who has not attended school beyond Secondary level, his English is impeccable and his intelligent is evident. We talk about climate change and the international politics that lead to impassable disagreements. China and the US are outputting billions of kilograms of greenhouse gases, while in Lekiji Kenya, the children are forgetting what a "wet season" even is, the birds have moved on, and the trees never get more than a few inches tall.

We talk about teaching. We talk about children, we talk about never ever growing up to the point where we forget what it was like to be a child and in doing so stop really listening to them. We talk about a "sense of wonder" and how we hope to never lose our own while doing everything in our power to keep feeding those of our students. We talk about the pros and cons of examinations and the importance of giving children time to just run. We discuss different ways of challenging our students to think for themselves and of never letting them take the easy way out. He tells me about teaching his eight year old son to play chess and about playing football with his students after school. I tell him about seminar and Ultimate frisbee and the combined pride and terror of sending my students off to university. We share the ways in which we try every day to be the very best role models we can be because really that is the foundation of all that we do.

As I talk and laugh with Kithinji I find tears coming to my eyes because this, for me, this is what teaching is all about. Here I am, half way around the world, in the middle of the African savannah, in an area stricken with poverty in a way my white American upbringing will never allow me to fully comprehend and I am looking into the eyes of a man who understands me and why I do what I do. "Children are children no matter where they come from and all children deserve a chance."

Edson Kithinji and I at the Lekiji Primary School