I’m having a difficult time writing what I experience. I try to put my fingers to the keyboard and relate what I have seen, heard, shared. But all that stares back at me from the screen is a blank page with a blinking line, waiting for input.
Considering that stringing words into captivating sentences that turn into stories is the reason that I am even in this place, this concerns me.
What I find myself stumped in writing about is a story of two teachers working in the middle of nowhere in a place called Seje. It’s a small community in Kenya, little more than an array of huts about five kilometres from a village that at least has a few corner stores.
The only way to find the school in which they work is to follow a long thin ribbon of red dirt that someone had the sense of humour to call a road. It bumps and winds and has potholes so big I was concerned we would be abandoning the car and walking with our field partner Edgar to find it.
We arrived safely, to a dusty patch of land with two buildings. Inside the mud walls of the first room, children sing a welcome to their rare visitors from outside the community. Bright sunlight streamed into the windows, providing the only light. Unlike most Kenyan schools, only some of the kids here wear uniforms, and they are tattered and threadbare.
The circumstances these students find themselves in are awful. It is a hot and dusty place. Most of the children are orphans, living wherever they can find a sympathetic hand or with old grandparents in need of assistance themselves.
