10. School Endeavors: East Africa a New Life Adventure

 Training sessions in New York had impressed on us that one of the problems that Kenya was having was the migration of people from rural areas to the slums in Nairobi looking for work;  in fact, more respectable work as seen in the minds of Kenyans. It is a good possibility that is why I was assigned to a college that also had a farm. 

The school farm consisted of a small dairy herd of Guernsey cows. The manager, Mr. Mbogo, was a native Kiku who made it clear that he did not need any advice or interference from a foreigner. So I looked for other means to work with my hands in productive ways to show that educated people could do those kinds of jobs. 

Barbara also became involved in these endeavors.  First she was asked by Dr. Kariro to be the College Nurse.  Barbara tried not to take the job, as she had no training as a nurse. Dr. Kariro insisted that she was a mother raised in a country that paid attention to health concerns; therefore, she was qualified.  I do not remember what happened to the nursing job, but I suspect it was “Africanized” (Filled by qualified Native born people).  Barbara was then approached about doing something about the lunch that the students would take with them as they went out over the countryside to do their Student Teaching.  It was customary for each student to take a half loaf of white bread for lunch. That was lunch. Dr. Kairo thought Barbara could make it a little more nutritious.  One of the things Barbara tried was making salad dressing and applying it to the bread slices. Whatever else she tried, the salad dressing was a bust. Students claimed it made them sick and Dr Kariro decided it was not worth the effort, back to ½ loaf of white bread!

Barbara’s third assignment was teaching a Home Economics class. This was right up Barbara's talent, as she was an expert craftsman when it came to fabricating clothing. The college purchased enough cloth so that every girl in class could make a dress.  The difficulty came in trying to teach the operation of a treadle sewing machine.  Every girl made a dress with varying degrees of craftsmanship. This time it was successful enough that Barbara’s teaching assignment was Africanized the next session.

My first hands-on project was building an extension to the head office building. This was a cinder block structure which I pretty much did by myself, from making the blocks to laying them up, completing the roof and finishing the final touches.  

Embu, the nearby town, had organized a Fair about this time, and the Kigari College asked to participate with some sort of display. Dr Kariro wanted me to take charge knowing that I had at least been to a Fair, and had an idea about what a display should look like.  At the time I was suffering from a mild bout of Malaria, which made the task a real chore. We set up a lean-to tent in which we displayed what the College was about. 

Among all the other items about the school, I set up a diorama of “First and 

Second Class Levers” .  This was done using pipe cleaners as stick figures. Of course pipe cleaners are always white, which bothered me, but I have no recollection of doing anything about the color.  Kenya’s president Jomo Kenyatta attended the Fair. There were Native dances from several tribes as well as a Camel Caravan from the Northern Frontier.  It turned out to be quite a pageant and the College won the “Best of 

Show” Award.