South and east of Nairobi, along the main highway to Mombassa, is the market town of Sultan Hamud. Going north and east from there on dirt roads, you come to Ngoto with a church, primary school and the high school featured here.
(Click on the photos for larger images. All images and comments pertain to my visits there during the 1984-86 period.)
The u-shaped building with the dark roof is the main classroom building. Using that as a center, we can identify the other buildings. Below it is a science building, under construction. To the left are teacher housing and to the north is a basketball court and beyond that student housing. To the right (more visible in the image above) are playing fields for soccer and other sports.
More on the school.
Formality and poverty.
Education was important to Kenyans, a teacher a respected person. Education was the way out of poverty.
Going to school cost money and students were always dropping out because they could not pay the fees.
More photos of the students. (Also see the page on children, as most of those shots were taken around Ngoto.)
Driving to Ngoto could be a pleasant trip through beautiful countryside. But not in the rainy season. Here I've put the rear end of the car deep in the mud - six men couldn't push it out and we had to be pulled by the Land Rover.
More on getting there and the surrounding area.
Dave B. was the Peace Corps volunteer working there; we also got to know his (future) wife, Leslie and other friends.
Dave is on the left here; I'm on the right.
More on friends.
| Last modified 11/19/09;; original material © 2009, 2007 John P. Nordin |
