Kenya Report #3 Dear All, For my homestay in Meru I was placed with Muchai Merwithania and his family. Muchai is the principal of Kaaga Boys' Highs School. His wife, Dauphin, is an agronomy student at Kenya Methodist University, a fledgling university in Meru. The Meriwthanias have two girls, 5 year old Maureen and 9 year old Lynnette. I found out at the very end of my stay that the Merwithanias were a bit wary of having an older professor staying with them, because they thought I would be fussy and demanding. Their fears were allayed soon after my arrival. Like many Kenyans, the Merwithania are highly religious. They belong to the Kenyan Methodist Church. Their days start and end with prayers. All of their meals start with grace and end with a prayer. They often invoke the name of God in their discourse. To some extent this is also true of public life in Kenya. Meetings usually start and end with prayers, etc. I think of the homestay as far and away the best part of the Lehigh students' experience in Kenya. It provided a unique insight into the Kenyan culture. For me that benefit was not as substantial, because of the many similarities between life in Kenya and life in Cameroon. At the same time, I got a good glimpse of the life of a schoolmaster. Muchai has complete command of Kaaga Boys', which has about 500 students, most of them boarding in the school's dormitories. Aside from the dormitories, the school campus has about six classroom buildings. Each building has the same design as the ones I saw in Cameroon. The design is dictated by the tropical environment. Each classroom building is long and narrow, one classroom wide, so that it is readily cooled by any passing breeze. The "hallway" between rooms is an external walkway sheltered by an overhanging roof. Whereas in Cameroon, the schools were made of wood, the schools in Meru are all made from a local sandstone which is extremely durable but easy to work into building blocks. The cheap labor made thes blocks very inexpensive. In place of the plywood boards painted black that I saw used for chalk boards in Cameroon, the Kenyans put a layer of cement on the building blocks and used a special paint which, when applied to the cemnt, created something that had the look and feel of the slate chalkboards we have in the US. Despite having many things to take care of at school, Muchai very graciously acted as my chauffeur, making sure I was able to attend the various meetings which were scheduled for me. In between, he tried to attend to the business of running Kaaga Boys'. In the process I developed a great deal of respect for Muchai's administration of Kaaga Boys'. The high schools depend upon the goverment to provide part of the costs of running them. The money is not always forthcoming, but the schools do the best they can. Muchai would like to have the money promised by the government, but is undeterred by the lack of funds. Both (the Anglophone part of) Cameroon and Kenya inherited the British system of education. In Cameroon students attend six grades of primary school, then, if admitted, forms one through five of secondary school, then, if admitted, lower and upper sixth forms, and finally, if admitted, three years of university. One moves on to the next level by passing a national test and earning the corresponding certificate: the peculiarly named "school leaving certificate" after primary school, the O-Level GCE (ordinary level general certificate of education) after form five, and the A-Level GCE (advanced level general certificate of education) after upper sixth form. These tests are quite demanding so that only about 10% of Cameroonian students make all the way through the system. In my discussions with Muchai, I did not ask about all the details of the Kenyan educational system, but I did learn that until a few years ago Kenya had the same grade structure as Cameroon. Then, by Ministry of Education edict, the country adopted what they call the Canadian system: eight years of primary school, four years of high school, and four years of university. However, they did retain the national examinations. Thus, at the end of high school one has to pass the test for the KCSE (Kenya certificate of secondary eductaion). It too is difficult to pass, although I did not ask what the pass rate is. At the University of Buea, the failure rate in many course exceeded 35%. When the faculty, as a group, reviewed the distribution of grades in each course, they used a rule which stated that only when more than 50% of the students failed a course would the faculty discuss in detail the high failure rate. In such cases, the instructor would explain why the failure rate was so high, and the discussion would move on to the next course. I was puzzled by such failure rates. It struck me as a great waste of resources, both those of the students and of the faculty. Either they should be more selective in admitting students to the University of Buea, or they should be more lenient in grading the students. It seemed that the Cameroonians were oblivious to this waste. When I was telling Muchai about the high failure rates for the Cameronians taking the national exams and for the students at the University of Buea, he muttered under his breath "mass wasting." This struck me as a slang term under wide use, indicating that the Kenyans were well aware of the waste of resources. I questioned Muchai about the meaning and currency of the term "mass wasting," and he confirmed what I suspected. This convinces me that the Cameroonians understand full well how wasteful their system is. One evening, while relaxing with Muchai at a local restaurant, Muchai introduced me to a drink he calls the Shandi. It consists of Tusker, Kenya's national beer, and Sprite. It sounds pretty strange but it tastes quite good. The sweetness of the Sprint completely smooths out the taste of the beer. In Nairobi the night we left we dined with members of our host families. As Muchai and I shared a Shandi, I somehow thought of my and my brother Steve's cocktail waiter days at the 5 o'clock club at Salisbury Beach. One of the drinks we served, Segrams 7 and soda water, was called a Presbyterian. I think the name "Presbyterian" is highly regionalized, perhaps only to the Merrimack Valley. In any case, I think the drink was called a Presbyterian because it would be mildly illicit for a Presbyterian to have an alcoholic drink and the drinker of a Presbyterian could joke that he or she was drinking ginger ale. Without any of the above explanation I told Muchai that where I came from the Presbyterian was the name of a drink, and I described the drink. I then suggested we rename the Shandi the "Methodist." Muchai immediately understood that both drinks were attempts to cover up their alcoholic nature.