GETTING PEACE THROUGH THE PEN
Sudanese students turn to Kenya for education as they hold meeting in city estate.
By Nyambega Gisesa.
Garang Malong Awan is the son of a very rich governor from Southern Sudan. In Sudan, he enjoys the trappings of power and wealth and can afford education anywhere in the world.
But his heart is right inside Kenya at the University of Nairobi where he pursues a degree in Law.
“I love Kenya. It is not only me but other Sudanese students also love studying in Kenyan schools and universities,” Garang Malong named like most Southern Sudanese male the name Garang after first man who was created by God with his wife Abuk according to Dinka cultural believes and after his death he became divine told Sunday Nation.
His love for the education has seen him join hands with other students from Southern Sudan in Kenya to encourage more Sudanese to pursue education in their country of choice-Kenya.
Gatkubai, is the initiative to get peace through the pen and is being spearheaded by Garang Malong.Through the initiative they encourage young Sudanese people to use education as their weapon for peace instead of guns.
Garang Malong came to the country after the death of Southern Sudan leader Dr.John Garang choosing to ignore persistent calls from his governor father to join prestigious universities in the US and UK.
Unlike him, Garang Mareng’ was only ten years when he came to Kenya as a refugeefrom Sudan in 1992 following continuous civil wars.
As a refugee, even in wildest dream, he never envisaged a time when he will be through with his schooling. “Life was about getting only the basic needs such as foods and shelter,” he recalls.
Nearly two decades later, he has gone through the Kenyan education system and in June this year he will earn his Bachelor Commerce degree from KCA University having also completed CPA-K from the same institution.
“I am ready to go back to my country and assist in rebuilding my country. I am still afraid to go back since I left several years ago and I don’t know about developments that have been going on since then,” Mareng’ says.
Once he ran away with his family he swore never to get back but his change of heart has been influenced by the relative peace and stability in the country witnessed after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Nairobi in 2005 spearheaded by the late Dr. John Garang.“I would like to go back and seek a job there, preferably with the National Bank of Sudan,” he told the writer after concluding the Sudan Students Annual meeting last Saturday held at a church in Komarock Estate.At least 50 students turned out for the Annual Student Meeting of theSouthern Sudan Students in Kenya. The students were from mainly high schools and universities.
South Sudan Students Association in Kenya is a non political and non profitable organization with an aim of bringing the Sudanese students in Kenya together and to liaise between the students and the Government of Southern Sudan
The S. Sudan Consulate in Nairobi would not confirm the exact number of Sudanese students studying in Kenya but choose to refer Sunday Nation to the South Sudan Students Association in Kenya.
It is estimated that there are at least 1082 college and university student and 932 secondary school students registered in Nairobi, according to Dona Kuech the Deputy Chairperson of the Southern Sudan Student Association who is in charge of student registration.
“There are thousands of pupils enjoying the Free Primary Education in Kenya but its very difficult to establish the exact number as by now but we are doing our best to tell parents to register their children who are studying in various primary schools in the country,” the student association’s vice-chairperson Dona Kuech told Sunday Nation.
Most of these students have the hopes of finishing theirs studies and going back to Southern Sudan to find their families and help them.
Speaking at the meeting, their chairman Malong Awan, condemned the recent killing of Kenyans, who were murdered in the Southern Sudan capital Juba,
“Kenyans are good people and good hosts to us, we don’t want anything that might jeopardize our stay here,” the third year Journalism student at the University of Nairobi said.The meeting at Komarock the Grace of God Church was set to deliberate on the challenges they face as foreign student in Kenya. Some of them have been staying around since their childhood and it is like their mother country.Some of their challenges include lack of affordable accommodation facilities, insecurity, and inaccessibility to proper medical facilities as well as learning facilities.
Ever since Sudan obtained independence in 1956, the country has beenravaged in intermittent wars, the longest running from 1983 to 2003.Two million people have died in the wars. While the South isclamouring for an autonomous government, the Darfur region is stillrecovering from the genocide that has nearly claimed half a millionlives.As a result of the war, the country lacks proper learning facilities,sufficient qualified personnel and other necessary infrastructure thatcan facilitate learning for its population that desperately needscompetent education.Consequently many such young men and women seek refuge in neighbouringcountries such as Kenya and Uganda and pursue the respective educationsystems in their countries of choice.
According to World Vision, child enrolment in Southern Sudan to schools is the second lowest in the world after Afghanistan. UNFPA estimates that literacy rates in Southern Sudan stand at a paltry 24%. In addition, gender discrepancies are quite pronounced in South Sudan compared to the North. For example, literacy rates for male and females in North Sudan stand at 71% and 52% respectively while it stands at 37% and 12% literacy rate for males and females in Southern Sudan.
A consular officer at the Sudan Embassy in the country, Atem Garang says that Kenya has provided Southern Sudan a chance to improve its literacy levels.
“Southern Sudan people have come to love the Kenyan education system which offers quality education to our people considering that the civil war in our country adversely affected our education system,” Atem Garang told Sunday Nation through a phone interview.
The civil war between a Christian south and a Muslim-dominated north in Sudan saw thousand of Sudanese people mostly from Southern Sudan end up in refuge camps in Kenya notably the famous or infamous Kakuma Refugee Camp in North Eastern.
“It’s as Kakuma Refugee Camp that Southern Sudan refugees were introduced to the Kenyan system of education. Most of them learnt at the camp and nearby schools and when they went back they encouraged others to come and study in Kenya,” Atem Garang said.
The Kenyan education system has also been introduced to schools in Sudan.
680 students from southern Sudan sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE) last year according to KNEC. The examinations were administered in Southern Sudan, the first time that Kenya’s national examinations were shared with a foreign country since the abolition of the East African Examinations Council.
"Sudan candidates will sit for the same exam alongside Kenyans," KNEC Senior Deputy Secretary in charge of exams and administration Edah Muiruri told teachers during a briefing for District Education Officers and exam officials at Kisumu Girls Secondary School in November last year.
“Most women were killed during the wars. Some got married as teenagers. Our customs too have served as barriers but we are getting more and more of them to school,” asserts their leader Malong Awan.Now the students currently in Kenyan schools want their government to work expediently towards achieving fully stability and embarking on rebuilding and restructuring the country. They also want their two governments to work towards creating job opportunities, since finding jobs locally, once they have completed their studies is hard.“Employment opportunities in Kenya are scarce and since we are competing with locals, we are obviously disadvantaged,” Ken Awol, a 27 years’ old Human Resource student at Moi University who traveled to the event says.Those in schools are privileged since most of their colleagues who cannot access the limited facilities have succumbed drugs and crime.For now, they hope that well-wishers as well Non-Governmental Organizations that fund part of their tuition and accommodation in the country will continue even as they appeal for more funds.“We really appeal for more help financially to help us achieve our academic dreams and go back to our country to rebuild it,” appeals Taban Lino.
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Monday, March 15, 2010
WHO MURDERED KENYAN CONSERVATIONIST ROOT?
INTRIGUES SURROUNDING MURDER OF KENYAN CONSERVATIONIST JOAN ROOT CAPTURED IN NEW FILM
By Nyambega Gisesa
On the night of 12 January 2006, intruders broke into the house of a shy Joan Root,69, in Naivasha’s “Happy valley.” One of the intruders brandishing an AK 47 shot several times at her bedroom. Lying peaceful on her white bed sheets, two bullets hit her on her leg and another on her hip.
Without taking anything from the house, the angels of death left as they came.
Minutes later the world acclaimed film-maker-turned-conservationist bled to death taking to her grave a web of complex theories and intrigues on who killed her.
Up to today, no evidence substantive enough to point fingers at her killers has been unearthed. Her romantic-turned sour story of her love for her divorced husband and her love for Lake Naivasha is captured in a new documentary film that premiered on February 1st on BBC 4, Murder on the Lake.BBC 4 screened the documentary on Monday.
In a special forward on the same day to Sunday Nation, award-winning movie producer Henry Singer, sent a cover copy of the 90 minutes documentary film that explores the murder of a fearless Kenyan conservationist.
Henry singer is one of the most respected documentary filmmakers in Britain having made several successful films.
Murder on the lake is the same story for Henry Singer’s 2009 Sheffield International Documentary Film Green Awards winner Blood on the Rose. The movie Blood on the Rose is set to be launched in Britain and then released for public viewing in the next few weeks.
Without revealing who killed Joan Root, the film documentary seeks to give the audience the chance to finally answer that question.
Was it a cold-blooded murder by members of a private army she had financed to keep fishers away from Lake Naivasha? Was it a revenge attack by illegal poachers that she had fiercely campaigned against? Was it an attack by some of her neighbors or was it something more bizarre?
In 1981, Root left her other home in Britain to settle in Kenya permanently having divorced with her husband Allan Root.
After her divorce settlement she remained with a single engine Cessna plane that she and her former husband had used on their numerous romantic and adventurous trips around Africa and a document giving her rights to the documentaries they had shot together. By all means, the divorce settlement was enough for her to live a rich life.
Living with wild animals
She settled on an 88-acre lakefront property along Lake Naivasha that gave her an apt view of the beautiful lake.
Drawn away from people as a result of her divorce, she lived quietly dedicating almost her time to wildlife and Lake Naivasha.
She only lived with her house help and tens of wild animals including waterbucks, dik diks, a hippo, a porcupine and two cranes that she tamed to behave like dogs named Adams and Regina.
The elderly woman who loved safaris used to wake up and walk around Naivasha animal conservation centers notably El samea looking for injured wild animals that she picked, nursed at her home and then released them to the wild. At times she visited her few friends. Nothing is known about her going to church.
Her relatively shy private life spent mostly with wild animals was suddenly disturbed by Naivasha’s dwindling fortunes.
Root would no longer painfully watch her once beautiful lake destroyed by harmful chemicals draining into the lake from the flower farms in the area.
As she loved to refer to the situation as an “ecological apocalypse”, she watched Naivasha’s population increase tremendously from a mere 30,000 people to over 350,000 mostly impoverished migrant workers seeking employment in the flower farms.
This gave rise to squalor, environmental pollution and run- away crime. By this time, she had become a recognized defender for the poor and an acclaimed conservationist.
Forms private army
When the police seemed no longer in control over fish poachers and those dumping harmful waste in “her” once beautiful lake, Root ready to defend the lake by all means recruited an army of young men.
Formed in early 2005, her private army was codenamed Task Force and was led by the husband of her housewife known as David Chege. Chege became the General and Root the Commander-in-Chief.
The private army of about 17 young men was trained basic fighting skills and supplied with crude weapons. It is has not been established whether they were also supplied with rifle arms. Joan and other whites in the area contributed funds for the private army. The recruits were paid between Sh 2,000 to Sh 4,000 per week. They were also supplied with jungle jackets and boots.
“The initial idea of the army was to arrest fish poachers fishing with size 2-3 fishing nets that were not allowed by the fisheries department and then take them to the local police station. She feared that with time the lake would not remain with fish,” the movie’s researcher Joe Kahu told Sunday Nation in an interview.
But soon things started going haywire. Her private army violently engaged with the poachers. Violent confrontations resulted in severe injuries and at times death.
Her noble idea now- turned- into a violent war claimed its first victim in September 2005, a young man only identified to Sunday Nation as Ojorwa.
Her life in danger
Her home was not spared from the bruises of the violence. Her private army moved to provide security at her home. Still violence in the lake area never stopped and caught between a rock and a hard place she decided to stop funding the army.
Root was now the subject of harassment and threats. Her fortified residence was attacked at one time when she escaped through her backdoor after a brick was thrown to her living room, at another time she was carjacked and in September 25 she became a burglary victim.
She still refused to leave her home even after an informant told her that a gang was going to "do" her soon. Instead, she became an exile in her own homestead straying no more past her fence.
“The woman we loved to call mama was no longer easily seen outside her home,” a young man who was a member of the Task Force told Sunday Nation. He refused to reveal his identity stating that anything said about Joan root was a threat to his life.
Almost four or five months later, Root lay dead having bled profusely from an attack that locals claim Root's private army brought the three killers with an AK-47 assault weapon to her bedroom.
Did Task Force kill her?
Her death shocked Kenya’s “Happy Valley” and the international conservation world. Investigators and journalists within and from abroad streamed in to unmask the man or men behind the death of the one-time Oscar Awards nominee.
For the Kenyan police known for sluggishness in conducting investigations, the Joan root case was different. As early as 2nd February 2006 four men were charged with violence in connection to her murder but were later acquitted after Kenyan police said that there was not enough evidence to charge them with her murder.
Among the men charged by the police was Root’s Task Force General David Chege. Chege was from Karagita, the largest of the slums around Lake Naivasha and in her she had entrusted all her secrets. After differing with her trusted loyal lieutenant, she stuck him off her payroll. Did this motivate Chege to kill her?
The lead researcher for the movie, a Kenyan based in Naivasha told Sunday Nation that it was still hard to establish who killed her or what motivated the killings that turned the conservation world into a morning mood upon her death in 2006.
“She had grown very popular among the locals and with her success her enemies increased. At times she differed with the young men she financed to guard Lake Naivasha, during other times she differed with poachers, flower firms that spoiled the ecological system and her rich neighbors and the flower firms who underpaid the locals,” Joe Kahu told Sunday Nation, “it’s not easy to know who killed her. Everything to mask her death brings out theories, theories and theories.”
Those named in these theories as her possible killers include disgruntled former employees, organized crime rackets, poachers and those whose economic interests were threatened by her activism.
Root was born in Kenya to Edmund Thorpe, a British coffee farmer and safari guide. She grew up to be an influential fearless wildlife photographer and filmmaker.
Her stint as a photographer and filmmaker involved a venomous spat from a cobra that almost blinded her save for her sunglasses, a bitten face mask when filming a hippopotamus underwater and the rear nerves of sleeping with a caracal so as to film it.
With her film-maker husband Alan Root who she divorced in 1981, the two pioneered filming animal migrations in Africa.
The two traversed Kenya and Africa capturing natural beauty and wildlife using a singe engine Cessna and hot balloon.
Some of their works include the 1979 documentary Mysterious castles of Clay that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, the epic 1975 documentary “Year of the Wildebeest” that recorded the migration of more than 1.5 million hoofed mammals from Tanzania and the 1976 film “Balloon Safari over Kilimanjaro” that captured the Maasai Mara game Reserve and the 19,340-foot peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.
On May 23, 2007 actress Julia Roberts agreed to play in a Joan Root biopic that was produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films. Sunday Nation captured the news aptly, “Julia Roberts drawn to “murder” in Kenya.”
The latest movie about her life has already won positive reviews. Michela Wrong, author, ‘It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower’ said "Murder on the Lake' is far more than the story of one white woman's murder in a remote African location. This intriguing whodunnit, with its surprise denouement, paints the portrait of an impoverished, tense and unhappy modern African state, where the needs and demands of human beings and animals rarely coincide, and compassion is in short supply.’
On the road to winning the 2009 Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival Green Award,the movie was described as “... A beautifully crafted and heartfelt homage to a fearless campaigner which also provokes some unsettling questions about trying to stop ‘progress’ in the developing world. This is documentary directing at its very best.”
The UK paper Times review gave the movie a five-star saying “This beautifully shot film contained anything you could want from a narrative in fact or fiction: a heartbreaking tale of a romance that went wrong (between Root and her former husband Alan), an investigation of the environmental consequences of African industrialisation (the mass production of flowers by Lake Naivasha), a moral dilemma (was the flora and fauna of the lake more important that the livelihoods of the workers and the “poachers”, a term, it was pointed out, that made sense only in white man terms?), and a mystery.”
By Nyambega Gisesa
On the night of 12 January 2006, intruders broke into the house of a shy Joan Root,69, in Naivasha’s “Happy valley.” One of the intruders brandishing an AK 47 shot several times at her bedroom. Lying peaceful on her white bed sheets, two bullets hit her on her leg and another on her hip.
Without taking anything from the house, the angels of death left as they came.
Minutes later the world acclaimed film-maker-turned-conservationist bled to death taking to her grave a web of complex theories and intrigues on who killed her.
Up to today, no evidence substantive enough to point fingers at her killers has been unearthed. Her romantic-turned sour story of her love for her divorced husband and her love for Lake Naivasha is captured in a new documentary film that premiered on February 1st on BBC 4, Murder on the Lake.BBC 4 screened the documentary on Monday.
In a special forward on the same day to Sunday Nation, award-winning movie producer Henry Singer, sent a cover copy of the 90 minutes documentary film that explores the murder of a fearless Kenyan conservationist.
Henry singer is one of the most respected documentary filmmakers in Britain having made several successful films.
Murder on the lake is the same story for Henry Singer’s 2009 Sheffield International Documentary Film Green Awards winner Blood on the Rose. The movie Blood on the Rose is set to be launched in Britain and then released for public viewing in the next few weeks.
Without revealing who killed Joan Root, the film documentary seeks to give the audience the chance to finally answer that question.
Was it a cold-blooded murder by members of a private army she had financed to keep fishers away from Lake Naivasha? Was it a revenge attack by illegal poachers that she had fiercely campaigned against? Was it an attack by some of her neighbors or was it something more bizarre?
In 1981, Root left her other home in Britain to settle in Kenya permanently having divorced with her husband Allan Root.
After her divorce settlement she remained with a single engine Cessna plane that she and her former husband had used on their numerous romantic and adventurous trips around Africa and a document giving her rights to the documentaries they had shot together. By all means, the divorce settlement was enough for her to live a rich life.
Living with wild animals
She settled on an 88-acre lakefront property along Lake Naivasha that gave her an apt view of the beautiful lake.
Drawn away from people as a result of her divorce, she lived quietly dedicating almost her time to wildlife and Lake Naivasha.
She only lived with her house help and tens of wild animals including waterbucks, dik diks, a hippo, a porcupine and two cranes that she tamed to behave like dogs named Adams and Regina.
The elderly woman who loved safaris used to wake up and walk around Naivasha animal conservation centers notably El samea looking for injured wild animals that she picked, nursed at her home and then released them to the wild. At times she visited her few friends. Nothing is known about her going to church.
Her relatively shy private life spent mostly with wild animals was suddenly disturbed by Naivasha’s dwindling fortunes.
Root would no longer painfully watch her once beautiful lake destroyed by harmful chemicals draining into the lake from the flower farms in the area.
As she loved to refer to the situation as an “ecological apocalypse”, she watched Naivasha’s population increase tremendously from a mere 30,000 people to over 350,000 mostly impoverished migrant workers seeking employment in the flower farms.
This gave rise to squalor, environmental pollution and run- away crime. By this time, she had become a recognized defender for the poor and an acclaimed conservationist.
Forms private army
When the police seemed no longer in control over fish poachers and those dumping harmful waste in “her” once beautiful lake, Root ready to defend the lake by all means recruited an army of young men.
Formed in early 2005, her private army was codenamed Task Force and was led by the husband of her housewife known as David Chege. Chege became the General and Root the Commander-in-Chief.
The private army of about 17 young men was trained basic fighting skills and supplied with crude weapons. It is has not been established whether they were also supplied with rifle arms. Joan and other whites in the area contributed funds for the private army. The recruits were paid between Sh 2,000 to Sh 4,000 per week. They were also supplied with jungle jackets and boots.
“The initial idea of the army was to arrest fish poachers fishing with size 2-3 fishing nets that were not allowed by the fisheries department and then take them to the local police station. She feared that with time the lake would not remain with fish,” the movie’s researcher Joe Kahu told Sunday Nation in an interview.
But soon things started going haywire. Her private army violently engaged with the poachers. Violent confrontations resulted in severe injuries and at times death.
Her noble idea now- turned- into a violent war claimed its first victim in September 2005, a young man only identified to Sunday Nation as Ojorwa.
Her life in danger
Her home was not spared from the bruises of the violence. Her private army moved to provide security at her home. Still violence in the lake area never stopped and caught between a rock and a hard place she decided to stop funding the army.
Root was now the subject of harassment and threats. Her fortified residence was attacked at one time when she escaped through her backdoor after a brick was thrown to her living room, at another time she was carjacked and in September 25 she became a burglary victim.
She still refused to leave her home even after an informant told her that a gang was going to "do" her soon. Instead, she became an exile in her own homestead straying no more past her fence.
“The woman we loved to call mama was no longer easily seen outside her home,” a young man who was a member of the Task Force told Sunday Nation. He refused to reveal his identity stating that anything said about Joan root was a threat to his life.
Almost four or five months later, Root lay dead having bled profusely from an attack that locals claim Root's private army brought the three killers with an AK-47 assault weapon to her bedroom.
Did Task Force kill her?
Her death shocked Kenya’s “Happy Valley” and the international conservation world. Investigators and journalists within and from abroad streamed in to unmask the man or men behind the death of the one-time Oscar Awards nominee.
For the Kenyan police known for sluggishness in conducting investigations, the Joan root case was different. As early as 2nd February 2006 four men were charged with violence in connection to her murder but were later acquitted after Kenyan police said that there was not enough evidence to charge them with her murder.
Among the men charged by the police was Root’s Task Force General David Chege. Chege was from Karagita, the largest of the slums around Lake Naivasha and in her she had entrusted all her secrets. After differing with her trusted loyal lieutenant, she stuck him off her payroll. Did this motivate Chege to kill her?
The lead researcher for the movie, a Kenyan based in Naivasha told Sunday Nation that it was still hard to establish who killed her or what motivated the killings that turned the conservation world into a morning mood upon her death in 2006.
“She had grown very popular among the locals and with her success her enemies increased. At times she differed with the young men she financed to guard Lake Naivasha, during other times she differed with poachers, flower firms that spoiled the ecological system and her rich neighbors and the flower firms who underpaid the locals,” Joe Kahu told Sunday Nation, “it’s not easy to know who killed her. Everything to mask her death brings out theories, theories and theories.”
Those named in these theories as her possible killers include disgruntled former employees, organized crime rackets, poachers and those whose economic interests were threatened by her activism.
Root was born in Kenya to Edmund Thorpe, a British coffee farmer and safari guide. She grew up to be an influential fearless wildlife photographer and filmmaker.
Her stint as a photographer and filmmaker involved a venomous spat from a cobra that almost blinded her save for her sunglasses, a bitten face mask when filming a hippopotamus underwater and the rear nerves of sleeping with a caracal so as to film it.
With her film-maker husband Alan Root who she divorced in 1981, the two pioneered filming animal migrations in Africa.
The two traversed Kenya and Africa capturing natural beauty and wildlife using a singe engine Cessna and hot balloon.
Some of their works include the 1979 documentary Mysterious castles of Clay that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, the epic 1975 documentary “Year of the Wildebeest” that recorded the migration of more than 1.5 million hoofed mammals from Tanzania and the 1976 film “Balloon Safari over Kilimanjaro” that captured the Maasai Mara game Reserve and the 19,340-foot peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.
On May 23, 2007 actress Julia Roberts agreed to play in a Joan Root biopic that was produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films. Sunday Nation captured the news aptly, “Julia Roberts drawn to “murder” in Kenya.”
The latest movie about her life has already won positive reviews. Michela Wrong, author, ‘It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower’ said "Murder on the Lake' is far more than the story of one white woman's murder in a remote African location. This intriguing whodunnit, with its surprise denouement, paints the portrait of an impoverished, tense and unhappy modern African state, where the needs and demands of human beings and animals rarely coincide, and compassion is in short supply.’
On the road to winning the 2009 Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival Green Award,the movie was described as “... A beautifully crafted and heartfelt homage to a fearless campaigner which also provokes some unsettling questions about trying to stop ‘progress’ in the developing world. This is documentary directing at its very best.”
The UK paper Times review gave the movie a five-star saying “This beautifully shot film contained anything you could want from a narrative in fact or fiction: a heartbreaking tale of a romance that went wrong (between Root and her former husband Alan), an investigation of the environmental consequences of African industrialisation (the mass production of flowers by Lake Naivasha), a moral dilemma (was the flora and fauna of the lake more important that the livelihoods of the workers and the “poachers”, a term, it was pointed out, that made sense only in white man terms?), and a mystery.”
NYANDIKA MAIYORO:THE KENYAN WHO FIRST "DEFEATED" THE WHITES
KENYAN WHO FIRST RAN IN THE OLYMPICS AND COMMONWEALTH GAMES WINNING AGAINST RACISM
By Nyambega Gisesa.
Journalists patronized him “the popular Black Jack from Kenya”, others called him, “the lap monkey”, retired athlete Nyandika Maiyoro was the black man’s experiment of “mysterious” success and he ushered Kenya and Africa to the Olympics and Commonwealth games.
On this late-January afternoon, almost six decades after he stormed the short-distance track filed, Nyandika Maiyoro in his home in Borabu Settlement Scheme is no match for his sick calf.
He struggles to separate a sickly calf from the rest of the cow herd, he runs after it but still the calf outpaces him. He no longer enjoys the charming omniscience of youth.
Borabu Settlement Scheme itself doesn’t have much to advertise about the man who was an item for study in white laboratories, as his style of running and his stamina was ‘unusually un-African.’ He stays here with his second wife Pacificah Gekonde and several grandchildren.
The scheme is an improvised village characterized by the few rich and the poor many. Only two face-me matatus ply the route from Kijauri Town to deep inside the scheme to Isoge. “If you miss the one at 10 in the morning, you will have to wait until 4 in the evening,” an unidentified young man says.
In between this period, you can ride a motorbike whose rate of causing accidents is almost directly proportional to the rate it which they whizz past you.
When the locals heard that Nyandika Maiyoro was finally settling at the place in early 2000, they gathered in the roads to welcome him. In groups they gossiped about his magic powers that made the whites to fear him.
Used to publicity, Kenya’s greatest athletic export, before his student Kipchoge Keino, slowed down to great the villagers. A throng of women and girls grabbed him and momentarily forced him to great them.
Today, they seem to have forgotten his presence. “The villagers rarely even come to visit me. The few visitors I get today are journalists, historians and researchers,” the old man says as he shares sentimental wailings of the past.
Nyandika Maiyoro was the first Kenyan distance runner and among the first Black Africans to ever compete and finish in the Olympic Games. He was the captain of the pioneer Kenyan team that participated in international athletics events.
Other pioneer runners included Arere Anentia, sprinter Seraphino Antao, Kipatarum Ketta, Kanutu Sumu and Joseph Lesai.
In 1948, he was controversially recruited by the Colonial Sports Officer Evans Archer and Senior Chief Musa Nyandusi to participate in the East African Champions. At only 16 years old he won in every race he participated in.
In 1952, he participated in the Empire Games in Antananarivo, Madagascar. It’s during this event that he was famously or infamously introduced to the world. Nyandika only understood Kiswahili and his native Kisii but the games officials used English, French Portuguese to call the participants.
Before the race started, the Colonial Sports Officer Evans Archer had gone for a shot call. When he came back, he discovered that Nyandika was not among those running. Archer was hysterical and started shouting Nyandika’s name.
“Nyandika, mbona haukimbii?Hizo ndizo mbio zako(Why aren’t you running. That is your race,” Nyandika vividly remembers an angry and hysterical Archer yelling at him.
By this time, the other runners were already a lap away in the 5,000 meters race. Without wasting time, he ran into the field and thrilled spectators when he won the race.
The fascination with the 22-year-old runner burgeoned in London’s White City at the 1954 Amateur Association Championship when he stunned over 30,000 people by finishing fourth.
Kenya made a debut in the Commonwealth Games at Vancouver Canada that year and Nyandika clocked 13 minutes and 43.8 seconds finishing fourth.
He immediately became the talk of the Queen of England who ‘thought that Kenya was now ready for independence,’ colonial masters and journalists.
The sensation associated with his heroic deeds was built on grounds that before then no black African from Africa had achieved such a fete. Africans were also banned from participating in European Sponsored sports.
‘The time is not yet ripe for Africans participation in European sponsored sports,’ a statement issued in 1954 by the Northern Rhodesian Olympics and Empire Games Association read.
When Nyandika Maiyoro made a debut for Kenya at the Olympic Games in 1956, he became the first ever Kenyan to compete and finish in the Olympics. He participated in 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters finishing 7th in 1,500 meters in a race that included world record holders Vladimir Kuts and Gordon Pire. The other Kenyan runner was Lazaro Chepkwony who ran but was injured.
The Daily Express had reported a year early on October 12th 1955 that Africans were banned from the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. ‘Our (European) efforts should be directed towards educating the African in true Sportsmanship,’ the paper reported.
In the 1950’s, African black stars were viewed as possessing “great speed but little stamina,” and hence Nyandika’s athleticism was termed as “extremely unusual.”
The British Press declared his performance as a defining moment in the history of athletics. The Editor of British Track Magazine Athletics Weekly wrote “never again shall we nurse the idea that the colored races are not good at nothing beyond a mile.”
During the 1954 White City event in the 3 mile(5,000 meters) race, Athletics World reported that his performance was a revelation of “a physical ability in the greatest Caucasian traditions”-an aberration of ‘the African.’
The liberal Manchester Guardian declared that the 1954 event was ‘made confusing’ by Nyandika Maiyoro’s ‘ludicrously fast pace,’ while The Times (London) stated that it was ‘inevitable’ that he would be overtaken by the white runners.
One of the world’s most respected athletics writers Jourdy McWhirter patronizingly referred to Nyandika as “the popular Black Jack from Kenya.” He further wrote that he (Nyandika’s) was a “one half-miller who built up a big lead on the first lap, only to fall away on the second.” “He is only a one-lap wonder,” McWhirter added.
American journalist Dick Bank labeled Nyandika as “the most stupid tactician of all time.” Bank added that he had “such an exaggerated opinion of himself that he(thought he(could) out sprint everyone.”
Without a pair of sneakers, running barefooted identified a sign of difference in him signifying “the other.” When he ran faster at both the 1956 Olympics and 1954 Commonwealth Games he was called “naïve” while when Russian Vladimir Kuts employed the same tactics during the same games he was referred as “tactical.”
Nyandika says that abuses and obscenities aimed at him never slowed him down but instead fueled his passion to win.
He remembers hearing the commentator at the Melbourne Olympics. “The race is almost over and oh my God I see a black man …he his closing the gap…..oh no, he is barefooted….he looks like a mad man,” he vividly recalls the words.
“Even if you call me a nyani (monkey) today I won’t mind,” Nyandika says while laughing.
In 1958, he ran in the British Empire Games and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff finishing 12th in the 5,000 meters event and was eliminated in the heats of the 1,500 meters event.
Two years’ later, he participated in the Rome Olympics finishing 6th in 13 minutes and 53.2 seconds-his personal best. In the same year, he was elected as ‘Sportsman of the Year’ in a contest ran by the Nation group of newspapers currently Nation Media Group.
It’s during this event that Africa first bagged an Olympic medal. Clement ‘Ike’ Quartey of Ghana became the first black African Olympic medalist after winning the light welterweight boxing silver medal. Five days later, a small soldier from Ethiopia Bikika Abebe became Africa’s first Olympic Champion.
From rabbit hunting to "the World”
Talk to any person who knew as a boy, and they'll tell you he's been a runner since childhood. He used to run 10 kilometers daily from his home in Kiogoro, Kisii District to Nyakegogi Primary School. He dropped out of school while in class 5 to concentrate in running.
Nyandika used to win in virtually all events he participated in 3 miles (currently known as 5,000 meters) and in the 1 mile event (currently 1,500 meters).
As a kid, he loved hunting dogs that he used to hunt rabbits and deer in the bush. After dropping out of school to participate in Kenya Sports Championship, the white colonial officers employed him as a veterinary scout. Later in life he was employed as the caretaker of Kisii Municipal Stadium.
Nyandika was coached by the extremely strict late senior chief Musa Nyandusi and Colony Sports Officer Evans Archer.
Through his running he became a hero and the colonial officers as a result built him a house in Kisii Town. The house located in the Kisii Municipal Stadium is the subject of a tussle after Nyandika was ejected from the premises.Kisii Municipal Council insists that the house is built on a public property hence “an individual cannot own it.”
Last year, the Prime Minister speaking at the stadium ordered the Nyanza Provincial Commissioner to ensure that Nyandika got “his” house back. The Sunday Nation has since established that the house has not been handed to him.
Nyandika retired from running in 1964 after participating in the Tokyo Japan Olympics after an American friend who he only remembers as Porter advised him to do so. “You are the first African to run in the Olympics and Commonwealth games. It is better you retire when your name is respected,” Porter advised him.
In 1961, he was knighted the Member of British Empire (MBE) award by the Queen of England for his services to athletics in Kenya from 1949 to 1960.
In 1987, he was awarded a Silver Star (SS) medal by retired Kenyan President Moi and Kenyatta University awarded him a Distinguished Service award on 19th October 1995 in appreciation of outstanding contribution in Athletics.
Nyandika Maiyoro’s exploits sent historians racing to establish whether pioneer runners contributed to the independence struggles.
John Bale in the book Sports Stars: The Cultural Politics of Sporting Celebrity in the topic Transgression, colonial rhetoric and post-colonial athlete argues that the athleticism of Maiyoro and Kipchoge Keino boosted not only the newly independent Kenya, but also the emerging world of post-colonial independence Africa.
The only well known “resistance act” in track and field is during the Olympics at Mexico City when black athletes saluted a black power salute, which was undertaken after they had won the awards. The 1968 Mexico games were termed as “the unfair games” since “Kenyans from high altitude areas had unfair advantage.”
The earlier success made by Nyandika Maiyoro and other African runners led to a decision by the International Olympics Committee to abolish racial segregation in sports in October 1963.
engisesa@yahoo.com
By Nyambega Gisesa.
Journalists patronized him “the popular Black Jack from Kenya”, others called him, “the lap monkey”, retired athlete Nyandika Maiyoro was the black man’s experiment of “mysterious” success and he ushered Kenya and Africa to the Olympics and Commonwealth games.
On this late-January afternoon, almost six decades after he stormed the short-distance track filed, Nyandika Maiyoro in his home in Borabu Settlement Scheme is no match for his sick calf.
He struggles to separate a sickly calf from the rest of the cow herd, he runs after it but still the calf outpaces him. He no longer enjoys the charming omniscience of youth.
Borabu Settlement Scheme itself doesn’t have much to advertise about the man who was an item for study in white laboratories, as his style of running and his stamina was ‘unusually un-African.’ He stays here with his second wife Pacificah Gekonde and several grandchildren.
The scheme is an improvised village characterized by the few rich and the poor many. Only two face-me matatus ply the route from Kijauri Town to deep inside the scheme to Isoge. “If you miss the one at 10 in the morning, you will have to wait until 4 in the evening,” an unidentified young man says.
In between this period, you can ride a motorbike whose rate of causing accidents is almost directly proportional to the rate it which they whizz past you.
When the locals heard that Nyandika Maiyoro was finally settling at the place in early 2000, they gathered in the roads to welcome him. In groups they gossiped about his magic powers that made the whites to fear him.
Used to publicity, Kenya’s greatest athletic export, before his student Kipchoge Keino, slowed down to great the villagers. A throng of women and girls grabbed him and momentarily forced him to great them.
Today, they seem to have forgotten his presence. “The villagers rarely even come to visit me. The few visitors I get today are journalists, historians and researchers,” the old man says as he shares sentimental wailings of the past.
Nyandika Maiyoro was the first Kenyan distance runner and among the first Black Africans to ever compete and finish in the Olympic Games. He was the captain of the pioneer Kenyan team that participated in international athletics events.
Other pioneer runners included Arere Anentia, sprinter Seraphino Antao, Kipatarum Ketta, Kanutu Sumu and Joseph Lesai.
In 1948, he was controversially recruited by the Colonial Sports Officer Evans Archer and Senior Chief Musa Nyandusi to participate in the East African Champions. At only 16 years old he won in every race he participated in.
In 1952, he participated in the Empire Games in Antananarivo, Madagascar. It’s during this event that he was famously or infamously introduced to the world. Nyandika only understood Kiswahili and his native Kisii but the games officials used English, French Portuguese to call the participants.
Before the race started, the Colonial Sports Officer Evans Archer had gone for a shot call. When he came back, he discovered that Nyandika was not among those running. Archer was hysterical and started shouting Nyandika’s name.
“Nyandika, mbona haukimbii?Hizo ndizo mbio zako(Why aren’t you running. That is your race,” Nyandika vividly remembers an angry and hysterical Archer yelling at him.
By this time, the other runners were already a lap away in the 5,000 meters race. Without wasting time, he ran into the field and thrilled spectators when he won the race.
The fascination with the 22-year-old runner burgeoned in London’s White City at the 1954 Amateur Association Championship when he stunned over 30,000 people by finishing fourth.
Kenya made a debut in the Commonwealth Games at Vancouver Canada that year and Nyandika clocked 13 minutes and 43.8 seconds finishing fourth.
He immediately became the talk of the Queen of England who ‘thought that Kenya was now ready for independence,’ colonial masters and journalists.
The sensation associated with his heroic deeds was built on grounds that before then no black African from Africa had achieved such a fete. Africans were also banned from participating in European Sponsored sports.
‘The time is not yet ripe for Africans participation in European sponsored sports,’ a statement issued in 1954 by the Northern Rhodesian Olympics and Empire Games Association read.
When Nyandika Maiyoro made a debut for Kenya at the Olympic Games in 1956, he became the first ever Kenyan to compete and finish in the Olympics. He participated in 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters finishing 7th in 1,500 meters in a race that included world record holders Vladimir Kuts and Gordon Pire. The other Kenyan runner was Lazaro Chepkwony who ran but was injured.
The Daily Express had reported a year early on October 12th 1955 that Africans were banned from the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. ‘Our (European) efforts should be directed towards educating the African in true Sportsmanship,’ the paper reported.
In the 1950’s, African black stars were viewed as possessing “great speed but little stamina,” and hence Nyandika’s athleticism was termed as “extremely unusual.”
The British Press declared his performance as a defining moment in the history of athletics. The Editor of British Track Magazine Athletics Weekly wrote “never again shall we nurse the idea that the colored races are not good at nothing beyond a mile.”
During the 1954 White City event in the 3 mile(5,000 meters) race, Athletics World reported that his performance was a revelation of “a physical ability in the greatest Caucasian traditions”-an aberration of ‘the African.’
The liberal Manchester Guardian declared that the 1954 event was ‘made confusing’ by Nyandika Maiyoro’s ‘ludicrously fast pace,’ while The Times (London) stated that it was ‘inevitable’ that he would be overtaken by the white runners.
One of the world’s most respected athletics writers Jourdy McWhirter patronizingly referred to Nyandika as “the popular Black Jack from Kenya.” He further wrote that he (Nyandika’s) was a “one half-miller who built up a big lead on the first lap, only to fall away on the second.” “He is only a one-lap wonder,” McWhirter added.
American journalist Dick Bank labeled Nyandika as “the most stupid tactician of all time.” Bank added that he had “such an exaggerated opinion of himself that he(thought he(could) out sprint everyone.”
Without a pair of sneakers, running barefooted identified a sign of difference in him signifying “the other.” When he ran faster at both the 1956 Olympics and 1954 Commonwealth Games he was called “naïve” while when Russian Vladimir Kuts employed the same tactics during the same games he was referred as “tactical.”
Nyandika says that abuses and obscenities aimed at him never slowed him down but instead fueled his passion to win.
He remembers hearing the commentator at the Melbourne Olympics. “The race is almost over and oh my God I see a black man …he his closing the gap…..oh no, he is barefooted….he looks like a mad man,” he vividly recalls the words.
“Even if you call me a nyani (monkey) today I won’t mind,” Nyandika says while laughing.
In 1958, he ran in the British Empire Games and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff finishing 12th in the 5,000 meters event and was eliminated in the heats of the 1,500 meters event.
Two years’ later, he participated in the Rome Olympics finishing 6th in 13 minutes and 53.2 seconds-his personal best. In the same year, he was elected as ‘Sportsman of the Year’ in a contest ran by the Nation group of newspapers currently Nation Media Group.
It’s during this event that Africa first bagged an Olympic medal. Clement ‘Ike’ Quartey of Ghana became the first black African Olympic medalist after winning the light welterweight boxing silver medal. Five days later, a small soldier from Ethiopia Bikika Abebe became Africa’s first Olympic Champion.
From rabbit hunting to "the World”
Talk to any person who knew as a boy, and they'll tell you he's been a runner since childhood. He used to run 10 kilometers daily from his home in Kiogoro, Kisii District to Nyakegogi Primary School. He dropped out of school while in class 5 to concentrate in running.
Nyandika used to win in virtually all events he participated in 3 miles (currently known as 5,000 meters) and in the 1 mile event (currently 1,500 meters).
As a kid, he loved hunting dogs that he used to hunt rabbits and deer in the bush. After dropping out of school to participate in Kenya Sports Championship, the white colonial officers employed him as a veterinary scout. Later in life he was employed as the caretaker of Kisii Municipal Stadium.
Nyandika was coached by the extremely strict late senior chief Musa Nyandusi and Colony Sports Officer Evans Archer.
Through his running he became a hero and the colonial officers as a result built him a house in Kisii Town. The house located in the Kisii Municipal Stadium is the subject of a tussle after Nyandika was ejected from the premises.Kisii Municipal Council insists that the house is built on a public property hence “an individual cannot own it.”
Last year, the Prime Minister speaking at the stadium ordered the Nyanza Provincial Commissioner to ensure that Nyandika got “his” house back. The Sunday Nation has since established that the house has not been handed to him.
Nyandika retired from running in 1964 after participating in the Tokyo Japan Olympics after an American friend who he only remembers as Porter advised him to do so. “You are the first African to run in the Olympics and Commonwealth games. It is better you retire when your name is respected,” Porter advised him.
In 1961, he was knighted the Member of British Empire (MBE) award by the Queen of England for his services to athletics in Kenya from 1949 to 1960.
In 1987, he was awarded a Silver Star (SS) medal by retired Kenyan President Moi and Kenyatta University awarded him a Distinguished Service award on 19th October 1995 in appreciation of outstanding contribution in Athletics.
Nyandika Maiyoro’s exploits sent historians racing to establish whether pioneer runners contributed to the independence struggles.
John Bale in the book Sports Stars: The Cultural Politics of Sporting Celebrity in the topic Transgression, colonial rhetoric and post-colonial athlete argues that the athleticism of Maiyoro and Kipchoge Keino boosted not only the newly independent Kenya, but also the emerging world of post-colonial independence Africa.
The only well known “resistance act” in track and field is during the Olympics at Mexico City when black athletes saluted a black power salute, which was undertaken after they had won the awards. The 1968 Mexico games were termed as “the unfair games” since “Kenyans from high altitude areas had unfair advantage.”
The earlier success made by Nyandika Maiyoro and other African runners led to a decision by the International Olympics Committee to abolish racial segregation in sports in October 1963.
engisesa@yahoo.com
SIDE HUSTLER -COMP COLLEGE AND ADVERTISING
Hillary Isichi, 26 years’ old.
By day
Owns a computer training facility called Glory Computer College that offers International computer Driving license (ICDL), Computer Information Technology, English and German language training.
He works at the computer training facility as an IT tutor and also as the administrator and has employed two workers.
Monthly pay off
After deducting all his expenses he makes averagely Sh 50,000 every month.
By the side
He runs an advertising company called Gobizness Advertisement which he co- founded with his two friends named Erick Mbithi and Leah Njoroge. The company publishes a quarterly business advertising magazine called Gobizness that covers banking, agriculture, health, education, manufacturers, housing, I.T., environment, Tourist & Hotel Industry, Motor Industry, Transport & Communication, Community development, Businesses, NGOs, Donors, Development Partners, Civil Organizations, CBOs etc
Monthly pay off
The business makes an average of Sh 200,000 monthly.
Started
He started after completing an Information Technology course from a Nairobi-based college in 2007 with the support of his father. The father bought him a computer and printer and after years of saving and investing he now has two computer labs which hold sixteen computers and an office. The magazine idea came up last November 2009.
Plans to
He plans to expand the training college to all other major cities and towns in Kenya. He also plans to sell the magazine with time to the whole East Africa region.
Challenges
The challenges so far have been very stiff competition, costly licenses and very high electricity costs.
Benefits
He has been able to advance his career and also enjoys seeing people who have gone through the training facility succeed and acquire jobs through his college’s certification.
Nyambega Gisesa
engisesa@yahoo.com
By day
Owns a computer training facility called Glory Computer College that offers International computer Driving license (ICDL), Computer Information Technology, English and German language training.
He works at the computer training facility as an IT tutor and also as the administrator and has employed two workers.
Monthly pay off
After deducting all his expenses he makes averagely Sh 50,000 every month.
By the side
He runs an advertising company called Gobizness Advertisement which he co- founded with his two friends named Erick Mbithi and Leah Njoroge. The company publishes a quarterly business advertising magazine called Gobizness that covers banking, agriculture, health, education, manufacturers, housing, I.T., environment, Tourist & Hotel Industry, Motor Industry, Transport & Communication, Community development, Businesses, NGOs, Donors, Development Partners, Civil Organizations, CBOs etc
Monthly pay off
The business makes an average of Sh 200,000 monthly.
Started
He started after completing an Information Technology course from a Nairobi-based college in 2007 with the support of his father. The father bought him a computer and printer and after years of saving and investing he now has two computer labs which hold sixteen computers and an office. The magazine idea came up last November 2009.
Plans to
He plans to expand the training college to all other major cities and towns in Kenya. He also plans to sell the magazine with time to the whole East Africa region.
Challenges
The challenges so far have been very stiff competition, costly licenses and very high electricity costs.
Benefits
He has been able to advance his career and also enjoys seeing people who have gone through the training facility succeed and acquire jobs through his college’s certification.
Nyambega Gisesa
engisesa@yahoo.com
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