Today am playing role of guardian to Victor a form 2 student at Baricho High School. Baricho is a National School which is how Victor is who hails from Mombasa managed to secure a chance. This young lad is doing very well.

The occasion today is an academic clinic. The moment when teachers and parents/guardians get to interact to review the academic performance of the students. I feel I invested my time well today from the good testimonies by the teachers.

In the words of one teacher, “I use Victor as an example of what resilience and hard work can make somebody. He came in as a B student among A students but he has navigated well to beat many of them”.

These boys are generally very neat. There is something special about this school. It’s my first time but I got an impression that I would not mind having my very own son School here.

I meet a boy by the name Frank* (name changed for identity protection). He tells me he is the Marketing Director in the Journalism Club. That at a cost of $3, I could get a copy of the latest school magazine. A magazine that highlights the strategic plan of the school, words from HoDs and School Captain. This lad is cut for a marketing job in a Fortune 500 company.

Here are some musings from this trip:

• All dining halls in Kenyan high schools smell the same!
• The disinfectant used to clean the washrooms in Kenyan schools is the same.
• Food is never enough for a boy in a Kenyan High School.
• Teachers are generally a selfless workforce. It takes lots of sacrifice to keep 1500 boys contained within the perimeter and maintain sanity and discipline

To the most hilarious moment of the day that got me thinking. There was this lady teacher whose mission, it appeared, was to promote a particular book. She kept telling every parent that the said book is not available in the bookshops and that she had contacts with the author. All parents needed to do was pay her and she would arrange to get the book to the boys. Wow! Talk of JIT in Supply Chain Management.