We have recently arrived, and it is the welcome celebration – an explosion of celebrating that launches you into the Kenyan experience that will leave you forever changed. Drums and singing, hollering, and dancing, the likes of which you have never even imagined. This is Kenya at its finest, the spinning whirl of joy and tradition and old and young and colors galore. And somehow you and team are the center of it. Disbelief. The surreal feeling of having stepped onto a movie set. The whole community of dancers surround you and move you further in their embrace of jubilance. 

The village school of Fuleye was the host this year. It is one of eleven village schools that are “feeder schools” of the Kenya Keys program, which means their most bright and needy students can be nominated for high school sponsorships. Every school in the region would love to be so lucky, as poverty is a roadblock for so many of their students after they graduate from primary school, when school is no longer free.

The welcome celebration was packed with power and emotion, but one image stands out in my mind. It was when a one of the village elders, Ndoro Julo Magulu, dressed in the finest of traditional fare, stood next to his son, James Julo Ndoro – a recent Kenya Keys graduate, who achieved first class honors in Commerce from Meru University of Science and Technology. The visual contrast told it all. They were just a generation apart, but worlds apart in the realms they inhabited.

The story behind this moment: James’ father had two wives, seven children with the first wife, three with the second. James was the youngest. His mother died when he was young, leaving him under the care of the other wife, which was not good. But his perseverance, which began at an early age, saved him.

In his own words to me, “Throughout my education I was determined and always wished to change the state of my family and whole community. While I was in primary school, you visited for the first time and it really motivated me to work hard, having a hope of sponsorship from Kenya Keys. Despite my father being illiterate, he was motivated, since I became the first child to go to high school and university. He sold two cows to buy me things for school and for upkeep. Kenya Keys changed my life.”

There he was, in the ceremony, standing next to his dad, their eyes full of love and respect for each other. Both so happy. So proud. No smugness in this young graduate, only humility. And gratitude for a father who had made him strong and had supported his efforts. The father smiling, as the whole crowd cheered at the announcement that James had achieved first-class honors at one of the best universities in Kenya. 

 Respect for tradition runs deep in Kenyans’ blood, at least in the ones we know in our corner of Kenya. Thanks to hundreds of sponsors, our students are being educated across Kenya. But they come back to their home soil. They sponsor family members when finished. They look for ways to uplift their home communities. And like their parents, they will be buried where they came from. Loyalty is in their life’s blood.

Ndoro Julo Magulu and James Julo Ndoro– father and son. And a moment of celebration in a sea of challenges. How I have loved being a piece in the bridge between your worlds. 

PS – James is now employed as one of five facilitators in Kenya Key’s Hope Springs program. Every week his vibrant spirit and mind encourage and empower the most vulnerable students in eleven schools. Thank you, James!