Opportunity

Opportunity. It is a word we have often taken for granted in the U.S. as so many of our lives have been blessed with unbelievable opportunities: great job opportunities, amazing graduate school choices, travel options, where we want to live, what we want to be, how hard we want to work to get there. Students in Muhuru have never seen many of these opportunities come before them; they have taken what they can get, opting for lives as subsistence farmers, young wives, and young parents. When faced with new opportunities, however, the possibilities are endless.

I had the chance to visit every primary school this past week to provide the students with notebooks, textbooks, copies of tests, and certificates for the highest performing students. In my three years of teaching in Harlem and running around schools of the South Bronx, I have never seen children so overjoyed when given school supplies. I have never seen students get up on desks and yell for the chance to review for an exam. I have never seen teachers so elated when being given gradebooks. The students and teachers of Muhuru have been given a new opportunity through the very idea of increasing their KCPE scores, through the supplies they have been provided by WISERBridge, and most importantly, through the presence of WISER.

I cannot think of anyone that exemplifies this opportunistic spirit more than Carolyne Gorf, a student at the most isolated primary school, located on a large hill overlooking the Lake, Ibencho. Carolyne is 36 years old, a mother, a wife, speaks great English, and is a WISERBridge pupil. This means that at the ripe age of 36 she decided to return to Class 8 (the equivalent of 8th grade) so that she has another shot at high school, so that she has the opportunity of going to WISER. While Carolyne only received a 197 out of 500 on the WISERBridge Preliminary Exam, her determination and her discipline will no doubt make her a top student this year. Her son, 13 years old, is also a student in the same Grade 8 class. His mother and he even share an English review textbook. Their eyes have opened to new opportunities – he will improve his KCPE score and opt for a better school than Rabwao Secondary, she will work hard to enter the WISER compound come January.

What Carolyne teaches us and what she has demonstrated to everyone in he small community on top of a hill is that if an opportunity presents itself, no matter if it is the chance to run a business, the choice of studying with solar-paneled lights, or the opportunity to “receive an excellent education,” as we say in Teach For America, you take it. And as Mama Eunice says, “You just go.” You run with it. No matter how far, no matter how difficult, and no matter how many years you have let pass before it came. The people of Muhuru have seen the opportunities of WISER, and they are taking them to a new level.