Congratulations family and loved ones!

It is with an extremely proud heart and a deep sense of gratitude, that I can announce that a brand new baby school has joined the world. On the 2nd of March 2009 at 8:00am 26 girls began their first day of secondary school at the Daraja Academy 20 kms Northwest of Nanyuki, Kenya. Under the loving tutelage of Mrs. Mwangi: math, business studies and geography, Ms. Catherine: English, Swahili and music, Mr. Charles: biology, chemistry and physics, headmaster of Mr. D (Doherty doesn’t exactly roll off the African tongue) teaching history and government, Ms. Mary: Christian religious studies, Ms. Amena: Islamic religious studies and Andy Harley teaching PE and organizing the library… we have a living, breathing, laughing school!!!

Without the tireless and frankly courageous support of our incredible board, family and supporters there is no way this dream could have taken shape. So after ignoring cynics, three years of HARD work, tens of thousands of miles of travel and the support of countless friends and family, there is a Daraja Academy, it is on the map and it is open!

On February 26th the young ladies who had been picked to become Daraja Academy’s inaugural class began trickling into Nanyuki town from locations across Kenya. Girls traveled from the arid town of Makindu near the coast. They journeyed across the Great Rift Valley from the region of Pokot in the far western highlands. Three of them woke at 4 am with one of their mothers in the slum of Kibera and walking an hour in the dark to Nairobi’s enormous bus depot to get here. They were all excited, a little bit nervous and all of them are totally amazing.

By 3pm last Thursday all had arrived. They were assigned roommates, dorm rooms, uniforms and given a few hours to get settled. The girls are arranged three or four girls to a room. At Daraja we view Kenya’s tribal diversity as a positive and make every effort to celebrate it rather than ignore it. The students are arranged so that no two girls sharing the same tribal mother tongue are roomed together. So in any room you might find a Kamba, Luhya, Kuria and Boran boarding together. We thought that this might take some adjusting, but were very wrong. Girls from opposite sides of the country were literally holding hands walking to the dining hall the first night. After all of the bad press Kenya received last years concerning violent tribal clashes seeing these young women bond so quickly was a dream come true.

During the first few days before classes started, the girls played soccer and netball, they sang songs and had a Daraja Dance party (including a few heated rounds of musical chairs to the tunes of the Black Eyed Peas), they checked out books from the growing school library that had been donated by so many Daraja supporters, had two movie nights where they watched Beauty and the Beast and Step Up respectively and basically got to know each other and the campus.

Now that our laptop has been vaccinated and cured of its nasty virus (cross your fingers) blogs will appear much more regularly. Thank you for believing in us as well as your understanding. Please check out our next few blogs about the beginning of classes and Marin artist Brenda Shernbum’s time with the students.

Thanks for your support.