By KIPKOECH TANUI

Three developments this week sent me thinking about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s and his deputy William Ruto’s plan for free laptops to children joining Class One next year.

First, I was in my rural home over the weekend and saw kids running to school, mostly barefoot, as I myself used to in primary. I also saw many of the rural homes are still grass-thatched ‘parachutes’.

Secondly, as parents, we got a letter from Christ The King Parochial School, Embakasi. Among the activities parents were being reminded about was: “15th May, 2013: There will be deworming for the children. Kindly pay Sh20 to the class teacher before then”.

In fact this simple strategy to improve the health of the children, cut down on the days they miss school, and eliminate ‘mashilingi’ or ringworms in kids’ tummies, which manifest themselves as ugly patches on the head, stunned me. I then pondered about the laptop strategy.

Thirdly, Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Dr Ludeki Chweya announced that government is three-quarters of the way supplying prisoners with free shoes. He spoke at King’ong’o Prison, Nyeri, where prisoners clad in shoes, some of who may have defiled and even killed children, welcomed him.

Once again, my mind went to the laptops for children some of whom have jiggers in their feet and miss school when the infestation is no longer tolerable as happens in many regions, especially Central Kenya.

Back in the village, most of the hovels were in poor shape, testimony to the poverty raging like a fire in our villages and informal settlements in urban dwellings. I imagined how like in our days the roofs would be leaking and you have to move your cow-hide (for that was the ‘best’ bed we knew then) in the night to avoid water drenching you during the rainy season like now.

In the morning lighting the fire would be a gargantuan task because the fireplace could have been flooded and the embers you hoped to start a fresh fire with, ice-cold. In such situations you would just be given by mum a cup of cold milk and yesterday’s ugali and told to eat quickly and dash to school.

I had this naughty image of myself in Standard One, running up and down the hills clutching a laptop computer, barefoot, to a class where even my teacher may have no affinity with this gadget.

I saw myself putting it aside on our way back from school, to play with clay, forming images of cows, goats and our favourite teacher.

I saw the laptops turned into toys, with our soiled fingers as we fumbled with the screens.

I then wondered how the laptops would fare in the hands of children given that even my own young son here Nairobi, who, when he gets my laptop, thinks it is one big toy. Only the other weekend he crippled my Blackberry phone by spraying it with jets of water from his plastic ‘gun’.

I then thought about how the other envious children, who are in Standard Two upwards will treat the laptops. I see hilarious days ahead, for they will just bully the young ones and take them over.

My mind meandered into how they will be stored in the hovels ravaged by smoke from the fireplace, for like in my days the kitchen also doubles up as the children’s’ sleeping place in most rural homes.

Yes, maybe I am the only fool not seeing these laptops as the priority in our ‘digital’ age.

Again, for the umpteenth time, having been convinced they will be solar-driven, I asked myself where they will get the ‘bundles’ to log onto the Internet. I must say maybe I am too old to see priority of this gadgets amidst this ravaging poverty sweeping through our country like the Sahara’s Harmattan wind.

As I reflected on the laptops, with images of some of the roofless and shanty primary schools I know, a terror gang associated with a thuggish and killer political gun-for-hire in Western Kenya, was attacking homes at night, hacking everyone including hungry children and women.

I kept asking myself where the priority should be, and the good President Uhuru seemed to address by silent concerns by ordering Sh4 billion to be deployed to the public security sector immediately. I confess I found myself asking if it were lack of money that was making the police officers in Bungoma and Teso sleep on the job! I even wondered why Inspector General David Kimaiyo hasn’t outgrown the old policing responses such as mass transfers in areas hit by violence.

Back to the laptop computers, I imagined how the barefoot kids, equipped with the gizmos would end up going into filthy make-shift toilets, hand in the nose, in their schools. Again, my mind went to the prisoners who are in captivity because of crime.

My point in short is that laptops would remain a luxury if we don’t invest in other areas of education such as school hygiene, children’s’ health, decent classes and sanitation facilities, and general wellbeing of children at poverty-infested homes.

If you ask me, the laptops can wait but maybe my opinion matters little, but there it is. One thing I am however certain of is the happiest guys on the queue are the so-called tenderpreneurs fighting for the tenders to supply the cheap Chinese imports, for I am certain the Government will not afford the laptops we see around, and even if it can, it has more serious priorities than supply of these kits!

Yes, free deworming, shoes, decent latrines and clean water are more urgent! 

Writer is Managing Editor, The County Weekly, at The Standard.