By Alex Kiprotich
You are a parent who through sheer luck and bare knuckle struggle scraped through school and college.
You look back, then turn to your 12-year-old daughter, and promise she would get the best you can give.
You look over your shoulder, at the rugged and torturous life you have led, and promise yourself your daughter would not have to walk this road so long as you are alive. You first take her to the reputable Lions Academy in Nakuru.
It is 2006, she is in class five, primary school leaving exams are three years away, and you take her to a high class private school in Gilgil – away from the distractions at home.
You fork out your savings, planting a seed that you hope to harvest in years ahead – by way of happy children and grandchildren.
Happy she is in school and you go about life beaming with energy, trying to make as much at work and in the farm, to support your children’s education and upkeep.
Then one day, a call comes through in the middle of your labour; you are needed at the school. You beckon her mother and hit the road – apprehensive, but nonetheless buoyed by the school’s impressive record.
At the end of the journey, you are distraught, bitter and forlorn. You find out she fell ill and died in school, and the body is lying at the mortuary.
We were walking in the precise but miserable footsteps of Mr Joseph Kiplang’at Koech and his wife Rose of Nakuru. Their daughter died at Gilgil Hills Academy last July. Today they are in court seeking her medical report from the school.
The days and troubled nights have turned into weeks and months and there is no sign yet they would know what killed her. The school won’t talk to her and the insurer wants the medical report before considering issues of compensation.
The father’s employer has written twice to the school, but the letters have been met with ominous silence.
Joseph and Rose have been given contradictory accounts of the death of their daughter - Linda Chepkorir Koech.
The pictures hanging on the wall at home – and the memories etched in their minds – are all they are left with. Linda died on July 28, last year.
The administration says Linda died in the school clinic after a short illness. But Linda’s colleagues say she died in her bed in the dormitory after days of illness.
Linda's mother says despite numerous attempts to meet the director of the school Isaac Kamunya, they have been unsuccessful.
"We have undergone untold suffering not knowing what killed our daughter and the school continues with business as usual," says Rose.
She adds: "I lost hope when my daughter died and I deserve to know the cause of her death. Any threats that we were soiling the name of the institution won’t work as our demands are within our rights."
Rose says she received a call from the principal Beth Kanyi on the morning of July 28, summoning her to school urgently.
"I wondered what could have gone wrong because when I asked to be told the reason for urgent summon, the teacher simply hung up."
She says when she tried to call back the principal did not answer her calls. "I telephoned my husband and together we drove to Gilgil where shocking news awaited us," she recalls.
Last December, Linda’s school friends visited the family and told their side of the story and the events leading to the puzzling death.
Rose recalls how they met Mrs Kanyi in the company of Gilgil police station boss at the mortuary where the body of her daughter had been taken without their knowledge.
Rose, a mother of three, said they demanded to know from the school why they were not alerted of their daughter’s sickness yet they had a family medical cover.
The school officials insisted Linda was taken ill suddenly and died as a nurse made frantic efforts to rush her to hospital. But her dorm mates and friends say she died in the dormitory.
Kamunya says he was not aware of Linda’s sickness and the school administration should not be blamed. But he could not say if Linda died in the school dormitory or in the hospital.
"Death has occurred and someone is capitalising on it to destroy the reputation of my school," he says.
He also denies teachers, school nurse, and the matron were to blame of negligence. "We are not angels and when mistakes occur nobody should be victimised," he says.
But Linda’s colleagues say she was taken ill four days before she died and when they reported it to the administration they were ignored.
Linda’s best friend and bed mate whose name we withhold for legal reasons visited Linda’s parent at home and narrated how she died in the school bed. The minor says she spent three days struggling to feed Linda on her sick bed in the dormitory and felt immense pain seeing her life ebb away.
She moved visitors to tears when she said Linda struggled so much to live as she became weak and finally took her last breath.
"I struggled to feed her while on bed. I gave her water, but the pain she was feeling could not hold her life anymore," said the minor as tears welled up in her eyes.
She says they were cautioned when her and Linda’s other two friends alerted the teacher on duty that their friend was very sick.
She says Linda kept vomiting and she became weak because she could not eat yet the school administrators just dismissed it as pretence.
"We saw school staff who are supposed to take care of our welfare drag Linda to bathe yet she was shivering. They said she was pretending," says the minor.
Another friend says Linda cried, saying she was sick, but no one bothered to check on her apart from fellow pupils.
"Pupils cried with her and that was the best we could do because there was no other way we could have helped her get medicine," she said.
Her third friend said they took care of her while she was sick in the dormitory and the school administration only acted when she had died.
"My friend was very sick and we could only pray for her in her bed. We encouraged her all was well despite the school’s inaction," she said.
The family doctor Richard Kalya who examined the body says Linda died of an abdominal infection. "Her death was because she did not get reasonable medical attention," says Dr Kalya.
