Studying against all odds

By PETER ATSIAYA

She sits attentively in class, her eyes glued to the blackboard as  the Kiswahili lesson goes on.
Celestine Lotolei, 28, a mother of three, does not give up. She is focussed on attaining high academic goals.

She is the oldest student in form three at Nasokol Girls’ Secondary School in West Pokot County, and her dream of becoming a doctor, she vows, must come true.

Culture
Ayub Jackline, 26, is a form two student in the same school. She is a mother of two, whose determination has inspired many in Nasokol, one of the leading girls’ schools in the county.

Lotolei and Jackline represent a majority of girls from the Pokot community, who have been victims of a retrogressive culture that refuses to go away.
Many bright girls in the area do not go far in school as their parents marry them off in exchange for cattle.

But the story of Lotolei and Jackline, both former pupils of Pser Primary School, is inspirational. The two beat odds and returned to school to continue from where they had stopped.
Lotolei sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination at the school in 1999 and scored 396 marks, raising her hopes of joining a good secondary school.

But this did not happen, as her father chose to marry her off to a then  student of a Medical Training College. That was 10 years ago.
“This was the day I saw my dream crumbling. It was  terrible,” says Lotolei.

She says she knew Sambun but  had never had a relationship with him “I could not resist this because in our community it is normal to marry off a girl child,” Lotolei told The County Weekly team at the school recently.
After getting the first child she told her husband  of her desire to continue with school.

“One day I told him I wanted to finish school but he never responded”.
Eventually he gave in but with one condition; she had to give birth to at least three children first.
“He feared that if I went to school with one child I would run away soon after finishing my education,” she says.

“After days of reflecting, I decided to get the children, if that would mean I get my way back to school,” she says.
So Lotolei got two more children. That had to be within the shortest time possible, just so she could go back to school.
Her children are between six years and ten months.
Lotolei then joined Kacheliba Secondary School before she moved to Nasokol in 2011.
Inspiration

“At the beginning, things were not smooth for me as a student mother,” she says, adding: “Memories of my children, especially the younger one, never left me even when I was in class”.
She says at one point she thought of dropping out of school, but support from her husband, teachers and other students kept her going.
“I thank my husband and class teacher, Mr Nyamwanda whose encouragement came at the time when I was about to quit,” she says.
Lotolei says she gets her inspiration from Tegla

Loroupe a renowned athlete who is  a former student of the school. Loroupe has, through her Foundation, helped many girls in similar situations, to continue and complete school.
“There is no going back in my quest for  education,” Lotolei swears.
Her mother-in-law now takes care of her children.

But Jackline’s story is slightly different. Her father married her off to an elderly man so that the family could raise school fees for her younger sister.
“I have never forgiven my father for that. The pain I went through was so much,” she says fighting back tears.
She developed some hatred towards her follower, Violet, the beneficiary of her father’s actions who  was allowed to go on with her secondary education.
She sat for her KCPE examination in 2000  at Pser Primary School after which she was married.
After staying in marriage for more than 10 years, she decided to revive her dream of pursuing her education.

She approached her husband and gave him the suggestion.
“By the time I told him this, I had two children. To my surprise, he bought into the idea,” she says, adding that her husband was not so comfortable with the idea  though. She realised he was worried that Jackline could leave him after completing Secondary school.

She had to convince him. She was soon taken to Kwanza Friends Secondary School. She however did not stay there long and was transferred to Nasokol.
“I was not to stay there for long because the climate there was not conducive,” she says.
Her husband pays her fees.
Lotolei and Jackline say they won’t allow any barrier to their studies.

“Girls come to us for advice, and we relate to them our experiences,” says Lotolei. Both women say they are committed to their marriages and their education.
The school’s deputy principal Gladys Koech is proud of the two students.
“They are an inspiration to other girls in the school. We are encouraged by their ability to parent and go to school at the same time,” says the school administrator.