Chapter 4: University Blues (with an endnote on peeLAU)

I made my final decision to live and work at Starehe when Allison (b.t.w. THANK YOU for the blanket, I brought it with me and it’s still so soft) gave her senior project video presentation. At that point in June I still had no concrete idea what I wanted to do with my gap year. Her video made me realize that (obviously!) I should help those I know, those that I met last summer in Kenya. I gave myself a mission: Help these girls realize their potential and their options, and if you’re lucky, some of them will get into the American college of their dreams, and if they’re really lucky, that college will offer them a full ride. Yes, I spend four hours a day typing exams for the teachers, memorizing the foreign lyrics of the same ten reggae and Kenyan beats that Dan always has playing on his computer; I lead a Spanish club; and I teach some basic waltz and jitterbug, but I came here to help these girls apply to university, get in, and get aid.

I was fairly optimistic in the beginning. I thought these girls could get into any school they wished to apply to. What I didn’t anticipate was that they would all want to go to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. As they draw up their personal lists of potential schools, I find it extremely frustrating and a bit awkward having to explain to each one that they cannot all apply to the same schools, nor should they only apply to the famous, name-brand, ‘reach’ schools. They realize that it doesn’t make sense for more than a few girls to apply to any particular college, because what college will accept and provide aid to three girls from the same school in Kenya? However, a few seem reluctant to put the time in to research any reasonable ‘safety’ schools, at many of which they would probably receive a better education and have a more enjoyable experience than they would at Harvard or Princeton. I was talking about this with the school captain, Alice, and she agreed that many girls care too much about the college’s names. They want to be able to tell their families and their friends that they’re going to Harvard, not Middlebury, UPenn, or Juniata. What the hell is Middlebury? Juniata? But Harvard! Wow!

In the last two days I have emailed over 140 colleges in the States, asking what test requirements they have and what their financial aid situations are for international students. Practically every college can waive the TOEFL requirement because Starehe is an English-speaking school, and can also waive their application fees. However, almost every school does require SAT scores. SAT registration in Kenya costs 6,500 shillings, which is almost $90, and therefore out of the question for many of the seniors at Starehe. The CollegeBoard website says that only students taking the SAT in the States are eligible to submit an SAT fee waiver with their registration, but I’m going to email them to double check and ask for special dispensation. As for those 140+ colleges and financial aid, a handful will cover 100% of the demonstrated need of any admitted international student. This means that admission is extremely competitive. Another handful offer full rides to two or three admitted international students every year, so, again; extremely competitive. The majority of admissions offices that have replied to me say that their college does not offer full rides to any international students. I suppose a student could take out loans to cover the remaining expenses, but I think those schools are unfortunately out of the running for the girls here who can’t get a sponsor for their college years.

I would like to take this moment to thank Ken for lending me his laptop and recommending the Safcom modem. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without the internet, so Thank you very very much, Koko.

As you can tell, my optimism has been dwindling a bit, but there is still hope.

Speaking of Hope, Optimism, and Change… : D … haha… I received my absentee ballot today! I asked Regina, the school secretary, to be my witness as I opened the envelope containing the ballot, filled in the bubble next to Obama/Biden, closed up the ballot in another envelope, signed my name next to Regina’s on that envelope, and put that one into another envelope, which I’ll mail the next time I go into town. YAY for long-distance democracy.

I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about food in this chapter… but I helped Asmahan, Sheillah, and Jane make pilau in my kitchen the other day. I really can’t say I did anything of use besides stirring everything in the sufuria and cutting the carrot extremely poorly, but it was nice having something in a tupperware that I could heat up for lunch the next day, rather than toasting another PBJ. The pilau we made had rice (sort of a requirement for pilau…), beef, carrots, onions, tomatoes, cumin (also essential), cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and salt. YUM for pilau.

The girls make so much fun of me when I say things like ‘chapati’ and ‘pilau’ because I can’t find the correct middle ground. It’s either ‘chuhPAddi’ or ‘CHA-PA-TI!’ It’s ‘puhlowww’ or ‘pee-LAU.’ I’m an embarrassment :)