Among the deluge of Christmas/Holiday email greetings, I was pleased to receive one from Chania Frost, Project Manager of Eco-Development for the Cheli & Peacock Community Trust – established by one of Kenya’s leading safari companies. The Trust focuses on educating the next generation of Kenyan conservationists and encouraging wildlife protection on locally owned lands by working with rural communities to identify and support their development needs. Chania shared some news about what a difference our visit had made for a certain isolated community in the middle of the Maasai Mara.

When the WOW! Travel Club visited Kenya last August, we drove for many miles through desolate, scrubby landscape to reach the tiny community of Ololomei (… it’s no wonder they see so few visitors!). We were running a couple of hours behind schedule and saw a large group of students, parents, and teachers waiting in front of a good-sized cinder block building with a corrugated tin roof. School was out of session, so the kids and their parents had shown up especially for the occasion. I felt bad that we had kept them waiting for so long.

The children wore their school uniforms – boys in blue gingham shirts, bright red V-neck sweaters (with plenty of holes) and navy shorts. Girls wore blue gingham dresses with white Peter-Pan collars – and the same holey red sweaters. Heads were closely shaven, so the uniforms were helpful in distinguishing the boys from the girls. Mothers were swaddled and draped in layer upon layer of colorful printed fabric, called Shúkà.  Intricate beaded jewelry adorned their necks and ears.

Some of the Maasai elders had stretched out their earlobes which they then wrapped around their ears! It’s a traditional practice that (hopefully) doesn’t catch on here!

Shy smiles, moth-eaten sweaters, and me wearing a magnificent beaded necklace made by one of the mothers. A treasure!

The Head Teacher, Joseph, welcomed us into the classroom, where the plaster walls featured hand-painted murals of geometric shapes, human anatomy, and a nutrition chart. Students took their seats and the adults stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the walls. Each of us presented Joseph with a stack of textbooks in Swahili and English, along with a raft of basic school supplies.

Parents, teachers, and students at Ololomei Primary School in Maasai Mara

The mothers then presented each woman in our group with a hand-crafted necklace. Afterward, the children sang a few songs and posed with us for pictures. I was pleased to observe several people from my group slipping some banknotes to Joseph, who gratefully accepted.

In her Christmas letter, Chania writes,

“It has been a successful year and I hope you have all received the newsletter which details some of the projects I run, including, of course, the WOW effect your group has had on little Ololomei Primary School!

My newsletter reported the following:

     Little Ololomei Primary School in the hills behind Elephant Pepper Camp in the Maasai Mara is seldom supported by tourists and NGO’s and was in dire need of stationery and textbooks – until the WOW Travel Club group arrived. This group of adventurers who have traveled the world over and always make sure their journeys are as much about people as places, visited the school to donate $1,730 worth of textbooks and stationary. The Head Teacher, Joseph, has proudly looked after these, stacking them neatly in large piles raised off the floor. The next installment at the school will be shelves and lockable cupboards – though we have a long way to go in terms of meeting their next priority; desks and chairs for all 266 children.

I was able to purchase all the remaining books that had been requested by Ololomei Primary as specified by Joseph, the Head Teacher, with all of your additional generous donations, with a little funding remaining to build some much-needed shelves which I will start in January.”

Merry Christmas, Ololomei!