Yesterday evening, a man by the name of Frances was helping us in our garden. I was pulling weeds from the carrot bed while he was digging up potatoes. I turned and said to him with a little pride, “This is my first garden. I’ve never planted one before.” He asked about America and if we have gardens there. I told him how the average American doesn’t plant ‘kitchen gardens’ but that we have colossal farms that supply food for the entire country.
He then said, “Gardening isn’t my specialty.”
“What is your specialty?” I replied.
“I’m a politician.”
“Really? I don’t understand what you mean by politician?” He just smiled a gappy smile and kept digging up potatoes. “Do you mean you want to be President of Kenya someday?”
He said, “Yes…” then he bowed his head and stared at his dirty feet (he wasn’t wearing any shoes) as if he was a little embarrassed, then he continued “…but I am uneducated.”
I asked him, “Where would you go to school if you could?”
He looked up at me, “I can’t read or write.”
“I can teach you!” I said overjoyed with the idea of being the one to give this man the keys to knowledge. And that is how it all started...
Every evening around 6 pm, Frances comes to the house, delivers our fresh cow’s milk from our neighbors cows (he’s the neighbor’s farmer), and sits down for a 15 minute reading lesson. He has 99 days left of lessons before he’ll be released from classes, but I can’t wait to tell the tale of how well he does and who he becomes in the future…
I can walk through the forest of the trees of knowledge and listen to the lessons of the leaves…Yentle
~Kate
