Kilifi – School Feeding

Picture this.

After a two hour bone-crushing drive, tossed and toppled like a buoy in rough waters, on dirt roads, never graded, gullies, boulders, gaps and holes that could swallow a water buffalo – you see, up in the distance, a cluster of small makeshift buildings in the bush, surrounded by low, brushy trees. And from that cluster, you see children in blue and yellow uniforms start pouring forth, streaming from their school, running down the road to greet you, waving their hands, teeth shining, faces open, slapping the side of the truck as you make your way toward the school.

This is how we were greeted at the rural school in Kilifi, in the region north of Mombasa, along the Indian Ocean coast. 1,200 children swarmed around us, swallowing us, yelling “Welcome! Welcome!” The most beautiful, chaotic scene…

WFP provides hundreds of thousands of children in Kenya with their one and only meal of the day – in school. Today, we visited the School Feeding program, and saw how one meal could prompt 100% attendance, relieving parents of worrying how they were going to feed their children, all the while, providing these kids with the only way out of grinding poverty – education.

We arrived just around lunchtime, as the children started to line up by age – long lines, with hundreds and hundreds of children holding red plastic cups and bowls – waiting to receive their meal.

Prior to eating, each child washed their hands, using a makeshift system, involving plastic vegetable oil jugs filled with water from the river. The jugs hung from a wooden structure, over the dirt, each plugged with a small stick at the bottom. The children would pull the stick out, wash their hands, and then replug the jug with the stick to avoid wasting the water.


The kitchen was an open-air structure, bearing two 3-stone firepits, on top of which sat huge metal pots, bearing porridge made of maize. I took a scoop and joined in on the serving – two scoops per child, to get them through lunchtime the next day.

It was over 100 degrees, with suffocating humidity – leaning over and into those steaming pots, scooping out the porridge, I was dripping from head to toe, humbled by the faces and thanks I received with each serving of food.

After lunch, all 1200 children and us gathered under a tree, so the children could sing, and dance, and recite poems for us. A group of 14 year old girls, heads shaved, long skirts, had written and performed a poem about how much they want to stay in school, learn and be healthy – typically girls are the first to pulled out of school in times of hardship, to help with the farming and raising of children. Then the crowds parted to a group of drummers and dancers – the parents had arrived, bearing instruments and brightly colored headcloth, stomping and swaying, singing and dancing, causing the children to clap and sing along. These were the parents of the schoolchildren, who assisted at the school, building gardens, making porridge, fixing tin roofs and fetching water. They came to express their gratitude for the school lunch program, which freed them of worry, and allowed them to spend more time earning money for their families.

I was asked to give a speech to schoolchildren. What could I possibly offer to these beautiful children, since I was what I participated in that day left my speechless…? So I explained that we came from America, the land of Barack Obama – and the crowd roared with pleasure (every road here is Barack Obama Road, and every baby is named Barack or Michelle), and we were here learn about the School Feeding program – and it filled out hearts with joy and happiness to see how healthy and smart all of these students are – more cheers and shouts of “Welcome! Welcome!” I explained that I used to be a teacher, a teacher of music – and would the children please sing us the Kenyan National Anthem? To see 1,200 kids jump to their feet, and start clapping in unison, nearly knocked me off my feet.

And there, under a tree, in the bush of southeastern Kenya, the air became full of drumming, stomping, and clapping, with the voices of 1,200 schoolchildren singing their song in Swahili as their final welcome to us, during this incredible visit.