Age is nothing but a number

By Elijah Dianga, Student
Kisumu Day High School In Kenya.

Elijah at the School gate

Hallo Everyone, My name is Elijah Dianga and I go to Kisumu Day High School in Kenya. I love pop music and one of my favorite singers was Aaliya. She died in a plane crash some years back. One of her famous songs was titled; age isn’t anything but a number!
Her song proved to be true recently in Kenya when an old man aged 85 years walked into a primary school and enrolled in Standard one.

This happened in a village primary school called Kapkenduiywa. The 85 year old guy is called Kimani Maruge. I have not met him but I have read countless newspaper reports about him and seen him on TV many times. He has long legs and bents under the tiny desk in the primary school and he has a gentle face etched with wrinkles, he is twice the height and 17 times the age of most of his classmates.

At 85, he is the only pupil wearing a hearing aid, the only one with a stick and the only one to be a veteran of the Mau Mau uprising against the colonial British in the 1950s.

Now you may ask me, what is so interesting about this fellow?
He won a place in the Guinness World Records, as the world's oldest primary school. Wow! How many of us will ever achieve this kind of feat?
At 85 he is an ordinary pupil and is as mischievous as any boy in the class.

Recently Kimani was invited to New York to the UN Headquarters to give a talk on the importance of universal education and literacy.

I saw him tell a reporter on CNN the following words; "I have waited more than 80 years to go to school. Then, last year, Kenya introduced free primary education and I knew it was my only chance. At first, the school refused. But once I decided to come, no one was going to stop me."

I love this story because I know how it feels to be in a class where you are the oldest. I am 16 years old and in year six. This was because of poverty in my family after my dad succumbed to the dreaded HIV AIDS.

Mother could not afford to put me in school. I had to help her to buy fish from fishermen on the shores of Lake Victoria and sell it at the Kisumu fish Market. But now am in school. I still have many problems like getting school uniform, lunch at school and other things like text books. But I believe I can make it. Recently my teacher Mr. Peter Amunga helped me get a bicycle from his friends in America. Now I do not have to walk long to school. I simply ride to school.

Now I want to ask all my friends some questions. In your country what is the normal age to begin school. Do you have any mature students in your class? How would you feel if you were in the same class with and old man of 85 years? Do you call him grand-dad or classmate? Let me read your reactions.