The First Grader

The first grader is a profound true story about Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge. An 84 year old man wanting to go to school to learn how to read. He has a letter that he has held onto from the government that he wants to read himself. He was very determined to attend school after being turned away several times. Once the head teacher accepted him, trouble followed soon after for her and her family, as well as the school. Maruge believed he was born in 1920. He died 2009. He wanted to learn until he had soil in his ears. 

Maruge attended Kapkenduiywo Primary School in Eldoret, Kenya. He said that the government's announcement of universal and free elementary education in 2003 prompted him to enroll. Maruge was a widower, and a great-grandfather two of his 30 grandchildren attend the same school. 

He was a combatant in the Mau Mau Uprising against the British colonizers in the 1950s and Maruge was a Mau Mau veteran and served time in a prison camp. Soldiers shot his wife for not telling who he was. Maruge witness the murder of his wife. They tortured him because he would not recant his pledge to the Mau Mau. Maruge never learned to read, so in the new century when he gets a letter from the now independent government, he takes the Kenyan government up on their offer of free education for everyone, and shows up at the local elementary school.

We learn the back story in flashbacks to his youth and see one scene of a Mau Mau attack and many scenes of the brutality of the British.  This was an eye opener for me.  Many people tend to remain ignorant about the history of African nations, and all most people remember about Mau Mau times was feeling sorry for white farmers who had been in Africa for generations, as they were savaged by what we saw as a gang of thugs.

But we all have to see it differently. Yes, the Mau Mau did many very bad things, but the colonial rulers’ reaction, if it is anything like the cringe-inducing scenes in the movie, fought violence with violence in an equally inhumane way.

Maruge was later invited to the United Nations in New York to give an address to international leaders about the power of education. Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge inspiered a whole new generation to go to school for the first time. He holds the guinness world record for being the oldest person to start primary school. Maruge died on August 14, 2009 of stomach cancer, at the Cheshire Home for the Aged in Nairobi. He was buried at his farm in Subukia.