One boy’s barefoot walk from Big Tree Village to university carries a message every Kenyan child deserves to hear
By Simon Juma
I grew up in Big Tree Village, Trans Nzoia County, walking kilometres to school barefoot through cold, dew-soaked mornings, my uniform torn and patched by my mother’s careful hands, with no sweater against the highland chill.
I was sent home for fees more times than I can count. I stood outside staffrooms watching classmates learn through windows while I waited for a principal’s mercy. I borrowed books from libraries when I had no money for anything else. I never stopped going back.
My teachers at Big Tree Primary noticed a boy who came without shoes but never missed a lesson. That observation kept me going when shame threatened to do what poverty could not — make me quit.
Secondary school at St Raphael Big Tree was harder still. Friends drifted away — to boda boda work in Kitale, to early marriages, to nothing. I held onto one conviction: education was the only door I could afford to knock on. By God’s grace, I passed my KCSE. That result was my first morning light.
Today I study Communication and Media at Laikipia University. I write articles on a small phone. I edit stories at night. I have no laptop, no reliable internet, no camera — only focus, and the certain knowledge that I have already survived worse.
I tell anyone who asks why I push so hard: I have seen the night. I have walked through it without shoes. I know exactly what morning feels like.
To every child in Siata or Big Tree Village still sitting in class with a torn uniform and cold feet — your night is not permanent. Keep going.
The day will come.
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