The following letter is from Jane Newman, who used to be the President of the New York office of Chiat/Day.  The letter was received by her good friends, Adelaide Horton and John Fraley. I have posted it here to let Jane's many friends know of her good endeavors. (When I ran into her on the streets of New York before Christmas, she said she liked to maintain a low profile, but I cannot resist sharing this story and these pictures with you.) Thank you, Adelaide and John, for sharing it with me.

Jane now spends eight months of every year in Kenya, where she helps build nomadic schools.  For only $1,000, she is able to create a school that actually travels with the tribe; a school complete with teacher, learning materials, and, most importantly, lunch..

Jane writes ...

"I have just got back from Ndonyo Wasin. The preschool is in an area called Pareu (pah-ray-oo). The area is stunningly beautiful. Wells can be dug there that give water most of the year so many of the nomadic families set up their homes (manyattas) there for a while. It is a two day walk (no road) from there to the tiny village of Ndonyo Wasin which means multi-colored hills and which has one store (selling only 6 SKUs!), a primary school and clinic. It is another days walk from Ndonyo Wasin to Sereolipi which means dry river bed and which is slightly bigger, has 3 stores, a larger primary school, larger clinic and is on a proper dirt road. Sereolipi is still 5 hours from the tarmac road in the frontier town of Isiolo. If you want to see where it is on the map you can find Isiolo north of Nairobi on almost any map of Kenya. Pareu is then about 120 kilometers north and 40 kilometers west just at the edge of the Matthews Mountain Range.

"The teacher of the preschool is called Edward.  He is a moran (warrior) and a very good teacher.  He had 34 students last year and 5 of them are going to be borders at the primary school in Ndonyo Wasin next term  He, himself only has a primary school education but it hasn't stopped him turning out some outstanding students from his preschool.  He teaches the children math, english, kiswahili, science (living things only!) and singing. He is a really caring and intelligent man and is wonderful with the children.

"The whole SENET (Sereolipi Nomadic Education Trust) project is going so well and the enthusiasm and commitment of everyone involved is wonderful to see. There are now 8 preschools scattered over a radius of about 30 miles around the two primary schools in Sereolipi  and Ndonyo Wasin.  Two of the schools travel with the nomads and six, like Pareu, are situated in the areas where the nomads tend to congregate. Each school has 25 -- 35 students and George the headmaster thinks that as many as 50 children will be coming in to the two primary schools from these outlying preschools this year (including 5 from Pareu).  None of the students would have come in if it were not for the preschools.  I met one girl called Mpangani who is the first girl ever in  the whole history of her family to go to primary school.  I am sure this will be true of several of the others.

"The two Georges [The headmasters of the program] set up SENET to give as many of the nomadic children as possible the opportunity to get a full education.  They firmly believe that education is key to their survival into the 21st century ­ helping to ease contact with a modern world in a way that lets them evolve without losing the heart of their culture.  Education is also the only thing that has consistently been proven to improve the socio-economic structure of communities in resource poor Africa and many of our students will return, as much needed teachers, nurses, administrators and paralegals etc.

As I told you before the preschools have been set up with virtually no money.  The school teacher has not been paid properly and although we have promised to give the children a lunch it is a bit sporadic.  If the program is to continue we have to make it consistent and sustainable in the long term. The money will be used to give the teacher a proper salary ($350 a year) and to pay for a nutritionally balanced porridge for lunch ($550 a year). With the 100 dollars left over I will buy some much needed teaching materials and may be some cloths to act as a school uniform.

"Over Christmas I visited Pareu with the two Georges, it was a two day hike to get there from Ndonyo Wasin and a two day hike to get back. The trip was wonderful. The land is semi arid and is pared down to its bones -- land without any excess. It is dramatically beautiful with immense skies and horizons that stretch forever. Pareu is situated in a valley bordered on three sides by the mountains of the Matthews range and facing the Ndotos on the fourth side. The valley is stunningly beautiful and completely unspoilt, miles from anywhere -- a sort of Shangri-La. Dry riverbeds that come off the range are thick with ancient twisted trees that have somehow survived the frequent droughts. Everywhere there is the ubiquitous flat-topped thorn tree.

The largest thorn tree around is usually the site of the preschool.  In the middle of nowhere you find a tree łfenced˛ round with thorny branches to create the walls of a schoolroom with a black board propped against the tree trunk.  The children are given an exercise book and a pencil but all the teaching materials are home grown.  Seedpods and stones are used as counting materials. I met some of the 5 students that had łgraduated˛ from preschool this year and are going to primary school as boarders this month (the new school year starts in January).  They came to see me wearing their new school uniforms ­ they were so proud of themselves.

'When I was there I took the opportunity to ask the elders and the committee members why they thought the program was so successful.  All of them said that until now it had never been practical to send their children to school. While the government was always telling them they needed to send them to school, the schools were so far away it just wasnąt possible. Also since none of the parents themselves had gone to school they didnąt really know what school was.  Now they have a school the children can walk to and they can see their children being able to not just count but add, subtract and multiply and they can see their children writing their names and even starting to read. Often they come home knowing things the parents donąt know.  The lunch helps attendance because this is one of the poorest and most marginalized areas of the country. In fact George, the chief, says that the average income in his area is less than $350 a year.  It was also clear that the strategy of setting up active school committees that make all the decisions on the school has worked well.  They see the school as their school and take responsibility for its success.

'I slept out for the 3 nights we were out in the manyattas.  It was such a privilege to stay and live their life for a few days. Although it is very harsh and they live life constantly on the edge of survival it is also in many ways really appealing. First of all the simplicity of it all ­ living an uncluttered life of a nomad where you cannot possess any more than what you can carry on you. Secondly, the fact that it is such an ancient culture with all its traditions intact and unchanged for more than 1,000 years. Unconditional sharing is the fundamental requirement for survival in the desert and decision-making, although it is the responsibility of the elders, is always based on consensus.  The men pride themselves on being fierce and brave but in front of the children they melt. They have a great sense of humor and enormous pride in what they call the Samburu way.

'Everything else here is good -- the weather is a perfect 75 degrees and sunny everyday and every time I get homesick for New York I think about the sub zero temperature you have been having."

Jane