For Va. Teacher, Kenya's Troubles Are Far From Distant

Members of the two tribes and Kenya's other ethnic communities clashed repeatedly in Nairobi and in the countryside, as the election crisis ground on.

"I'm not convinced that either side is interested in genuinely helping the people," Okoth, a Luo, said recently. He was waiting in the green room for an appearance on NPR's "Talk of the Nation."

He said, "I'd rather spend time talking about the kids whose lives have been affected and whose stories you might never have heard about."

'An Extraordinary Story'

Okoth was once one of those children.

He grew up in a one-room dwelling in Nigeria's Kibera slum, one of six children of a single mother who worked as a school typist. Food was often scarce. The family survived on the cornmeal mash called ugali. Half the time, Okoth went without lunch or got by on a tin of UNICEF glucose powder. A Christmas present might be a school uniform for the next year. His mother nevertheless instilled a love of learning in her fifth son. He strained his eyes reading by kerosene lamp and candlelight and often studied late into the night at the home of a neighbor, Gertrude Wafula, a schoolteacher who had electricity.

"I was fascinated by the world of ideas," Okoth said, recalling how long it used to take him to replace the discarded newspaper the family used to line a shelf that held pots and pans in their home: He would read every article. "I let my mind fly to anyplace in the world in the newspaper." He eventually won a scholarship to an exclusive boys' boarding school -- he likens it to a kid from Southeast Washington going to St. Albans School for Boys -- but despite graduating at the top of his class, he was forced to return to Kibera and his mat on the floor for two years, working as a security guard and delivering newspapers.

He said he never felt discouraged.

"I felt I had to be patient," he said. "If I learned that a door is not going to open, I just had to catch my breath, never give up and find something else." One of the places where he delivered the East African newspaper every day was the Nairobi campus for the exchange program for St. Lawrence University. He asked several times if they had a scholarship program -- they did -- and persuaded them to allow him to apply. He ended up graduating magna cum laude from St. Lawrence in 2001 and earned a master's degree from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in 2005.

It was "an extraordinary story," said Dan Sullivan, St. Lawrence's president. "Right from the get-go, he involved himself in literally everything at St. Lawrence. He came to my attention right away as a very visible leader." Okoth is one of the school's trustees.

In 2001, Wafula, the teacher and former neighbor, founded a small community school in Okoth's old neighborhood, Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre. Okoth began traveling to Kenya regularly to help her. Last year, he founded a nonprofit organization, the Children of Kibera Foundation, to raise money for the school.

In the summer, he took several Potomac School students and a few parents and colleagues with him to Kibera to fix up the school and deliver boxes of books and laptops.

Okoth, described by fellow instructor Michelle O'Hara as "humble and funny and brave and persistent," seems to move with ease through the differing spheres, from the poverty, to the Red Rose in Kenya, to the halls of one of the Washington area's exclusive private schools. He has taught African history and global studies at the Potomac School since 2005 and is known for his high expectations: He requires students to wear suits and business attire before all class presentations.