Kenya’s post-election crisis has forced the oldest schoolboy on the planet, 88-year-old peasant farmer Kimani Maruge, into a refugee camp — but there’s still no dampening his quest for knowledge.From his white tent at an agricultural showground housing 14,000 displaced people, Maruge rises each morning to collect his books, don his uniform — shorts and all — and walk 4 km to his beloved Kapkenduiywo Primary School.“I had to come here when people started fighting and burning houses,” said Maruge at the end of the day, as rain beat on his tarpaulin tent provided by the Red Cross.“But I have not stopped studying. School is too important.” Members of his Kikuyu tribe, who have in recent decades moved into the mainly Kalenjin area of Eldoret in west Kenya to farm, were attacked by gangs after the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki in December.Kibaki, a Kikuyu, has now reached a power-sharing deal with the opposition, but Maruge and many of the more than 300,000 refugees around the country are still scared to return home.More than 1,000 people died nationwide in the crisis. “I want them to relocate me to a safe environment likeNairobi where I can continue studying with security and all the proper materials,” Maruge told Reuters.At first, he went to a special school set up for refugees in the showground, but he pined for Kapkenduiywo.So now he walks, with a limp, to and fro each day between the camp and the primary school by his house.“It is hard. There is no one to help me walk. I go alone. But the urge to learn keeps me going.”Unlike many other Kikuyus here, Maruge’s house was not burned — perhaps a mark of respect by the community for a man who has achieved global fame. At the camp, policemen greet him as ‘Mzee’ — a Swahili term for a respected elder — children shout his name, and mothers stop to smile as he walks by.Illiterate all his life, the great-grandfather, who has outlived 10 of his 15 children, jumped at a belated opportunity to educate himself when Kibaki introduced free primary schooling across the east African nation in 2003. A veteran of Kenya’s 1950s anti-colonial Mau Mau revolt, Maruge says he was inspired to start learning when he suspected a preacher was misinterpreting the Bible.Though continuing to live humbly, Maruge has become something of a national celebrity and poster boy for free education campaigners worldwide. The highlight of his life was a U.N. trip to New York.In his small tent piled high with clothes, pots and other belongings brought from his house, Maruge proudly shows off certificates and photos to a visitor. Then, as children swarm around and shout his name joyfully, he leans forward and pleads quietly: “If you see people, tell them the kids here need help.”
