NEW! 
Written by Esther Wanza | 
The name did not register in my mind when I first heard of it. A week later, I found myself rehearsing the pronunciation of the word ‘Malkamanza,’ the name of the striking primary school I had heard about. Malkamanza is a unique school in North Eastern Province, 56 kilometers North of Garissa. The school derives its name from Malkamanza village where it is located. The name, for unknown reason means restoration, revival or renewal.
As the story goes, a boran young man married a Meru and settled in Malkamanza village; they reproduced and became Munyoyayas community of Malkamanza. The people in this village lived under extreme climatic conditions. The place is very dry, isolated and tucked in the middle scrubland.
Hidden in the bushes, the Government did not know of its existence until five years ago when some missionaries of Christ Missions to the Unreached came across these people. The missionaries found the village in dire need of food, water and clothing; it had neither a school nor a hospital.
Language
Starting a school at Malkamanza village was a great challenge to missionaries for Munyoyayas spoke none of the official languages: English and Kiswahili of Kenya; and missionaries could not speak the Munyoyaya language. According to Miss Helen Ongachi, one of the pioneer teachers at the school, sign language was used to bridge the communication gap. Children were taught Swahili and soon became the mediators between teachers and the community; they then learned English and teachers gave instruction in English in upper classes. Malkamanza runs standards one to five primary classes and has pre-school to pre-unit classes.
Communication was not the only challenge in this Christian School for Muslims. There was the problem of tension between the Christians and the Muslims. The missionaries did not receive a very warm welcome in this area because the Muslims feared their children would be turned into Christians. But this was not the case for these missionaries. They were only demonstrating brotherly love to these fellow brothers who happened to be isolated from the rest of Kenyan.
Christ Mission to the Unreached founded Malkamanza Primary School in 2004 to meet the educational needs of the children in the area. Malkamanza primary school is a rare school with a predominantly Muslim admission maintained by Christian missionaries staffed by volunteer Christian teachers. The villagers can’t afford teachers’ salaries. Parents buy school uniform for their children and pay a small salary for school workers who provide catering services for the students.
Registration of Malkamanza primary scool is underway and according to Njoroge, the Education Ministry’s local education officer, the name shall change to Kisima Academy. This is to capture the educationist’s vision for the school in the name. “Our main goal is to turn the 40 acres of land into a green oasis,” he said. “We’ve plans to come up with other facilities such a health center, a polytechnic and a Secondary school for the purpose of empowering this community to be self-reliant.”
Culture
The Munyoyayas lived in their own world with no access to the rest of the world. Only a few of the elders had traveled to Garissa and Nairobi. They only spoke their vernacular, wore no clothes, lived in traditional houses- manyattas- and relied on the flooding of Tana River to grow food crops at the shores of the river. This was the lifestyle of the Munyoyayas until the missionaries arrived. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was practiced and the girl child was looked on as an asset. At a the tender age of 12, girls were married off to elderly men some of whom were divorcees. Their lives were miserable. With the advent of missionary education and the western culture the practice of FGM and early marriages are slowly dying away lowering the incidence of women mortality.
By Esther Wanza
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