Where Kingwa Kamencu wore ngotha

 KIngwa Kamencu was a student at  Kaaga High School

Methodist Church Missionaries docked down these shores in early 19th century, but on reaching Meru, they set up their mission station at Kaaga, which by 1912 was pretty remote. They traversed the county door-to-door, advocating for girl-child education.

Twenty years later, these missionaries started a boarding school that was to act as a child protection centre for girls who were deemed not worthy of an education since the patriarchy of the murumes was such that a girl’s place was in taking care of the home, bear children and please Kinoti, the hubby. In 1952, the year of the State of Emergency, the boarding school was relocated to Kaaga Girls’ present location, where it officially started as a high school in 1961 under the late Bertha Jones, who turned it into a screaming success.

 Notable alumni who sported KG’s green uniform include Prof Leah Marangu, Kenya’s first woman university VC (African Nazarene University in 1996), ex-presidential aspirant and writer Kingwa Kamenchu (she of the Underwear Free Movement), Dr Jane Ininda, plant breeder at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA); and Christine Mwiti, blogger at mrsmwiti.com, who recalls the cold morning showers, Tuesdays githeri and dorms with names like Mara, Tana, Thuci and Thingithu!

-By Austine Okande