In 2003, the Kenyan Government announced universal and free education and parents from around the country rushed with their children’s birth certificates in an effort to get them enrolled in school.
At the Kapkenduiywo Primary School in the village Eldoret an unlikely student sought admission and even though he was turned away several times he persevered and upon admission created history. Eighty-four-year-old Kimani Maruge turned up at the school and was told he was too old but he whipped out a newspaper article which indicated that free elementary education was available for all.
He was told he had to have books and a sharpened pencil. He left and returned the following day armed with these. He was again turned away and told he had to be dressed in uniform which consisted of short pants and boots and socks. Mr Maruge left and again returned the following day dressed in his uniform and was eventually accepted. His enrolment did not remain a secret for long and soon hit the pages of national and international newspapers which created problems for the head of the school who allowed him to become a student.
And so goes the plot of the movie The First Grader, based on the true story of Mr Maruge.
Every now and then you find yourself flipping from television station to television station hoping to find something of interest to view. Often, you switch off the television with a long suck teeth, but there are times when you stumble on an absolute gem of a movie.
That was the case for me when I stumbled on The First Grader on Saturday night. To be honest, I thought at first that it was a movie for kids and I might get a few laughs. Never did I envision I would view a movie that moved me to tears and resonated with me.
I vowed to research the movie when the credits started to scroll up and later learnt that it is a 2010 film directed by Justin Chadwick, starring Naomie Harris, Oliver Litondo, and Tony Kgoroge, and based on the true story of Mr Maruge. The British-produced film was shot on location in the Rift Valley in Kenya.
While I will not give away the entire plot, as it is worth seeing and one can learn several lessons the chief among them being perseverance, I want to share a little about the man the movie paid tribute to.
Mr Maruge, who died on August 14, 2009 of stomach cancer, at the Cheshire Home for the Aged in Nairobi, holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest person to start primary school. Although he had no papers to prove his age, Maruge believed he was born in 1920.
According to Wikipedia, in 2005, Mr Maruge, who was a model student, was elected head boy of his school.
In September 2005, he boarded a plane for the first time in his life, and headed to New York City to address the United Nations Millennium Development Summit on the importance of free primary education.
Sadly Mr Maruge’s property was stolen during the 2007-2008 post-election violence, and he contemplated quitting school. During early 2008 he lived in a refugee camp, where he was reportedly a minor celebrity, four kilometres from his school, but still attended classes every day. In June 2008, he relocated to the capital Nairobi.
However, June 2008 he was forced to withdraw from school and relocate to a retirement home for senior citizens. Wikipedia said that soon after in the same month and year he enrolled once again into grade 6 at the Marura primary school, located in the Kariobangi area of Nairobi.
One month before he quit school and then returned he was baptised at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Kariobangi and took a Christian name, Stephen. Maruge was by then using a wheelchair. Maruge was a widower and a great-grandfather (two of his 30 grandchildren attended the same school). He was a combatant in the Mau Mau Uprising against the British colonizers in the 1950s.
In the movie Mr Maruge’s determination to attend school was due to the fact that he had received a letter which he wanted to read himself. In the end the headmistress of the school read the letter as he found even though he learnt to read elementary books the letter was “too hard” for him to read.
The First Grader won several awards including the Best Actor Award from the Black Film Critics Circle and the main prizes at the Kenyan International Film Festival, winning the Best Actor (Oliver Litondo), Best Actress (Naomie Harris) and Best Film.
The 38th Ghent International Film Festival Music Composer, Alex Heffes, won the Discovery of the Year prize for his work on The First Grader at the 2011 World Soundtrack Awards. I urge you to see this film; it is worth it!
