We left Eldoret at six in the morning, piling boxes of shoes, shirts, socks, and a few extra passengers, into our rented matatu.  The sun rose as we descended from the hills – leaving the foggy damp that surrounded the city for the dried sugarcane beds of the valley.  When we arrived at Kakenya’s Center for Excellence, we climbed wearily out of the matatu doors to find a pressing stand of girls.  Their excitement was jittering in their feet and fluttering hands, despite admirable attempts to remain composed.

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices

“Do you know what we have in these boxes?”  Kakenya said, descending from the cluttered doorway of the vehicle.  “Nooo,” the girls responded, the pitch of their voices rising with curiosity.  The men who transported us opened the back and carried the boxes – bulged and sagging – to the center of the grass outside the school office.  As the teachers worked the knotted twine, Kakenya built suspense: “What color do you think your uniforms are?”  Quiet at first, the girls started to shout all at once the possibilities: “BlueWhiteOrangeGreysockswhiteshirtBlackDress!”

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices

Madame Lydia, Madame Margaret, and Kakenya’s mom carefully organized all of the items into piles according to size.  “Smallest sizes here,” Lydia would point to a patch of grass near Margaret’s foot, “and the next size beside it – like that all the way over to me.”  The children stood patiently watching the complicated sorting process, engrossed by every new piece of their school ensemble that emerged from the tired boxes.

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices

When the time came to distribute jumpers, socks, and shirts, the girls lined up and one at a time moved into the huddle of boxes and discarded plastic bags with hands outstretched to the madams, receiving a soft pat on the head along with the neatly folded clothing.  As soon as each girl had moved to the end of the weaving assembly line, she ran at full speed for the tin-walled classroom, eager to change.  All of the girls were eventually in the darkened class, tossing decrepit sweaters to the side, wrestling with new buttons in never-before-used buttonholes.  The lack of give in the new clothing was a beautiful struggle, and there was instant cooperation and comradery in the difficult task of fitting heads through starched cream collars.

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices

The students’ return to the outdoor gathering spot, still covered with uniform wrapping refuse, was as dramatic as their departure: the girls came running, legs barely under the control of their nimble frames, waving the stiff sleeves of their tucked shirts with their arm-wings in the warm afternoon air.  They were given their maroon sweaters, and everyone immediately put them on despite the heat.  The fitting of the shoes took longer, and each girl tried on – under the discerning gaze of their madams – both their black leather mary-janes and their tennis shoes (for when they have sports period in school).  With the mary-janes on, the girls marveled at their unscuffed toeline, the way they could bend their ankles from side to side and feel the support of the shoe’s intact heel.

When it was all said and done, each girl had a bright new plaid jumper (a traditional Maasai design that is unlike any other uniform in the area), blindingly white knee socks (Kakenya cringes, “those will turn a different color within the week”), shiny new mary-janes and sporty hi-tops, a cream shirt with its crisp collar, elastic ties neatly tucked into the jumper’s front, and a wool sweater to keep them warm during their long morning walks to school.  “Soon,” Kakenya said, “I’m going to have leggings for them – it’s too cold in the morning for them to have bare legs!” But the girls, dancing like their entire bodies were made new by the clothing – weren’t thinking about leggings or their two-hour walk to school the next morning; they were too busy taking flight in waves of red checkers and shiny black leather.

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices