School in Kenya Turns Boys to Men

Michael Braxton was approaching his teenage years, already trapped in a wretched environment of dropouts, drugs and truancy. The Baltimore youth had few friends, his grades were slipping, and his chances of escaping a future on the streets seemed bleak.

But an African experience is helping Michael turn his life around.

Plucked from Baltimore’s inner city along with 28 other boys, he has spent the last two years in an American-run boarding school on a lush, sprawling plain near here in the shadow of 17,000-foot Mt. Kenya.

The intense study and strict discipline at the Baraka School have improved Michael’s academic record, cooled his temper and given him confidence. And he and his classmates have gained something else they never had: hope that one day they might succeed in life.

“I had to get away from the streets, and I wanted to change my life around,” Michael, now 14, said of the momentous decision to come to Africa.

Michael is one of 15 boys who will leave Kenya on Friday and graduate at a ceremony in Baltimore 10 days later. The fourth of six children of a single mother, he has won a place at Piney Woods Life School, a private boarding school in Mississippi.

That kind of transformation is precisely what the Baraka School, which opened in 1996, seeks to achieve for the 11- to-15-year-old students it recruits--boys in danger of slipping away because of crime-ridden neighborhoods, family conflict and peer pressure.

They must be mature enough to realize where their lives are headed and willing to leave their families and everything they know in order to change. Experiencing a foreign culture is a secondary consideration.

And though most of the boys are African American, it is only a coincidence that the school is in Africa. Officials say Kenya was chosen as the site simply because it was cheaper than the United States. Land owned by two Kenyan brothers was readily available for lease.

Baraka means “blessing” in Kiswahili, the official native language of Kenya. The school is funded by the Baltimore City School System and the Abell Foundation, founded in 1953 by the A. S. Abell Co., which then owned the Baltimore Sun. About $13,000 is spent on each student a year.

It is still too early to tell how much of a permanent effect the school will have on its students. Jeff James, the school’s 33-year-old director, said continued funding depends on the program’s long-term success. That will come if graduates go on to higher education and productive lives.

But Baltimore-based recruiters for Baraka regularly visit area middle schools and pitch the Kenya program to students. Rose Csorba, 29, an American who teaches art and reading at the school, said recruiters try to determine whether the boys “are really sick and tired of being who they are and if they really want to change.”

Despite their youth, the boys already are realistic about their prospects, said Kate Walsh, the school’s Baltimore-based executive director.

“They know exactly what’s up,” she said. “The motivation is rarely ‘I want to see an elephant.’ ”

The boys, who come from schools with dropout rates of up to 90%, typically arrive testing two to three years below their grade level. When they complete the two-year program, most are at their grade level or above, officials here say.

“They have better study, work and social skills, and are going back to be able to better compete,” said James.

All but one of the 17 students in last year’s first graduating class reentered the Baltimore school system, and none have dropped out. Officials say a third were academically stable, while the remainder were slipping or had to be closely monitored.

However, the officials say the goal of keeping the boys in school and out of trouble was met.

“This isn’t about college prep,” said Walsh. “It’s about not losing them.”

Boys Return Home With New Ambitions

Still, the experience has fired ambition in many of the boys--to one day be a pilot, a zoologist, a mathematician.

About 20 of the graduates have enrolled at Baltimore City College--a selective, college-track Baltimore high school--said Derrick Lifsey, a guidance counselor there.

Although many of them struggle, they never would have gained admission if they hadn’t gone to Baraka, he said.

“It’s certainly opened a whole new world for these young men,” Lifsey said.

Vonda Rhodes’ 15-year-old son, Chris, was in Baraka’s first graduating class and is one of those attending Baltimore City College.

When he left for Africa, his reading was weak and he could barely write a complete sentence.

“Had he stayed, at the rate he was going he could not have kept up,” Rhodes said.

But Chris came home determined to succeed.

“He didn’t want to fail,” she said. “He didn’t want to throw away what he gained in Kenya.”

For many of the boys, however, returning to urban America, to struggling families and to friends who are getting into serious trouble is a difficult cultural adjustment.

When Chris left, his friends were normal sixth-graders, his mother said. When he returned, many had already committed crimes or started using drugs. Chris said that he still talks sports with his old friends but that when the conversation shifts to drugs, he leaves.

Located on 150 acres of fertile farmland in north-central Kenya and surrounded by cattle ranches and scattered Masai settlements, Baraka is a nature lover’s oasis.

Vegetable gardens, bougainvillea and exotic fruit trees pepper the landscape. Guards and an electric fence keep out the leopards and hyenas. Nanyuki, about 100 miles north of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and a 40-minute car ride from the school, is the closest town.

The isolation often leads to homesickness among youngsters who grew up in crowded concrete jungles. They are given two months at the start of the school year to adjust, and most eventually do. But 11 of the 40 who started in September 1998 were sent home early because of behavior problems, James said. One boy was prone to torturing insects; others were simply unruly.

“At first, they are so tense, so stressed out. Then they start laughing,” said Csorba, the art teacher. “They put up a lot of facades when they first arrive . . . but the facades soon come down.”

In addition to the isolation, the boys must get used to discipline.

Uniforms of dark blue shorts, khaki shirts and blue ties are mandatory.

Students live in dorms, three to a room. The teaching and counseling staff--who include seven Americans and nine Kenyans--stay in traditional thatched-roof huts.

The school depends on solar energy to heat its water, which is pumped from a nearby river. Electricity is provided six hours a day by a generator. With no regular television, the boys look forward to weekend movies.

Classes are held six days a week. A typical day begins at 6 a.m. with 45 minutes of physical education. That’s followed by reading, writing, math, history, geography, literature, astronomy, geology and wildlife studies.

The school also emphasizes improving social skills and mastering art, music and Kiswahili.

Mandatory nightly study hall is followed by lights out at 9 p.m. Summer vacations are spent back in the States.

The average class has about seven students--a treat for most, who say they were used to classes of at least 30 students back home.

“In Baltimore, [teachers] judge you as a group, and the class sizes are so large,” said Kyle Harding, 13, who has acquired a love of history since coming to Baraka last year. “Here, the teacher can get to you. There is more attention.”

Said Michael, who hopes to become a professional football player: “I wasn’t expecting to be in school this much, but now I’m getting used to it. You have to use your time wisely because they are getting you prepared for high school.”

Social Skills, Study Habits on Agenda

Students are awarded points for sticking to rules about respect, responsibility, accountability, cooperation and having fun. The highest scorers are treated to a trip to Nairobi once a month. Extracurricular activities include mountain climbing, camping and horseback riding.

The school fosters togetherness and brotherhood through group tutorials, discussions and counseling periods. The first line of a song the boys sing before sitting down to lunch is “I know that I can make it.”

George Buntin, 14, said he used to get into fights in Baltimore, but that has changed.

“It was hard for me to make friends and get along with my classmates, and that caused a lot of problems,” he said. “Now I have learned social skills. It’s better to get along instead of fighting.”

George, who desperately misses pizza, pancakes and Big Macs, wants to go to college and become a mathematician or an Air Force pilot.

Matthew Loewe, also 14, has discovered history, geography and world affairs and wants to become a zoologist.

“It’s different to back home; it’s peaceful,” he said of Baraka. “I used to be distracted [at school], but now I’m more focused.”

Matthew--who said he misses his family, friends and hanging out with girls--has mastered a few words in the local Kikuyu language.

And even if the school’s location was mere happenstance, the African American boys’ exposure to their heritage has clearly made a difference in many of their lives.

Maurice Williams Jr., 14, has solved the problem of no female companionship by finding a Masai girlfriend from a nearby village. He now dreams of returning to Kenya one day, acquiring some land and settling down.

The school also encourages the boys to mix with the community; they often compete in sports against local teams. Many go on home stays with Kenyan families, adopting a local mother and father. And that has provided an education for the Kenyans too.

“I didn’t know that there were other black people overseas,” said John Kimayo, a middle-aged laborer who lives in a nearby village.

Not all local people are thrilled about the school. Although it employs cooks and teachers who live nearby, some residents think that their children should be admitted.

“Why can’t it also accommodate the locals? That’s the major complaint [among residents], because we have so many street children also,” said Lornah Odero, the acting district commissioner.

Some district officials have launched an investigation of the school, citing a lack of information about its purpose and objectives. James, the school’s director, said he recently met with Kenyan administrators to explain the institution.

Registered with the U.S. government as a nonprofit facility, Baraka is likely to remain a strictly American affair. If it succeeds, officials say, the Abell Foundation will consider starting similar facilities elsewhere.

Because success depends in part on how well the boys readjust to being home, to larger classes and to looser discipline, the school now has mandatory tutoring for graduates.

But whether or not the boys become leaders in their community, many say the Kenyan experience has been unforgettable. “I never thought I would come to Africa,” said Michael. “I never thought I would leave Baltimore city.”

*

Times staff writer Stephen Fuzesi of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.