Marion stands out among our students having grown up in Nairobi, the nation’s capital. She says she sought out our high school because, “I wanted to go to a boarding school away from home.” Although Marion was raised in the city, her ancestral home is next door to our campuses, where her grandmother still lives. Yearning for independence and adventure, Marion asked her grandmother to help her search for a school in southwestern Kenya. “Every morning, my grandmother looked for a school that would help me succeed in life. Then she learned about Kakenya’s Dream. When she told me about the school, I decided I must go to that school.”

Marion shares that coming here brought her out of her comfort zone. She embraced the opportunity to learn about her Maasai culture. She recalls noticing during her first few weeks here that, “there are some things they do here that I’m not used to, like they go to the farm and milk the cows. I’d never done that before. My classmates are showing me. They are teaching me Maasai ways.” Marion loves that the Maasai community will “share their culture with you and they are ready to teach you.” Now, she’s “learning about the language, art, music, and traditional dances.”

Marion is not only a student of Maasai customs, but also an eager student of the sciences. She hopes to become a neurosurgeon. Marion says her interest in science was inspired by her physics teacher. “She helped me understand and love that subject. She makes me feel better and that I’m a bright student. You often hear that physics is the hardest subject, so I was fearful of it at first, but I’ve come to love it.”

When she’s not studying physics, you can find Marion practicing poetry. She is particularly gifted in a form of Swahili poetry known as Mashahiri. In 2024, Marion became one of the first students to advance to the regional level for her performance of Mashahiri!