-: Oh. And just ONE more thing😅, I forgot to point out that Truphena Ngoda was the first cousin of Salome Nolega David, the first female Kenyan African College principal.
-: I know it was Highridge TTC in Parklands Nairobi; I also know a Saniaga mama by the name Lutavati, auntie to Salome Nolega, who used to visit my parents frequently, we we're small kids then, but she would demand everyone to call her senge
-: Salome Nolega David became our new principal in 1965. I think she took over after Christmas. It was an amazing event because she was the first African principal of Kaimosi Teachers' Training College, and certainly the first female principal of any college in Kenya.
I am sure she was older than me, so perhaps she was born in the early 1930s. I understood that her parents were first-generation Quakers and held to the strict principles of evangelical Christianity.
Yet Salome was an unmarried mother with a child of about 10 at Kaimosi. To have a child out of wedlock was taboo in her tribe, and as a Quaker in the pastoral tradition, it was regarded as sinful.
As soon as the elders had known that she had become pregnant, they had wanted to get her married to some old man who had lost his wife.
She had objected and had fled to live up in the high Mount Elgon area, well away from her family.
A few years after her little girl had been born, Salome had secured a scholarship to study domestic science at a university in the United States.
The study had taken about four years, and she had returned with a degree, becoming one of the few Kenyan women to have studied overseas.
That had occurred just after independence, and when the job of principal at Kaimosi TTC had come up, she had qualified as the person to be appointed.
The male students were surprised but the women students loved it. There was Salome, installed in the principal's house with her little girl. It was a government appointment.
Salome lived life to the full. Nothing would bow her. She was excellent with the students. She stood no nonsense but dealt with their grumbles and sticking points as only a Kenyan could.
We needed someone like her to get the students back on our side after their dissatisfaction with dear old Caleb Smith.
He had been too academic and gentle with them.
The PIs, who were sceptical about a woman as head in this patriarchal society, were soon eating out of her hand. She handled personnel matters far better than the intellectual Caleb had been able to do.
The women students absolutely loved having Salome as their role model. She gave excellent sermons in the morning assembly and had a sense of humour.
FLUENT IN ENGLISH AND KISWAHILI
She spoke Kiswahili and English fluently, of course, but if she wanted to talk to an individual student, she could do so in their particular vernacular.
I got on very well with Salome. She was a breath of fresh air. It was as if she realised that there I was, a single woman, not bound by conventional African or European marriage in which the man was or tended to be the head of the family.
Also, I belonged to a much more liberal strand of Quakerism than most people around. Salome could see how popular the arts were becoming, and the Art Club.
She could see who had introduced the very popular Dance Club, held in the hall on Saturday nights. She could see how well the English medium was going.
All these things were new blood, new departures. It was not long before she and I trusted each other quite well.
Several times we took ourselves off for a good letting hair down weekend in Nairobi, and we would stay in a hotel or at my friend's flat. Salome knew people and we went to dances where mixed races were welcome.
This would not have been easy in Nairobi before independence. We went to the cinema and to the theatre.
One day we were invited to Parliament and watched a session from the gallery. These buildings were modern and decorated with good colours.
The garden was perfect, with exotic plants and it even sported a Japanese goldfish pond. Humphrey Slade was the Speaker and he kept the session moving.
He knew every MP and exactly what phrase to use to calm the irate, boost the diffident, and summarise statements in the way he wanted.
I asked MPs afterwards what they felt about a European Sspeaker and they all said he was impartial. They liked him to be there.
Afterwards, Salome and I had afternoon tea on the terrace with our local MP. I left her there so that she could really get down to business.
Salome knew how to get what she wanted by fair means or foul. She knew how the system worked. She knew how to roleplay and how to behave in different situations. Soon, we had government grants for buildings and equipment at Kaimosi College.
STRONG WOMAN
Salome may have been rather distant and seemingly hard at times, but she had to be both a strong woman and a strong person in a man's world.
She felt that she had gifts and that a traditional African marriage would have stifled her creative powers.
She wanted to be a mother and thought she could be both mother and father to her child. She was a loving person and wanted to be loved.
Knowing Salome and talking with her was such an example of liberation for me. She changed my life.
I was not afraid of any challenge after that. Without realising it, Salome was following in the footsteps of so many women who had been pioneers.
She was turning Quakerism into a creative outcome and listening to her heart rather than to African tradition or the missionary fathe
-: Spot on! You've got it so well. Aunt Nolega was mwifwa Musaniaga. She went Kaimosi GBS headed by Ms Spoon and among her school mates was our mum and Mama Abigael Indire. Among their teachers was a great Saniaga the late Luvai of Chango. Apart from Highridge she also headed Kaimosi before going into High schools with her longest stint being at Lugulu. She later reverted to TTC and ended her illustrious career at Eregi when osteoporosis was really devastating her. I had a great relationship with her and I lived with her for a while and learnt driving on her Audi 100L which was the only one in the province. She got me a job at Webuye paper mills in January1975 soon after it was commissioned. She attended Berea college in Kentucky and she made sure her daughter Louise went to the same college in '75 although she had bee invited to UoN after passing her A-levels at Kenya High. I knew most of her classmates who went on to become notable ladies. May this pioneering lady continue to rest in peace.
-: More of Nolega.. by Neccy Kikaya
In 1983 Nolega was admited at Kenyatta National Hospital in the later months of the year, suffering from (brittle bones? they said). I had also been admitted at Kenyatta for goitre removal. My ward was on the upper flpor while she was on the lower. I think 4th and 5th floors. Kenyatta was very clean, new wards, clean beds, good food, fresh air, a place to get better. It was at the time when the New Nyayo Stadium had just been opened for the first sports and games. Lady Nolega was like by many both women and men. She seemed like a jewel in the crown, i thought. As much as i was a patient at Kenyatta, nursing a stitched nake, i never failed to visited Nolega everyday from my ward bed. It was generally agreed by people that knew or know me that i had the 'looks' of this fantastic lady Nolega. Women at Mbale thought i was her daughter even though her real daughter had gone abroad to study. As a result, at the hospital, I had free passage anytime of day and night criss crossing the patient wards to sit and talk with her for hours. The hospital guards believed I was really Nolega's daughter and she was my mother because we resembled quite a bit. Even her sister Mary Nyenyeki and her brother Ben's children saw a younger version of their big auntie in me, Munagi. Ha ha ha, should you want Nolegas picture just visit me in flesh. You will meet a resembled character too in Saniaga Munagi 🤷🏻♂🤷🏻♂😜😜Taken away too early from our midst and community, was this Logooli lady, a Saniaga, and a revolutionary woman. I remember in my youth, many mothers hinting to their young daughter... that "be tough like Nolega, ... kandi, mwana osoome! ". To me "Nolega" symbolized "victory"... "kolega" as venacular says it. I could not attend her funeral because she exited as i continued nursing my nake wounds. May her soul be blessed and rest in peace.
-: Wow! Amazing stories of this powerful lady Nolega,whom I am named after... !!!A great example for us to emulate...Thank you all...now I know what to say when someone asks me about my name😁 ...Blessed day all...
-: Nolega was the Maragoli name for knowledge!! I thought you should know. We were inspired to learn by my late parents using her as an example. That is why I became a Doctor to do greater things like the missionary doctors at Kaimosi. I remember, I was sick and refused to leave the hospital on discharge because I thought I now had a chance to work with the Doctors at Kaimosi. Sidika
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