My experience in Namanga

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Published: October 16, 2018

As a typical Kenyan, the 4th of October was already etched in my mind as that nagging thought that cannot allow you to oversleep in the morning on the day of travel because, hey, it is not every day that you get to travel to Namanga. This trip could be described as one of the numerous perks that come with working for TAHMO. Namanga is a town along the Kenyan Tanzania Border and is located in Kajiado County. Namanga is approximately 164 Kilometers from Nairobi Town.

On this day, my colleague (Alex Mutula) and I (Jackson Njenga) were going to Namanga Mixed Secondary school because this school is among the privileged institutions that host a TAHMO automatic weather station. Namanga Mixed Secondary School was the first to host a TAHMO weather station in Kajiado County and has been one of the most consistent weather stations among the many TAHMO stations present in Kenya. This fact is evidenced by how Namanga Mixed recently emerged winners of the School to School challenge.

Namanga Mixed Secondary School is about 6 Kilometers from Namanga town and that is before you reach the border town. Therefore, that meant we would get to see the border town later and first attend to the duties at hand. May I add that the landscape of Namanga is one to behold and as we later went to Namanga town, we were impressed by how the town is directly bordered by towering hills.

We were received warmly into the school by the Geography teacher (Miss Esther) and later by the Deputy Principal in absence of the Principal. We got to learn that the Station has been of tremendous help to the school especially in terms of teaching as it aids in class lessons. There was also a desire from the school to be a reference point to other schools that would desire to interact with the weather station and weather in general and this would especially aid in helping a whole community.

After an interactive discussion with the teachers we were now ready to see the station and also to help update the Loggerhead firmware as requested by TAHMO field Engineer Victor Omoit. Part of this activity also included speaking to excited students about the benefits of the weather station to them and how they would like the station interaction improved. Questions from the student were both funny and intelligent and it was clear at the end of the day that the students were ever keen to work with the weather station and also interested in pursuing meteorology related courses in their tertiary education. It was relatively clear that the presence of the station in the school had positively impacted the students and with the school comprising of mixed communities and cultures, then that impact was impressed to other communities as well by the students.