Grew up in mud hut, now she's college grad

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/966290,CST-NWS-maasai23.article

CHICAGO STATE | Kenyan students plan to become docs, return home

May 23, 2008

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter sesposito@suntimes.com
For much of her youth, Sitatian Kaelo lived in a mud hut in Kenya with no windows, no electricity and baby goats underfoot.

The nearest watering hole was a four-mile trek there and back. To finish her homework, Kaelo depended on the flickering light from a wood fire and her mother's vigilance.

"She doesn't understand what reading is, but she would stay up with me all night making sure the fire was lit and making sure I didn't burn," said Kaelo, 21.

On Thursday afternoon, three and a half years after coming to America, Kaelo stood on stage before 1,200 of her fellow graduating students at Chicago State University and said simply: "I didn't think this day would ever come."

Love them because every time this kind of thing happens it helps pull the 3rd world up. And hate them because it assumes our westernized way of life is superior to living in mud huts. -- I'm not convinced our modern life is really superior. It's all I know and it's what I'm used to, but honestly, if I was living in a mud hut and could actually get everything I needed to thrive I'd be just as happy. Sadly, in today's world thriving in a mud hut is rather difficult.

If I had to live in a mud hut, I'd be right on it doing home improvements. First orders of business would be indoor plumbing and an internet connection. With those two things, I could take my time making other improvements. Even the goat pen could wait unless the critters started to nibble on the computer cords. :-)

Very good points. We seem to have this assumption that industrialization is the best and only way for improvement.

I got a college degree and now mud huts are starting to look pretty good.

because they're expensive to build and expensive to maintain. My own house is a stick built tract house made to look like a mud hut, and after 62 years of being re stuccoed, it looks very much like one with its rounded corners and lumpy walls.

I remember more primitive living conditions--in a van, on a boat, in a single room--as some of the happiest. There was little cleaning or maintenance to cope with, no yard work to do, and that left time for pursuits I valued. Boredom and frustration were problems, though.

There's got to be a balance somewhere. I'm still trying to find it.

Back east they tell us it's right up there with brick on the scale of "almost no maintanance".

Walls have to be re mudded every couple of years or the bricks start to erode.