A Day in the Life of Jeff Hardy Ocampo

Jeff Hardy Ocampo comes from a village of Kachama. His father Caleb Onyango Ochien’g is employed at New Nyanza General Referral Hospital in Kisumu as a driver—22 miles from his home; and Mother Robby Ouma Ochien’g is a housewife. Robby separated from her husband in mid-2019, and now the father has custody of the children. Ocampo has three brothers and four sisters. Ocampo is the third child. One of his responsibilities is his brother Leland Madiba – 5 years old who is in Grade one at Mwanzo.

Jeff, a sixth grader, is seated on a chair near the Mwanzo school bus

Ocampo, what time do you wake up on a school day and what do you do to prepare?

  • I wake up at 6:00 am and then goes to the river to bathe.  I bring back water for cleaning dinner dishes.

  • I then takes my younger brother to the river to bathe him and then help him put on his uniform and then I put on mine.

  • We both leave for school between 7:00 am and 7:15 am without any breakfast because most times we have no firewood, or it is wet or no food to cook for breakfast.  My father promised to look for money so my brother can take school bus because there is so much rain and he is concerned about the safety of Madiba.

  • My older sister Esther is in Grade 8 at Chulaimbo Primary School, she leaves for school before us at 6:45 am so she can go do her homework before school starts.  Every day she is not able to do homework because when she gets home, she tries to look for vegetables to make dinner for us or go to the garden to plough so we have a bit of food during harvest.

  • I am glad for break and lunch prepared at school because by breaktime my brother Leland and I are always so hungry.

  • At the end of the day, I look for my brother and we walk home.  Upon arrival, I rush to the river twice.  The first trip I bathe for the evening then take water home.  On the second trip, I take my brother and bathe him then I bring water home and then go to look for firewood.  He adds, it has been hard with so much rain.  Sometimes my father comes back in the evening with paraffin to use in our small stove to make dinner.

  • I then do my homework, but I do not have the new curriculum required textbooks of Math, Science and English, so I review what we had been taught in the day.

  • After my sister Esther prepares dinner, we eat at whatever time food is ready, we then pray and then retire to bed.

Jeff, wearing his green school uniform, is in his classroom, standing at his desk.

What would you like to be when you grow up Ocampo?

  • What I like first to tell you is that I’d like my Dad to attend our school PTA meetings.  He never comes and when I tell him he just does not give me a reason which makes me and my brother Madiba very sad.

  • Oh, when I grow up, I’d like to be a doctor, that is why I want to have my Math and Science textbooks to study after school and during the weekends.

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