A sliver of a long-distance runner glides all but unnoticed through the undulating streets of this eastern Pennsylvanian city. He keeps a metronomic pace, checks his wristwatch, tries to clear his head. His mind races faster than his feet.
This is Kelvin Serem, 21, a student-athlete at Lafayette College. He comes from the outskirts of Iten, Kenya, a region known for producing the best marathoners in the world. Serem, though, is only a good runner, not great, with no Olympic ambitions, no fanciful vision of New York City Marathon glory.
This frees him to sort out his life as he runs: the class assignments due, the coming track meets, the demands for help from his struggling hometown. And one vexing question: “Why Serem?”
Why, of all the children born in Kibargoiyet, was Kelvin Serem chosen for the blessing of an American education? And what, in turn, is expected of him? He wonders as he runs, the only sound the rhythmic padding of royal blue sneakers on foreign ground.
“I was the school bell ringer,” Serem begins, in trying again to explain how he got here.
He is the oldest of seven children born to subsistence farmers who coax corn, wheat and kale from 4 acres. Their one-story home had no plumbing or electricity when he was growing up, so he read at night to lights fueled by kerosene. “We couldn’t afford it sometimes,” he says. “That was the biggest challenge.”
Serem had aspirations, but the agrarian grind and lack of opportunity — “Every year the same” — became disheartening. Things seemed hopeless. He once skipped his seventh-grade classes for two weeks with no one taking notice, only to return to ace a national exam without studying.
He scored high enough to earn admission to St. Patrick’s, an all-boys boarding school in Iten, internationally known for its academics and top-flight track-and-field program. Given his modest circumstances, Serem had no hope of attending, until his grandmother sold a cow to cover his tuition. “Even my father cried,” he says.
The dependable Serem was named the school bell ringer — “a huge thing,” he says, because the institution operated to the bell’s intonations. He rang the first bell at 5:30 in the morning, the last at 10 at night, and all the bells in between, stepping out to the courtyard every 40 minutes to sound the end of one class and the start of another.
His friends here at Lafayette might not understand. No one sees him running along Parsons Street or Paxinosa Avenue and says, “There goes the bell ringer.” But the job came with a badge, signaling recognition of his leadership skills.
“An honor,” he says.
Some 7,500 miles away, another boarding school, the Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, decided to award a financial-aid scholarship to one student at St. Patrick’s. Marty Miller, a history teacher and cross-country coach who came up with the idea, told the Kenyan school that Blair was looking for a student with good character, academic ability — and, yes, some running ability would also be nice.
“But the email between Blair and St. Patrick was spotty,” he says. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
Back in Iten, administrators at St. Patrick’s were interviewing candidates, including Serem. He was not one of those from a wealthy family in Nairobi. He was neither a straight-A student nor an exceptional runner. He was the boy whose grandmother had sold a cow to further his education; the bell ringer.
One March day in 2011, Serem was summoned to the administration building. This usually meant he was about to be told to walk the eight miles home and come up with his overdue tuition money. He chose his desk mate, Emmanuel, to watch his books and ring the bell in his absence.
The headmaster told him that one boy from St. Patrick’s had been selected to travel to the United States to attend a private school. A great privilege, a distinct honor filled with promise. And: “We have chosen you.”
Then, Serem recalls, “Everything exploded.”
A boy who had never been beyond Iten was now being whisked from New York City to western New Jersey, impressed along the way by the cleanliness of American streets. He ran track and roomed with a champion wrestler, while doing some wrestling of his own with the English language. He struggled with his classes, but worked hard, often well into the night.
“Here I have lights,” Miller remembers Serem explaining. “And I am using them as much as I can.”
Although Blair Academy embraced Serem, he never forgot his hometown. At lunch one day he approached Quint Clarke, a Blair teacher and coach who was already overseeing a Blair project to build a basic school in another Kenyan village, and asked whether the same could be done for Kibargoiyet.
Of course.
With the help of Clarke and many others at Blair, Serem helped to establish what has come to be known as the Serem-Blair School project. He gave a moving speech at a Blair assembly, set up a school committee, found someone to donate land and returned to his village in the summer to coordinate work, choose employees and lay bricks. Others concentrated more on the fundraising.
Just like that, Kibargoiyet had a school with three classrooms. And it continues to grow: Five classrooms now, along with a kitchen, a bathroom, an administrative building and 85 students.
Says Serem: “I never say I am building a school. I say, ‘We are. We are building a school.’”
He was accepted at Lafayette, where he decided to pursue degrees in international affairs and government and law. He offsets his costs by working on a campus landscaping crew in the summer, and at the library year-round.
Jen Buirkle, an assistant track coach, recalls that Serem kept mostly to himself at first, and rarely talked about his background; about how, for example, he had helped to found a school. “Very modest,” she says. “And he was always worried about things at home, on the phone, dealing with all these stresses.”
But now, in his junior year, he has blossomed as a runner, student and teammate, Buirkle says. “He’s very optimistic about everything. He helps our other athletes understand life a little better.”
In truth, the stresses continue. As Serem runs the streets of Easton, he worries about the corruption plaguing Kenya, about the ongoing struggle to raise money for the school, about the tuition needed for one of his sisters — about the expectations of his family, his village and all those at St. Patrick’s, Blair and Lafayette who have helped him along the way. The list is endless.
“Why Serem?” he says. “I had never been to a city. I had almost lost hope in life. Why, why, why?”
While running, he has come to a decision. When his American studies are done, he will return to his village and do what he can to connect it to the rest of the world. Imagine this, for example: Wi-Fi in Kibargoiyet.
Yes, the bell ringer will return, in answer to the question of why, why, why, Serem.
About the Author
