Students from Kenya hail China bond
After completing studies, youths return to homeland to work on crucial rail link
Jamlick Mwangi Kariuki, a 26-year-old Kenyan, has always wanted to find a way to express appreciation for the great opportunities he has received through his special bond with China, which started in 2018.
Kariuki, who is from Webuye, a town in western Kenya, was one of the second group of 100 Kenyans sponsored to study engineering in China for four years. After graduation, they went back to contribute toward the African country’s railway construction and maintenance.
Built with Chinese technology and to Chinese standards, the 480-kilometer Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, a flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, was the first railway constructed in Kenya since the nation’s independence in 1963.
“After completion of the railway line, it was discovered that we lacked the capacity and the expertise to operate and maintain it. So that’s why there was this program to teach Kenyan engineers to take care of the railway line,” said Kariuki, who returned to Kenya after getting a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University.
With the skills gained in China, Kariuki and his Kenyan co-workers were able to maintain the MombasaNairobi railway as well as the country’s much older meter-gauge railway lines, in order to provide safe and reliable service.
Now locals account for about 80 percent of all railway employees, holding jobs that include operations and maintenance work.
The job in Nairobi also brought Kariuki a decent salary, so he was able to purchase basically everything he needed, despite the relatively high prices of goods in the capital.
Kariuki decided to return to Beijing Jiaotong University last year for a master’s degree in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a railway expert.
Feeling grateful for the opportunities they received, Kariuki and his Kenyan schoolmates and alumni at Beijing Jiaotong University came up with the idea to personally thank President Xi Jinping because, Kariuki said, “the Belt and Road Initiative is actually his initiative to make sure that we are connecting the world and for universal development”.
So they wrote a letter to Xi in October last year to express their pleasure in coming to China to learn about railway operations and management, saying they hope to serve as a bridge of friendship between the two countries.
On Jan 17, Xi responded to them in what Kariuki describes as a “very long and personalized letter”. Xi said that he was glad to see that the Kenyans have bonded with China through this road to happiness, a reference to the railway.
Kariuki said the letter to Xi was to show appreciation and not necessarily meant to evoke a response. “It’s really inspiring that the leader still made time to consider the international student community and care about us,” he said.
Washington Aburiri, who is studying for a master’s degree in logistics at Beijing Jiaotong University, has seen how a close friend has benefited from the easier transportation enabled by the railway.
“Now my friend is doing a good business of importing goods from Guangzhou to Nairobi and then transporting them to Mombasa through the railway,” said Aburiri.
Vicky Wangechi Wangari, who is from Nyahururu in central Kenya and is in her final year of graduate study at the university, said the message she wrote to Xi in the letter was “ten thousand thank-yous”.
The 25-year-old said she got an extra push from Xi’s response because, as a young person, she sometimes feels that no one notices her efforts, even though she works hard. “Then somebody writes a reply and says you are going to continue the Kenya-China friendship and you can do this.
“Now when I wake up in the morning, I feel that I need to study hard not only for myself, but for the China-Kenya and China-Africa cooperation,” she said.
The program that Kariuki and Wangari are involved with epitomizes China-Africa cooperation on talent cultivation, which has gathered momentum in recent years.
Last year, President Xi announced at the China-Africa Leaders’ Dialogue in Johannesburg, South Africa, that China will train 10,000 technical personnel in both Chinese language and vocational skills for Africa as part of the Plan for China-Africa Cooperation on Talent Development.
The plan highlights that the key to development and rejuvenation of China and Africa lies in turning the huge population into abundant human resources as a way to drive modernization.
Henry Kibet Rotich, chairman of the Kenya-China Alumni Association, in Nairobi, Kenya, said that the association, which comprises about 1,500 members, is currently working on projects that will further put to use the knowledge and expertise the alumni have acquired from their studies in China.
Concilia Owire, Kenya’s first female locomotive driver who studied locomotive engineering in China and now works at Afristar, the operating company of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, said she is very excited and extremely honored to hear the news that President Xi mentioned the railway in his reply letter.
“When we started operating six years ago, we had more Chinese experts helping us. But in recent years Chinese experts have been slowly pulling back and we are taking up more tasks. That is why we need to keep up the standards the Chinese experts have set and make sure the operation of the railway is successful,” she said.
Kariuki from Beijing Jiaotong University, said that besides the letter, they also sent the Chinese president a Nairobi-to-Mombasa railway ticket as a gift.
“The president told us he had received the ticket. I hope he will use the ticket to travel from Nairobi to Mombasa one day. I think it will be a good experience,” he said.