It is a few minutes to 12pm and Geoffrey Muteyitsi is getting down to business at Sky Dinner Hotel.
He is meek and suave, as he moves from table to table serving customers at the hotel in Eldoret town.
Oblivious to many patrons served by Mr Muteyitsi at several other hotels in the town, Muteyitsi is not a waiter by training, but a Moi University graduate in Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE).
An employment opportunity in his area of training has not been easy to come by.
Occasionally, before he reports to the hotel where he serves as a waiter on a casual basis, he will have passed by a school to offer some classes in the morning hours.
Mr Muteyitsi’s journey has been marked with sheer determination, resilience and hard work, staying hopefully that one day he will land a job in his line of professional training.
In his past life, he was once a mjengo (construction) casual worker.
“Honestly I have applied for job as an ECDE teacher in almost all the Western Kenya counties, including Uasin Gishu county but it has all been futile,” he says.
Geoffrey Shikomele Muteyitsi second (right), 45, where he works from noon, until late in the evening to fend for his family. Shikomele, a father of four has a Degree in Early Childhood Development, Primary Option from Moi University, and is also a Masters Student in the same course.
“Even a regret letter has not been forthcoming. Since I have a family to take care of, I have to continue being a waiter as I hope for a better tomorrow,” Mr Muteyitsi, 45, tells Nation as we settle to listen to his story.
He always desired to be a teacher, at the very basic level. He believes instilling values in children helps in shaping their future and this is how the country will be transformed.
“But since my parents could not afford fees to take me to college after struggling to complete my secondary education at Lugala High School in 1994, I opted to work as a construction worker to support myself,” he narrates on how he ended up as a mjengo worker as he waited on his dream.
After several years of shuttling from one construction site to another, a friend once approached him asking if he would work as a waiter in one of the hotels that were recruiting.
Geoffrey Shikomele Muteyitsi second (right), 45, where he works from noon, until late in the evening to fend for his family. Shikomele, a father of four has a Degree in Early Childhood Development, Primary Option from Moi University, and is also a Masters Student in the same course.
He took up the waiter job and with the little savings from the construction work, enrolled for a certificate ECDE course at an Eldoret college and passed with a credit.
“This gave me the determination to enroll for a Diploma course in the same field at the same institution,” recalls the father of four children.
His appetite to scale up the academic ladder increased each day, even as he continued waiting on tables in Eldoret hotels.
One day, a foreigner who was a regular patron at the hotel and who had been observing him for a while as he carried on with his daily duties enquired from his boss why he ‘looked different from other waiters,’ he recounts.
The foreigner went ahead and asked for a chat with him, and after grilling him about his past and seeing his determination for education decided to sponsor him for a degree course in early childhood development.
“He was impressed by my performance and fully agreed to sponsor me through my degree course at Moi University. I also passed the undergraduate in basic education and immediately enrolled for a Master’s degree, but midway my Good Samaritan’s stay in Kenya ended, cutting short my dream of completing my education,” he states.
Mr Muteyisti completed the Masters course class work, but is yet to present his thesis because he could not raise half of the required Sh500, 000 fee.
“At the moment I have been volunteering as a trainer of ECDE teachers in several centres and I have been taking them and the pupils through the new CBC education system,” he says.
Every morning from 8am to 11am, Mr Muteyitsi stops by Faith Junior Academy where he handles ECDE to senior classes, before he reports to the hotel to begin his shift, which runs until late night.
He always carries two sets of clothes and books in his back bag. One set is for teaching, the other for the waiter.
The academy director Ms Hellen Mutanda says Mr Muteyitsi has been instrumental in helping the pupils pass in their exams. He reports to the school on and off on a needs basis and has been doing for the last eight years purely as a volunteer ECDE teacher.
“In 2018 we had a one of the top girls in the country with 441 marks because of the foundation Mr Muteyisti gives our learners. We hope he gets a job that merges his education background because he has the expertise required,” she said.
Mr Owens Kennedy, Manager at Sky Dinner Hotel in Eldoret said Mr Muteyitsi said the waiter does not look down upon any tasks allocated to him.
“Despite having a degree, he washes the dishes and even mops the floor. Some graduates come here looking for a job but all they ask is white collar jobs. We trust that he will get another employment in due course and fulfil his dream of changing the society through molding children,” said Mr Kennedy.
According to the Ministry of Education, about 50, 000 graduates are churned out of public and private universities in Kenya every year, which piles the number of unemployed youth in the country estimated at 15 million.
In its Vision 2030, Kenya aspires to have a skills inventory its human resources, meant to indicate the distribution of well-trained Kenyans, especially for those possessing mid-level college and university training. BY DAILY NATION