BEIJING: 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 Mombasa-Nairobi 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. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
