The first time Emmaculate Mbula Mutuku saw elephants near her new school in Tsavo, Taita Taveta County, she mistook them for houses.
It was only when the “houses” appeared to move closer that she realised what she was looking at.
For the next three days, Mutuku stayed away from Paranga Secondary School where she had been posted.
“Honestly, I needed time to negotiate peace with my courage,” she says.
Eight years later, the teacher who was once terrified of returning to Paranga Secondary School has become a symbol of resilience, serving as an acting deputy principal, conducting research on education and winning an international teacher research award.
On September 18, 2026, she was also picked as a best-teacher candidate during the Athi River Sub-County Teachers’ Day celebration at Mavoko Boys High School in Machakos County.
Her journey began on September 5, 2018, when the Teachers Service Commission posted her to Paranga.
Emmaculate Mbula Mutuku, a teacher at Athi River Senior School, Machakos County, on September 18, 2026, during World Teachers Day Fun Day for teachers at Mavoko Boys High School.
Photo credit: Anthony Njagi| Nation Media Group
She arrived expecting a new professional chapter. Instead, she found a school with one permanent building and several mabati structures.
She asked people seated along a corridor where the principal’s office was and one of them pointed towards a tree.
“That is the office,” she was told.
“Where am I, for sure?” she wondered.
Paranga sits in a wildlife corridor in Tsavo East, where life for teachers and learners was shaped as much by the surrounding environment as by the challenges inside the classroom.
Water was scarce and there were no hospitals or shops nearby. During periods when elephants moved through the area, they could block roads and prevent teachers and learners from reaching school.
After classes, Mutuku walked several kilometres in search of water. Once a month, she travelled to town to buy essential supplies.
A trip to the TSC offices required a two-hour motorcycle ride that cost about Sh1,200 each way, and during one such journey, she was involved in an accident and was seriously injured.
The school also faced familiar challenges associated with poverty, dropout, teenage pregnancies, substance abuse and weak interest in education.
“At times, I felt exhausted and overwhelmed, but I chose not to let these circumstances define me,” she says.
“I would smile and say, ‘It is my Paradiso,’ although I knew the reality behind the joke,” she says.
Her learners gave her a different nickname, Grusha Vashnadze, the servant girl in Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle who risks everything to protect an abandoned child.
For Mutuku, the nickname captured what teaching in such an environment had come to mean.
“Teaching requires more than delivering lessons; it requires courage and compassion,” she said in an interview with the Nation .
Rather than accept the school's circumstances, Mutuku began looking for ways to change them.
The proposal succeeded, and new classrooms were built.
Then she tackled another problem: keeping learners interested in school and football became her unlikely tool.
She had never coached the sport, so she turned to YouTube for lessons. She worked with a village elder, organised Saturday matches and eventually took up refereeing herself.
“Necessity turned me into a teacher, researcher and sometimes a football official!” she says.
Mutuku says enrolment eventually rose to nearly 100 learners, while completion improved to about 57 per cent.
But for her, the numbers told only part of the story.
Mutuku counselled her, urging her to remain in school and protect the future she had yet to build.
Teachers from Athi River Sub-County celebrate Sports Day Making World Teachers' Day on September 18, 2026, at Mavoko Secondary School.
Photo credit: Anthony Njagi| Nation Media Group
He lived with a grandmother with a disability, while church support that had previously helped pay his fees had lapsed.
Mutuku contributed towards his fees and approached church leaders, who restored the support.
“Sometimes a teacher’s greatest lesson is helping a learner believe that their future still matters,” she says.
The teacher who had once wondered where, exactly, she had been posted gradually found her footing.
She became a KUPPET shop steward and BOM teacher representative. She won a partial Aga Khan scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Education, with the TSC granting her study leave to attend the programme in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
She also trained in monitoring and evaluation and undertook programmes with organisations including UNESCO, Teach2030 and Microsoft Elevate.
After several years at Paranga, Mutua moved to a new school, where she now works as a class teacher and serves on its Total Quality Management team.
“The teacher who arrived at Paranga on 5th September 2018, searching for the Principal’s office under a tree, is not the same teacher standing before you today,” she told fellow teachers during the Athi River celebration.
Deborah Kithuka, Athi River Sub-County chairperson of KECSHA and principal of Githunguri Jetview Comprehensive School, praised Mutua’s commitment.
“You are valued, you are loved and you are our heroes. Kenya is proud of you,” she said.
Also present were William Murithi, TSC Sub-County Director Lucy Reciato, Ministry of Education Sub-County Director and Mr Ombati Nyandusi, KESSHA chairperson for the sub-county.
She urged fellow teachers not to allow difficult circumstances to determine the kind of educators they become.
“Where we are placed does not have to determine who we become. A resilient teacher does not wait for perfect circumstances to make a difference. We work with what we have, learn continuously, advocate for our learners and keep hope alive.
“A resilient teacher does not teach in the absence of challenges, but one who keeps the light of learning burning when the circumstances around the learner and the teacher are dark,” she said.
