Sheryl Onderi’s immediate bedmate at Utumishi Girls Academy stood before mourners at the burial in Narok on Saturday and described a girl whose character had drawn her close long before the dormitory fire on May 28 took her life.
The student said Sheryl was humble and kind, qualities she said were not common in a school environment where girls competed academically and socially. It was precisely those qualities, she told the gathering, that had made Sheryl someone worth knowing and worth grieving deeply.
Her words added a layer to the portrait of Sheryl that her father Dennis Nyakeri had begun painting earlier in the ceremony. Nyakeri had told mourners that the last thing his daughter did when he dropped her at school was hug him twice at the gate. That detail and the bedmate’s account together described a girl who gave warmth freely to everyone around her.
One speaker at the burial pushed the gathering further. They called on those present to share photographs taken at the mortuary with the parents of the nine students linked to starting the fire, arguing that those families needed to understand the full human cost of what had happened that night.
Sheryl was 15 years old and in Grade 10 when she died alongside 15 other students in the fire. Former deputy minister David Osiany attended the burial and announced a permanent KSh 10,000 annual Biology award in her name at Utumishi Girls School.