Their participants were from the townships and locations that were a colonial heritage. Mphahlele would travel to districts to outside districts to run writers’ workshops in schools that invited him, accompanied by the centre’s drama group. Their travelling was well captured in "Busara", edited by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and "Zuka", edited by Kariara. When the Alliance High School for Girls (just outside Nairobi) asked him to write a play for its annual drama festival, in the place of the routine Shakespeare Mphahlele adapted Grace Ogot’s "The Rain Came", a short story, and called it "Oganda’s Journey". "The most enchanting element in the play was the use of traditional musical idioms from a variety of ethnic groups on Kenya. A most refreshing performance, which exploited the girl’s natural and untutored acting," he said. After serving for two years, he felt he done what he had come for, as he had indicated before taking the job that he would not stay for more than two years. He turned down a lecturing post at the University College of Nairobi. They could only offer him a one-year contract, which he could not take.