They almost had me

‘Lucky’ is one word I have used many times before in my life but this time I thought I would never use it again. I never got to meet my parents, I never got to see how they looked like. At a tender age my parents died and left me alone in this world, I was then shipped off to live with my grandmother an elderly woman who lacked the capacity to take care of me but was willing to take me in. I was only three years when my grandmother took me in. I did not get proper care and there are many time s, I would wander off in the village alone crawling on the road until someone noticed me and took me back to my grandmother. Due to the neglect I never got a proper diet and the nourishment that is essential for a child’s growth and this led to me developing a diseases “Osteomalacia and Rickets” which for some time caused partial paralysis and I could not walk for a while.

Days went by but nothing changed until a good Samaritan whom I would later come to call ‘Danny’ Dholuo for grandmother saw me crawling in dirt all alone and decided to intervene but since I was far from home and could also not speak well she decided to take me with her to Nairobi and raise me as her own. She stood by me as I underwent months of physical therapy until I was now able to walk and talk. By this time I was now old enough to join school. She stood by me and made sure I went to school every day, she still reminds me to this day how she would carry me on her back when it rained so that I did not dirty myself as I went to school and how we fell in the mud once.

I finished my primary school and passed scoring 371 marks which qualified me to join a national school. Unfortunately, my guardian fell sick and was also really old. She decided that now I was old enough to know who my family was she then proceeded to ask and try to trace my family so that I would be reunited with them. It is then that I came to learn I had an aunt who lived in Kibera. She wanted me to get to know my family well and promised to take me to school as soon as the school year begun but this was not to be as soon we got to her house I was declared an enemy of the public I was not to speak to anyone or even move out she then told me that I would now help her make money by washing clothes all day and giving her all the money I got.

Before I even started I ran away to my neighbor’s house who was able to get me help from an organization called Polycom that deals with girls rights and is based in Kibera. I was taken to the chief’s office who then decided to give me back to my aunt and this time she decided that since I could run away at any time, it would be better to hide me with her brother who lives in Kitengela. However, that was just a decoy for her to take me back to my grandmother in the village where I would now be the one responsible for taking care of my aged grandmother. It wasn’t long before the organization that helped me before reached out to HAART and explained my situation. Together with the chief from Siaya they were able to rescue me and bring me back to Nairobi where I was placed in a shelter and now I am in school studying hard and pursuing my dreams of becoming an architect. I believe that this is now my opportunity to show those that invested their time and effort in rescuing me that they did not waste their time and resources.

By Abel Mogambi