A life history from one of the children that LDK supports
My name is Caroline Chepkurui. I often remember my past with memories that always leave my heart bleeding. These past memories have made me to become determined to build a better future for myself. It is said that the past doesn’t determine the future and I want to believe that this is indeed true.
A few years ago, we were happy children with our parents – our father usually used to make us happy with presents whenever he returned home and our mother cooking for us delicious meals. My parents were loving and always there for me whenever I needed any help. My dad had a job to earn a living for us and spared some of his time for me and my brother and my three sisters. I then used to think that the world is a wonderful place before I faced the realities later on.
Later my father became sick and death robbed him from us. This was the most painful part in my life since I became aware that I will never again be with him. I knew the presents he used to bring home will never be forthcoming and that death had robbed us the love that we so much needed from him at our early age. I now started envying my friends who talked to us about their father especially as this reminded me the good days we enjoyed from our caring father when he was still a live.
I was however grateful that I still had a mother to turn to for help. Though jobless and with no income to support us, she was caring and loving to us. We deeply felt the enormous lose of our father since mum couldn’t provide us with all the basic needs that we required, previously taken care of by our late father. One year after my father’s death my mother became sick also and things worsened, she also died without us expecting this to happen. I thought that God was unfair to have allowed this to happen to us. I kept asking God why He allowed this to happen to us at our very younger age. Several times I would sit in a tree and reflect on my parents and cry bitterly.
Our relatives whom I thought would have taken care of us turned to be beasts and were only interested with anything that had been left behind by my parents. They took everything and left us with nothing and in the hands of our ill and ageing grandmother. Life was very hard and never the same again. Our old grandmother had nothing and only depended on her children who could visit her once a year. She frequently asked for support from well-wishers to support us but her love to us gave us hope that one day things will be different again. Our uncles and aunts who frequently visited when our parents were still alive stopped visiting and we could rarely hear from them. Our neighbors never cared and only referred to us as “orphans”, a word that irritated and was more of stigma to me as it reminded me of whom I was whenever I complained or asked for anything. Nobody cared for us except our grandmother.
Our head teacher was aware of our problem and so he kept us in school but we lacked all basic needs. Our younger sister (left when she was only two years) lacked everything – parental care and the most needed child’s diet. Even with the encouragement from my grandmother that things will be fine, I developed so much pain, life was not fair for us, I could imagine. Life had no meaning for me and I wished I could also die and did pray for death after I learned there was no one to turn to. I lost hope, thought we had been cursed, and knew that I had no future.
My grandmother became sickly and I could rarely sleep. I helped my elder sister with all the house cores since I’m the second born in the family. I prayed God to heal my grandmother, seeing the possibility of us becoming street children if she was to pass on and there was nobody willing to accept us as additional members in the family.
Things started changing when my youngest sister of two years was accepted in an orphanage. I wasn’t happy about it but there was nothing that I could have done. I used to sit beside the road and watch children of my age go to and from school chatting and laughing and wondered if there were some that were suffering like me. I envied them. I even considered becoming a street girl and lessen the burden my old grandmother was going through to sustain us. I mentioned my plans to leave home for the streets to my elder sister who looked at me with surprise and started crying before she discouraged me not do. I regret to date why I told her since she went and told my grandmother who called me and assured me that things will be just fine. With that assurance and because I never wanted to stay away from the family, I accepted to stay home.
One afternoon we were seated with our grandmother when a man came in and started interviewing her. He told her that it was possible for the four of us to stay in a children’s home. Though helpless, my grandmother never liked the idea. She complained and sobbed, wishing she had ability to raise her own son’s children. She finally took us to one of the children’s homes when life became unbearable and only visited us to see how we were doing, crying all the time her eyes met us. At least here in the children’s home we were well taken care of, given enough food and guaranteed with education. There wasn’t stigma any more for me since all the children in the home were also orphans like me with almost similar life experience. We encouraged one another and regained hope after realizing that this support will provide us with education that we needed most to become competitive in the job market when we are grown up.
I always wonder if I will ever meet with our relatives who rejected us. I will always forgive them especially when I remember my late caring and loving mother and father. We call the director at the children’s home that we stay in dad. He is caring and loving. He acts just like my father and has full of encouragement for us all. He keeps telling us to remember our past and work hard to build a better future for ourselves. He is an important person in my life and has played a leading role for establishing the foundation and hope that I now have.
I have always been praying for God to keep my grandmother longer so that she see me succeed and at the same time be able to enjoy the fruits of her struggle when I finish college and get employed. Unfortunately she passed away in 2006 when I was only in class eight. I felt the loss of the only person who was left with us and loved us after our parents. I wish she lived longer to enjoy fruits of her labor. I’m now in form two, just two more years before I complete high school and join college. I have a burning desire to succeed in life. I now have high hopes that never existed after the death of my parents.
Life is very hard and has been tough experience for me and my brother and sisters. I learned that we are not the only ones in this situation. Many, many children in
For youth like me struggling to change our future lives, my advice is that we must remain determined and focused on what we want to achieve in our personal lives. We cannot afford to run away from problems. Let us face them, test them and fix them. I’m convinced that we can.
We have many rich people who have not bothered to help the needy. I wish that they were able to imagine themselves being in the shoes of the poor. No one is able to choose their status in this world. I would have chosen to be rich and give in abundance to the less fortunate anywhere in the world. I wish many Kenyans were like our dad in the children’s home. He is very sympathetic and cares for so many of us. We know he has many problems but he doesn’t show us, his aim is to support us get a better future.
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