Abigael

I woke up earlier that morning, preparing myself to go to school. Into the school compound, I started marching to my classroom and while standing at the classroom’s door, I discovered that there was new arrangement of desks in the class. It was now two desks facing each other with one side almost forming a circle of most of my classmates. Each group member was busy in their own way. Some were doing class work. The front groups were welcoming their day scholar friends who had just arrived, back benchers were shouting so loud with too much excitement that they couldn’t bare hiding their white teeth. I then realized that indeed most of my classmates were already inside the class waiting for the morning lesson to begin. It was one of the coolest and calmest days, the sky was cloudy and rain seemed to announce itself. The wind was blowing, making the leaves fall off the trees, giving me a strong sensation of embracing what the day could have offered me, as I discretely curved my lips and nodded a yes. I then sat down on my favorite seat near the door, next to the window where I use to observe the nature down the valley from my class. My school is up the hill and I placed my bag on the windows arm as usual. In about five minutes to lessons, the teacher came in, in his black closed shoes with one of his black trouser and a blue t-shirt which had a black round mark on it as design. He held two text books in his hands and of course it was time for our chemistry lesson. Since the students in class had not yet notice the teacher inside, they couldn’t stop conversing, so the teacher silently stood up in front of the class for about a minute and called up for the class attention. They got to be aware of the teacher’s presence, got off their books and pens from the bags and lessons began. Turning to pick my book and pen from my bag, I felt some coldness on my skin, from the escaping wind which was passing through the small openings of the window. It made feel at peace like a bird in the sky, I therefore thought of opening the window after the first lessons to enjoy that sensation. And so, I did. Opening the window, I saw students moving up and down. Some were holding their books heading to the library, others to their classes, while some of them just stood up at the verandah, all in their school uniform of grey trousers and skirts with white shirt on top, since it was a Tuesday. Curiously a boy and a girl student stood outside near the window where I was and started conversing about an interesting fact that pulled me out of my observation back to listening to them. I overheard the girl say, “Last term I use to see you much into books and too serious about studies, what is happening this term? You seem to have lost interest”. The boy responded, “my sister just finished her UNEB exams and she did well, she was very happy and excited about joining a world of opportunities and job employment, but now she is home, jobless, struggling, and her papers does not recognize her. But I wonder, I use to see people who never went to school, who do not even hold any certificate of accomplishment in a certain level succeeding in life. The future seems to treat them well. So you’re right I have just lost interest in putting much of my energy into studies, for fear of struggling like she does”. “But fortune favors the bold,” the girl argued, and we should be courageous enough to seek for opportunities here and there to secure the future. So if your sister keeps home, how will she find a solution to that?” Since it was time for the second lesson, they were sent back to their classes. But just after them, their conversion made me think of giving a summary of it to one of my seat mates to know what she thought about it. Together with my seatmate, I came to understand that their conversion would be fruitful if we picked from it the necessary information and through that we gained some life lessons that could be part of us now. Those lessons are as follows: Our efforts, courage and commitment towards everything we do in life determines who we become later. We should apply skills gathered at school to become more innovative, and we should always acknowledge ourselves to keep on empowering young people around the world. And one of the most valuable lessons is that we should never get discouraged by what we see or listen to. After all, everyone will get a period of success or satisfaction during a lifetime and one of the best ways to achieving a lifetime satisfaction and to secure a future is first investing our energy in studies as young people, because we never lose by learning something new. It was a blessed day and this conversation made my day special.

It was a cloudy afternoon at around 2:30pm at school when I decided to call up one of  my classmates for a short interview. We sat opposite to each other and she was so excited to know which kind of conversation I was going to engage with her. She just kept on looking at me while posing with her hand on her cheeks with a funny smile, lifting her eyebrows up and down. We both put on light sweaters. Mine had a white color with a star at the center and love written in blue color, while hers was made of thread in both grey and white color yet feeling cold. I then went on interrogating her ” what do you think can become your future career and why?” She took a second, breathed in and out and responded, When I was a child, I use to see people in my community suffering, some of them could spend the whole day laying on a mat in the grass, some could have heavy cough that would last for months that my mum always kept me far away. I use to see some of them even out of their body flesh that the ribs could appear clear. I used to wonder ” why all this?” People survived from agriculture and they couldn’t die of hunger. One night I decided to follow my mum in her room, I found her seated on the bed, silent as if she was deeply thinking. After noticing that I was there, she looked at me wondering what I came for. I just asked her “mum, why is everyone not okay outside?” They are all sick, she responded, but can’t cater for health service. People say that money is a bad master, but it provides us with wealth and is a source of our happiness on earth. Poverty smells bad, but here in this place, we don’t have money that’s why nothing works here. The community is using herbal medicine to cure what they don’t know. Doctors who are important people in the community are rare where there is no money and their absence is still remarkable. For all these people to be cured we need doctors, she added. I started growing up with the idea of becoming a nurse because I believed it could help me save the community from health ignorance. With time as I kept on growing till I learnt so many other advantages of becoming a nurse. She said: -It earns a lot of money which can probably change my family’s standard of living. -It enables one to understand better the human body including when everything is right or wrong. -It enables one to know which medication to take, when, how and why among others. -When she was done with her story, I couldn’t figure out which word could be worth to be said out to her. I just saw how her eyes were shinning of tears, and only a blink of an eye would make the tears shade off her eyes. So impressed I was, I hugged her to give her comfort and went on curious asking her “how did you feel expressing yourself?” She said, “honestly it at first went hard for me because no one ever asked me such a question and I never got a chance to talk about it up to now. I feel good now and I wish I had more chance of this kind.” A new experience was gained and it was so inspiring listening to how life experiences have the power to motivate passionate young souls detecting a life career. I wish my friend becomes the nurse of her dreams.

I was in boarding school by then, and as a boarding students we had times for personal revision and they were called preps and winters. Preps started from 7:30pm to 9:30pm and winters from 4:00am to 6:00 am. That night I was done with my prep revision and I was going to sleep just like others. Reaching the dormitory, I tried to find my sleep but couldn’t. I seemed to experience sleepless night and so I got tired of laying myself on the bed, I just moved out to have fresh air. I was solo that night, out of the girl’s dormitory. I was wearing my short black night dress. It was dark like hell that I couldn’t see my shadow. The wind sounded clearer like a bell and I was feeling too cold. But I just surrendered myself to that cool night, sitting up stairs. From a distance I saw a dog, he was heading our rubbish pit as if it was going to look for food. I was not scare at all so I decided to keep around. After finishing the rest of posho and other food from the rubbish pit it took it way. I remained silent observing nothing at all in that darkness but in a few seconds, I turned right to see a beacon from far. It was showing my home town. It looked so beautiful that night with electricity making it look more of an attractive place. The lights were of mixed reflection to me. They were yellowish, reddish and somehow greenish. I was amazed by the far view of the network mast with the combination of the lights everywhere which appeared to me like Paris in France. I took my time, enjoyed and found back my sleep in a couple of hours. I never regretted that time because I felt peace with myself.