HOPE DOES NOT DISAPPOINT
“How much time do you have for me, sir?” I ask to remind him that he had told me to come for the interview at 9.30pm and ‘now’ was the time. He scratches his well combed dark hair, signaling to me that he had forgotten, and I forgive him immediately so that we may settle down for serious business. At one corner of the room, there is a Yamaha guitar and I am tempted to request for it so that I may pluck a tune or two, but I lock in my passion – may be, next time.
As we begin to talk, I get consumed in his rich story till I almost forget we are in an academic exercise. He has seen so much, just at his mid twenties. He’s been through so much twists of life. I realize he’s come so far and he lets me know that giving up is nowhere in his vocabulary. He is a giant of faith.
One Sebastian Mwanza, is a fourth year taking a major in public relations and a minor in peace and conflict resolution. He hails from the dry and weary land of Kiundwani,Kibwezi district.
He is not patient to wait for me to ask him the various twists of life that he has been through. “After my high school, there were sometimes, and those times were many when I would lie down at night with a sorrowful heart looking forward with trembling to the dark future and in constant terror at the thought of God as stern and unrelenting judge rather than a caring heavenly father,” he says. It is at this point that he trotted from been a shopkeeper, an insurance policy sales person and later a student.
It will be absolute crime if I fail to applaud Sebastian’s hope which made him attract his destiny. In moments of desperation when affording three meals in a day, bus fare to and fro Korogocho and house rent for his shanty house proved to be a myth he still hoped for the better. To him, he had an assurance that his path would shine brighter and brighter till the full light.
May 2003 ushered a new beginning for Sebastian but little did he know what was in waiting for him. He was enrolled in his dream school{Daystar university} after pulling some funds from his hard earned savings and a piece of land that his father had sold for this cause. “Seeing myself this far, is credit to my father {God} who has walked with me in the valleys low and mountains top,” he says so undoubtedly. He reminds me of a time he had missed two academic years and what struck his mind was to travel down to the coast in an attempt to get married to an Italian lady whom he was hopeful to meet in the sandy beaches and probably his twists would be a gone story.
June 18, 2011, Sebastian would be given the power to read and write after eight years in the long and winding path of college life. He has been able to complete his course work after he received full scholarship from a Canadian family of goodwill in January 2008 enabling him this far.
He tells me that his vision is compounded in the less fortunate in the society. Those neglected, forsaken and dying to discover their potential. What he went through he wants to ensure no single child he knows or happens to connect to, will meander through the same.
“What would you want written in your epitaph, Sebastian?” I ask as I almost rise to end the interview. “Sebastian wanted to live his life to the fullest so that when he got to heaven, God will not have questions for him.” He says humorously. I scribble down that word by word, on my legal pad and missing words to thank him, as we shake hands firmly I say gently, “Thank you so much, man of God. You have done me so much good. God bless you big time.”
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