On a hot afternoon one day about ten years ago, I and a few of my friends decided that we were going to do something that we had not done previously. ‘How about we all go for a HIV test guys?’ one of my friend quipped. ‘My mother says it’s a great thing to know one’s status and to learn to live with it and she will do it to us for free’ he added. The person in question was my childhood best friend Alex whose mother was a nurse at the mission hospital near home. The kind of looks he got from our other friends after uttering these statements said a lot about their fear of the HIV test. After some convincing however, we all mustered the courage to go and get some little counseling and the agonizing wait for the results.
After this experience, I have had very few other encounters with counselors. And indeed the counselors of the above nature. Not that I do not have problems and issues that I would like to see a counselor about, no. At times life has brought me challenges that have left me wondering how or whether I will live to see the next day. When I came to Daystar and was introduced to the student counselor during the orientation period, many questions kept creeping into my mind. ‘Why does anyone need to see a counselor?’.’What would my friends think of me if they saw me going to see a counselor?’.These and many others were questions that kept crossing my mind.
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| The writer during the interview with Ms.Irene |
When I check into the office of the new student counselor this Friday afternoon, I do not know that I will leave her office feeling more enlightened about counseling as well as feeling the need for sharing and pouring out my heart to confidants whenever I had an issue that I felt I could not handle. Hers is a simple office and humble office. No displays of awards and accolades that she has won all around for her good work but the welcome this lady gives you makes you feel at peace and relaxed. Very friendly and indeed welcoming are some of the adjectives that I would use to describe her. Ms. Irene Kimani is someone you would easily dismiss for a fellow student. Little will you at first guess that she has studied in Daystar through her undergraduate, worked in the Daystar Library, worked in Egerton University for 9 years and worked in Daystar as a counselor for four months. Her radiant and friendly smile as well as her smooth young face would make one be forgiven for taking her for a fellow student. I met Irene as I was doing a requisition for one of the Daystar student’s association’s events money. I at first did not know who exactly she was in the student’s development office. What struck me about her was her friendliness. ‘Many people think that I am young. I like to interact with people and I would attribute my working here today as a counselor to the kind of rapport that I have always sought with people’ she quips.
I got a call from a student the other day to the effect that the said student had been arrested on allegation of being drunk inside the school premises and thus needed my aid to get through the problem. I took my time to go and have a look at the situation and it did not matter the gibberish the student was speaking or the alcohol fumes that were emanating from his mouth, the student was completely convinced that he was not drunk. Left me wondering how the definition of drunkenness could change so easily. Many are the times that students have been caught engaging in issues such as that and many others that are against the code of conduct of the university. I ask Irene if she encounters students that need counseling and have issues such as addictions to drugs. ‘The worst cases that I have heard here involve addictions. The victims often have a hard time getting off the. It could be sex, drugs and so on’. I at times refer them to other peer counselors as well as the other student counselors in campus. Being a single lady herself, I ask how she has managed to evade the right person all this time to which she laughs back and says, ‘I have chosen that for now I need to live my life. When that right person is lucky enough to find me, I will oblige. For now though, I am single and being searched for’. We both burst out laughing at this.
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| The writer(right) poses for a photo after the interview with the counselor(left) |
She has counseled married people, couples and people recovering from broken marriages and relationships. I ask whether this poses a challenge to her especially since she is yet to get married to which she responds by saying that, ‘It is true. Often I get people fearing to come to me because they feel that I may not be able to help because I am not of a similar inclination in terms of relationships and marriage. In such cases I have referred them to the other student counselors in school’. Most of the cases I get here are a little on the less magnitude. Students come in with examination card problems but I try as much as I can to help them.’
The biggest challenge about the work that the student counselor does is that the people she expects should go to her for help chose not to. She tells me that the people she see need help are the very ones who do not ask for it and it is unfortunate that she does not know how to approach them and ask if she could counsel them. I ask my photographer, a fellow student and friend if he has had issues and what he thinks about the whole issue of visiting a counselor. ‘I can handle my own issues! I am a man!’He retorts. Irene points out that many men feel similarly and you would be surprised to see any going to her for counseling help.
I end my interview with this wonderful feeling that I ought to be meeting a counselor once in a while. I vowed to let my friend as well know how important it is to talk to a professional counselor whenever faced with issues and matters that they may not be able to handle by themselves. When next you feel weighed down, pass by this lady’s office. It does not take a leap of faith, just guts.
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