How Hope took me to America

I have this little saying taped on the book shelf near my computer that says " while its hard to beat a person who never gives up, every adversity has an equal or greater benefit." I have incorporated it into my belief system and constantly quote it to my audience, students, friends and family. At first, upon hearing this statement one might be inclined to ask for further clarification. And that’s why I think I am up to something.


It would seem that adversity is anything but our teacher or liberator. If anything it would appear that adversity is a grand foe that we must devote our every strength and effort to defeat. Although this might seem to be the case, such is not the case at all. This I have learned after many years of struggle and growing up with little resources in Kenya. I have learned that often things are not at all as they appear to be and what turns out to be adversity and hardship can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.


You would not know me and where I am coming from until I give you a small sneak peek into what my journey has been like and why it changed me forever. My childhood? Well, let’s just say that every memory is a subjective vision of the past. Most people who have a background as dramatic as mine recall their childhood with a nostalgic blend of joy, fun, pains and regret, almost a paradox. I recall my childhood with pleasure balanced with pain. I grew up both in the deep gutter slums of west Nairobi and also in the rolling hills of a rural village in central Kenya.

I have to admit that one may be tempted to begin a story about growing up in Kenya by painting out lions, elephants, cheetahs and gazelles in our backyards as my American friends often assume; or perhaps the beautiful tropical equatorial weather that I think about when my car freezes in the cold New England biting winter. But all these does not begin to describe where I grew up, why I chose to write about it or why I have been changed for ever.
I remember growing up happy, sometimes scared, often uncertain, mostly hungry, cold at night, sometimes playful, sometimes hopeful depending on the year, but generally in a neighborhood and home punctuated with mental, physical, emotional hang ups, struggles against hunger, school fees nightmares and many days away from school for various reasons, the nomadic moving periodically between rural home and city slums, occasional tribal strives, and most of all the physical burdens of working in the coffee and flower farms to help with the groceries at a tender age of 10 years or perhaps rummaging through dust bins for scrubs while we lived in a Nairobi slum.
Now, I am sure someone would ask how there can be a gift or a blessing in having to endure such a childhood. You may wonder how suffering and hunger pangs, and an absent father can be a strength builder ? Believe me, I asked that question many times when I was a child and when I reached maturity as an adult, I changed my mind and began hugging adversity with open love, seeking, asking questions and probing why I am in those situations with an open third eye.

The answers to those questions surprisingly have opened my eyes into my life’s mission and purpose. I learned that there were many blessings in store for me as a result of the adversity I endured at home. Adversity wound up becoming one of my highly regarded teachers and ultimately my liberator. Adversity taught me not to fear. Not to be timid. To knock doors armed with the boldness of youth and the innocence of a child. And I did.


What adversity did was open me up to an entirely different world where things are not as they appear on the outer surface. It opened me up to the inner world where I contacted my spirit, my own deeper self. It’s almost like there are these many invisible beings and guides who function as guides to become my companions and helpers. Soon you will see why as I share more stories with you.

The thing I have learned is that truly when we align ourselves with what is happening to us despite the chaos and extreme situations, we set into motion energies which move outside of us into the world , then bends right there for us to partake. We are able to get in contact with people, circumstances and situations that are in alignment with what we wish to create and to manifest. Magic and miracles happen when we adjust our thinking. I was long unaware of the magical universal laws or better still the laws of the universe that seem to holographic ally play games on me. Due to the adversity at home I turned within me at a very young age reaching deeper and deeper seeking inner spiritual resources and solutions to the terrible life that I was living. I happen to be quite vocal and talkative, and I did not know that is the same thing of wanting to talk that brought my angels to me. It’s like working with creative visualization and imagination without even being aware. The awe of a child that could not stop talking and that became a crucial factor as to why I found my way to scholarships throughout my education.
For along time I had prayed to God and the angels everyday to give me an education. To let it happen that I get delivered away from the rural dull life. I hoped that I would never have to live in a Nairobi slum in my adult life nor neither get married in a rural village where life is about hauling water, and surviving hunger pangs. For most young girls and women, these is usually the most prospect in life. I hoped for the universe to open it’s heavens and offer me a place in a college so this cyclical curse wont apply to me. I hoped. I faithfully hoped. This was my wish list without the slightest idea of where to gather a fairy to make my wish come true. I had an inner knowing from a young age that higher education was to be a part of my life plan and I was willing to do whatever it took to achieve that goal. This is not to say that I just sat back and lived in a dream world and prayed! prayed,!. Prayed ! all day for the magic and miracles to come my way. No, that’s not what I did. In fact, wait until I tell you what it meant and took to study for a Kenyan exam just so you can get a spot at some state college. For those of you from Kenya or East Africans in general, remember the monstrous end of high school KCSE exams that simply determined your future fate? It was almost like once fate was sealed by a single damn exam. Remember? Everyone in the family had a stake in the results. The pressure was enormous. However, I did quite well and secured an admission to a state university in Nairobi Kenya; Kenyatta University, later graduating with an honors B.A in Creative writing & Linguistics, English Literature & Sociology. My dream education did not end with that degree certificate. I wanted to travel to America for a higher degree and pursue my American dream.
The year now is 1998. The magical believe in self and bold alignment to the universe is about to be revealed to me. At hand, is an admission letter to the Joseph Korbel School of International studies, at the University of Denver, Colorado. A school that is my very own beloved alma mater. The tuition? Very high! And do I have a penny towards the tuition? Nope! Am I convinced that I will be a graduate at the University of Denver? Yes? How? I don’t know how at this point either.









But first things first, I needed a travel visa, money for an air ticket and at least little money for food and accommodation albeit for one month. At this point I was working as a Marketing Manager at a cosmetics manufacturing company in Nairobi, my first corporate job besides working in the farms picking coffee berries and flowers. Besides supporting my family and myself in my new life in Nairobi, I had managed to save some money enough for the air ticket and a balance change of 500 dollars to my name. I thought that if I can get the travel visa approved, that’s all I needed to begin my journey to the United States of America.









But things are not that easy even though nothing could stand between me and my American dream in my mind. I got my travel visa and soon contacted the university of Denver prior to traveling and requested that they find me a host family to live with for the one month before school began. It’s now 5th August 1998 and school was opening in the following month, September for the fall semester. Now I have this letter in my hands….I have a student travel visa…and a temporally place to live for a month before school opens. Rent for the month was 400 dollars! I have 500 dollars in my pocket and not a penny for tuition. See the picture?









I have a fond memory of getting onto a Lufthansa air-craft from Nairobi headed to the United States of America on August 12, 1998. In my pocket was a folded stash of American dollars that counted up to 500 dollars. This was enough rent of 400 dollars payable to my host family, leaving me with 100 dollars for whatever immediate needs. I thought it was enough. At least for now. Yes, enough.









And just like that, soon it was 11pm in Nairobi. Time to board and take off. I bid a tearful good-bye to an “entourage” of family, friends and whole bunch of villagers who had hired a bus to take me to the airport! Yes, a bus people! I get goose bumps thinking about that night as the emotional streaks of energy that rushed through my entire body left an indelible impression, the sounds, smells, textures of things at the airport all looked strange, the teary eyes of my mother and the softened looks in my siblings eyes spoke a language I couldn’t fathom. But it was a language of hope and faith in better things ahead. The awe and amazement written all over the faces of those villagers?, wow! And this is including some of them that have never been to Nairobi city before let alone the airport, all became the fuel that pumped my boldness. I had to go. I had to represent some hope for all that loved me and wanted me to bring back to my village education from “ruraya rua America” (my native language for over-seas in America). And just like that, I was about to leave my country to a foreign country with little money in my pocket, a light suitcase and a lofty dream and yet I felt bold enough and determined that it was the right thing to do.









Now, I am on my way to the United States of America via Frankfurt, Germany. It sounded quite nice. Quite great. Quite hopeful I should say. I looked through the glass oval windows of the aircraft and Nairobi was fast disappearing behind me and I could see the flickering city lights get dimmer and dimmer as we fast climbed higher and higher into the skies. My eyes swelled with tears as I huddled myself together on a window seat, 17F. Never had I been on an aircraft before. It was fascinating looking down at the tiny lights that marked the city boundaries. I looked down amidst the darkness and wondered whether I could spot the Kibagare slums, nestled chaotically between Nairobi high school and the relatively wealthy Nairobi Loresho neighborhood. I could not see anything; besides my eyes had swelled with tears that I was fighting with a white handkerchief that my grandmother gave me for good luck. LOL! It felt like a symbolic flight escape to wonder land despite the fear of what will become of me in America.









Well, 18 hours on the friendly skies and boom we landed. The deep voice that boomed across the intercom at the Denver International airport announcing “welcome to the United States of America”! indeed felt surreal. The smells, the sounds, the helter skelter movement of travelers and their luggage scattered all over the airport was a spectacle to behold. Taking a deep breath and smiling with a nervous goofy grin, I felt good to be standing on the American soil. I am now in America. Wooooo! Hoooo! But……..









I knew nobody. I had no friends. I had no family to meet me at Denver International airport. Armed with light suitcase that I love to remember as my light luggage carrying a lofty dream; inside was a few pants, couple blouses and three pairs of open toes shoes, my family album, school certificates, and with me a soft well spoken personality, articulate, eloquent grammar punctuated with quite a heavy accent that announced boldly no matter what… I am a foreigner! I am a foreigner! Can you at least understand my manner of articulation? Well, my kind of accent? But that was the least of my problems at this time. Tune in and follow me on the next postings to see what happened..