THE SERENDIPTY OF FORTITUDE By Hillary SOH Ojiambo ‘Problems should never make one feel ashamed.’ This is the motto that drives Elvinah Viroko, a third year student in the school of Education pursuing a degree in English. Her life is a constant reminder of how events can maliciously conspire to ultimately deliver a life of pain, bitterness and stress without any glimmer of empathy. “I am a first born in a family of four girls. The second born has finished four while the other two are in form one and class four respectively.” She begins in seemingly calm face lightened by a faint smile. The melancholy in her voice, as she recalls the poignant past, catches my attention. It is a past that only a few of us may have endured undauntedly. ”My parents divorced some years ago forced to move on with our mother. Initially we lived with our grandparents but in 2007 we moved to a rental house” she continues with her conversation amidst sighs and pauses. She joined Moi University in 2012 with only enough to afford her accommodation fees. From her second day in ‘the university with a difference’, she began doing odd jobs at stage; as a waitress at various hotels including Stage View Hotel and Peacock Hotel. She recalls washing clothes for her fellow students in Hostel J as her part time activity during her second semester in first year as a way of raising some cash both as school fees and pocket money. “In first year, I did not receive any HELB money. I had to depend on well-wishers and friends to support me. One day I went to the administration and after narrating ‘the story of my life’, one man gave me Ksh. 5000.” She recalls. It was also during the period that she was washing clothes for her fellow students at hostel J that she had an encounter with Miss Tanui, the current hostel manager. An encounter she will not be forgetting in the near future. “During my second semester in first year I was washing clothes for fellow students at a fee. For three consecutive days, the hostel manager had found me washing clothes at the same spot and thus she wondered why I washed every day. She empathized with me ,after narrating my ordeal episodes, and paid for my accommodation fees. She also gave me some money for meals and thus my second semester in first year was concluded.” In her first semester in second year, she applied for work study. In addition to further assistance from friends, she was able to narrowly make it through the short semester. For lack of financial support in her second semester of the second year, all her hopes of completing her university education were relinquished. She sought to defer her academics. It was then that she met Dr. Ayieko, the Deputy Dean of Students who advised her against deferring and instead gave her a meal card to cater for her lunch while in school for the entire semester. She was forced to depend on her meager HELB loan plus the support of friends to pay her fees.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:51:58 +0000
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