Michael's Story:
This is my story from birth.
I was born January 18th in the year 1995 when the former president Moi was in power. My mother says that my birth was different from the others she underwent when giving birth to my brother and sister. My mother says it was different because I spent eleven months of pregnancy before giving birth.
She was rushed to a small clinic where the doctors there claimed they could not operate on her so she had to be rushed to a national hospital. On reaching the national hospital the doctors claimed that my mum had to go a surgery for me to survive since I had not taken the right position because my legs were the ones to come out first.
I was given four names (Michael Teddy Ochara Bahati) but I only use the first three. I was named Bahati because I was lucky to have survived the operation. Bahati is a Kiswahili word which means lucky or blessed.
After my birth my mother added only one more child who is my younger sister. That makes us three including my elder brother. We went to live in Kisumu from Nairobi. I started my schooling when I was four years old. At the age of seven I joined a primary school. I took 8 years to finish primary school and join high school. Currently I am in my second year of my high school course.
My dad passed away when I was in Class Three. On reaching Class Six we went to stay in Nairobi where we live now. On reaching Nairobi my mom had a job which lasted only for three months. Then she got kicked out because of HIV stigma. Being a strong woman she did not give up and continued struggling to keep life going. It even reached a time where she went to carry water in a construction site in order to get something on the table. Each day life was getting harder and harder so me and my sister would carry school lunch food back home for supper.
Life started getting better and better since now we could get help from Ngong Road Children Association. Being sponsored my mother saw a dream of us getting a better life in future. This made her to work very hard. Through my mother’s hard work we moved from a single roomed house to at least a house with a small bathroom, kitchen and a bedroom.
Academically I was a poor student because when I was young a doctor commented that I was abnormal because of the long time I spent in my mother’s womb . I proved them wrong after I got sponsored by becoming one of the best students academically.
Michael
