Turkana woman beats odds to excel with unique driving experience

Nabwin Lokorit. [PHOTO: PETER OCHIENG/STANDARD]

By MICHAEL OLLINGA

Turkana, Kenya: She outran six police officers as she dashed for dear freedom. Unfortunately, her escape route was through a playground and the children swarmed around her, making it easy for her chasers to ‘arrest’ her. Cornered, she meekly followed her captors not knowing what the future held for her.

Nabwin Lokorit was doing her normal errand of delivering milk to the office of the former Turkana Central MP Peter Ejore and was waiting for the payment when she overheard the legislator telling his security officers to arrest her and take down her name.

That was 25 years ago when 47-year-old Lokorit was ‘arrested’ and had her name included in a list of youths who were to join the National Youth Service (NYS) for training in Ruaraka, Nairobi County.

Born in Kanam, Turkana County, Lokorit never attended school just like many other children during that era. Therefore, she had no formal education and her work was to sell milk and fetch firewood as well as water besides other daily domestic chores.

But that day’s ‘arrest’ changed her life completely.

Passion for driving

When we meet her, Lekoriot is in control of a Land Cruiser driving a group of philanthropists to donate food to Kapua location residents.

Only the second Turkana woman driver in the community, Lokorit has stamped her authority in the community’s history.

“I started NYS training in Ruaraka where we were exposed to multiple courses though I developed a passion for driving. I liked the idea of making a car move with just hands and feet,” she says, adding: “I neither knew to write nor read but I intensively comprehended what the driving instructor taught us during theory classes. My mind kept everything, like a magnet,” she says with a wry smile.

Once her instructor was confident with Lokorit’s skills after training, she was released to start work in 1991. For ten years, she drove in Ruaraka and Mavoloni. She mastered the city’s street names without necessarily reading.

“Once I knew a street name, I put it in memory and it stuck there like glue,” she says.

During this time, she was exposed to other vehicle models like the Land Cruiser, which she currently drives, Land Rovers, pick-ups and trucks. Her first job was with the Turkana Women Conference group, with whom she worked for ten years and got regional exposure.

“I drove for the women’s group until 2001 when the organisation collapsed rendering me jobless. During that time, I traversed the East African region going to places like Kampala and Namanga,” she adds. Her joblessness went on for years before lady lucky smiled more than a decade later.

Last year, she was employed by the county government of Turkana after beating 141 other applicants.