From beach boy to dental assistant

Dr Martin Kim from Vancouver, Canada, operates on a patient, with Mbwana’s assistance, during the dental camp. (PHOTO: MOSE SAMMY/ STANDARD)

My father abandoned his family and took another wife when I was eleven years old and left my unemployed mother to care for me and four of my siblings. That experience shaped the whole of my teenage life.

I watched as my mother struggled to provide for the five of us, moving from one odd job to another to feed and clothe us and make sure we had an education.

Being the eldest of my siblings, and the only son, I felt it was my responsibility to ensure that my mother did not go through so much stress just to keep us in school.

My sisters and I were constantly away from school having been sent home for fees and for having the wrong uniform because ours were tattered and patched until they lost their original colour.

As a result, I found that for every day I went to school I felt the weight of the burden my mother carried transfer to me. I felt my education was the reason she struggled to eke a living and I therefore, opted to drop out of school and help her supplement the family income.

I was in class seven when I decided I had better prospects being a beach boy at Likoni Shell beach which was close to where we lived.

Growing up I was drawn to the allure of the beach, granted, I did not have much to look up to due to the absence of a father figure but the boys on the beach seemed liberated and free.

I worked as a beach boy along the beach, teaching tourists how to swim, renting out tyre tube floaters and occasionally when an opportunity presented itself I cleaned the sea water and arranged chairs in hotels.

As a beach boy, I came face to face with drug peddlers and tourists who often demanded more than a tour from us. I did this for two years before my talent in football redeemed me.

My break came through a friend, whom we played football with at the beach. He joined a club that was started at a nearby sports club and invited me to join him for practice.

I was however, not allowed to join as it was strictly for school going children. Undeterred, I pleaded my case with the proprietor, Simon Kibe who empathised with me and said he would sponsor my education if I was willing to go back to school.

I was open to this idea because it did not involve burdening my mother with school fees demands. I therefore willingly re-joined class seven and sat for my KCPE in 2011 where I only managed a measly 275 marks.

Ordinarily, such marks would not secure me a good secondary school but my benefactor, convinced of the potential he saw in me, made it his business to find me a school and eventually secured admission to Barding High School in Siaya.

To say I was determined to redeem my mother and siblings would be an understatement. I pegged my success on either making it as an international footballer or excelling in my studies.

Because lady luck did not shine her light on my sisters the way she did on me, I took it upon myself to study as hard as I could and give them the life they deserved.

I sat for my KCSE exams in October 2015 and when the results were posted, I had scored an A minus. I was elated.

I immediately joined my benefactor’s organisation, Volunteers of Goodwill, and started working as an untrained teacher in primary schools across Soweto’s slums.

I am happy volunteering because I can relate to the poverty found in the communities we serve because I was in that kind of poverty.

In the course of my activities, I got picked by a Canadian couple, that conducts dental camps across the country, to work with them as their dental assistant.

Working with them, I have discovered that my real passion lies in being a champion for dental health and I now hope to, with my good grades at KCSE, pursue a career in dental surgery.

When my father left, all hope for the future appeared lost but today, thanks to the help I have received from others, I can see the possibility of better days ahead. I still do not know how I will get to pursue my dream course but I believe there is a way.