After undergoing the excruciating pain of forced circumcision last year, Esther Murguyia and Josephine Kuriain were lucky to go back to school at Olesirwa Primary in Naroosura, Narok County, having also vehemently resisted plans to be married off.

The two, both 14, who were among thousands of students who sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination this year scored 249 marks each.

However, immediately after sitting the exams, their parents, without their consent, took their bride price. This only meant one thing; that they were just days away before becoming wives.

As several others anticipated the examination results over this holiday and the possibility of joining secondary school, the two girls wished the day would never come because they had been told that immediately after the release of the examination results, their husbands would come for them.

The girls revealed they had occasionally seen their would-be husbands but had never talked with them. "The man they had planned to marry me off to was a 42-year-old man with a wife and children, some of them older than me. I was told by my mother that he had paid Sh30, 000 and was to clear the balance on the day he planned to come for me," said Kuriain. She said she got confused upon receiving the news and did know where to find help.

"I rued the day the results were to be released. Indeed, the fear of being married off at an early age and to a man who was not my choice increased with each passing day. This was the worst school holiday ever for me," said Kuriain.

 BECOME A NURSE

Though not aware how many cows or how much money her would-be husband had paid, Murguyia said she was not ready to be a wife and all she wanted was to finish school and become a nurse. The thought of an early marriage ruining her dream was making her sick each day.

"I talked with my friends about the planned marriage and it was then that I heard of Kuriain's plight. I reasoned that we could try and combine forces in looking for help," she said. After several attempts, they found the number of one of their friends who had earlier been rescued and was in a secondary school in Nairobi.

"When we shared our plight with her, she sympathised with us and told us she would pass the message to those who had rescued her. We went back home hoping that someone would help us," said Murguyia, when we met her at Naroosura African Inland Church.

When the information reached Light of Life Organisation Executive Director Evelyn Timado, she swung into action without arousing the attention of the girls' parents.

"When I talked to the two girls and heard of their determination to continue with education, I initiated plans to rescue them. I realised that their dreams were almost being nipped in the bud," said Ms Timado who hinted that the girls will be taken to a boarding school.

"I began searching for a sponsor for them and the good news is that they have not only found a sponsor who will see them through secondary but even up to the university," said Timado.