From eating ‘mukombero’ to hotel manager

Michael Madaga during interview with Standard, being an orphan he struggled with life and he's financially stable. PHOTO: BENJAMIN SAKWA

When my father Hezron Madaga died in 1989, I was only two-years-old. His death condemned our family to hard life. My eldest brother, who was in Form Two then, dropped out of school due to lack of fees. My mother became sickly, complicating matters for our young family. Three of my elder sisters, trying to escape the hard life at home, eloped in their late teens.

We lived one day at a time and there seemed to be no way to fill the gap left by my father, who was the family’s sole breadwinner, having worked as a messenger at Kaimosi Teachers Training College.