Letter to 18 yr old self!

 2022

Letter to 18 year old Hilda

Its 1992...you have just turned 18 in September and soon after sat for KCSE

Limuru Girls (Chox) has been good to you

You left Chox a more confident young lady than the bewildered one who entered the brown gates 4 years earlier from Mukumu

The future is not certain - but for some reason, you are not scared of it at all

Results come out and soon, you are off to Moi University

You settle in well in Moi and make great friends - but are extremely cautious because of the near horror stories that your sister gives from Maseno university. In your eyes, Trust No One!!

1998 rolls in and you graduate and go into the Big Big World...thrust into women's rights agenda unexpectedly and this defines who you become...a crusader for the rights of girls and women.

Some things you now know for sure

 - be kind to others...you don't know what people are going through

 - value friendships - make time for them

 - its never that serious

 - no matter what happens, the day has to end, and a new day starts 

 - celebrate the way you want and what matters to you :) 

and just like that its 2022 and you are seating here in Nairobi on a Wednesday evening with 9 friends from Chox

See God!

Onto another 30years....

In Fide Vade (In Faith We Go)

This day 30 years ago

So there was an internet craze that went round for the 10yearchallenge

and of course yours truly jumped on board and I must say i enjoyed seeing the various transformations that people have gone through in ten short years

then boom!

my sister who is a great reservoir of old photos sends me this pic of my highschool ID

I joined Form 1 on Feb 1 1989 - that's a whooping 30 years ago and I can remember the events of the day so well. Funny thing is that when i reminisce with former classmates on what we did in high school so many details are not clear in my mind, but my joining form 1 is crystal clear

We (my Dad & I) rocked into Limuru with those black London taxis...they were famous then...i think for KENATCO ....or something like that. Dont know if the taxi waited for my Dad  - probably. All i for sure that he was extremely proud of me joining this school and took me to school himself. Needless to say I think he came back only one other time to Limuru.....but I digress.

The admission process was smooth and I had with me all the items in the list as indicated, and I mean ALL, included a hockey stick and a squash racket!! all that cost an arm and a leg, and my dad could not hear of any logic of rationalising the list and getting only the most important...or essentials. The school looked very big and daunting...and I wondered for a brief moment whether I would fit it....we were finally shown to our rooms and I just loved the size....4 in one space...not like my primary where it was a proper dorm with over 50 children in one space. One roommate came from Turkana county, of course I had never interacted with anyone from that far off, and her stories of how dry the place was were quite interesting......sadly she left before we completed form 4 - sometimes I wonder what path her life took. The school 'houses' were named after rivers in Africa - I was assigned Zambezi ....interesting times ahead!

Thats how I began my secondary school journey...and endured the mostly chilly weather for another 4 years

Ahhh memories are made of this!!