Eric Lang’at: A tale of struggle and resilience for doctor-to-be
What you need to know:
- On December 5, 2014, Eric Lang’at will graduate and earn the prestigious title of a medical doctor from the University of Nairobi.
- He sat his KCPE examination for the first time in 1999 and managed to score 436 out of 700 marks.
- He had to repeat Standard Eight three times despite scoring good marks as his parents could not raise his high school fees.
- His parents had to struggle to raise as little as Sh500 for his fare from Bomet to Nairobi.
On December 5, 2014, Eric Lang’at will graduate and earn the prestigious title of a medical doctor from the School of Medicine at the University of Nairobi.
And come April 2015 after his attachment, Eric will be expected to get a full medical license to operate as a qualified doctor.
Due to this fact it is only normal that when you meet him you are met with a big smile, as he waits for his special day in December.
But behind this smiling face, the tale of Langat’s struggle and resilience towards attaining this medical degree is almost unbelievable.
First, he had to repeat primary school three times. Not that he had failed in his exams, but he had to wait for his parents to raise school fees for him to join high school.
He sat his KCPE examination for the first time in 1999 and managed to score 436 out of 700 marks.
He was not happy with his performance and decided to repeat Class 8 where he sat the exams once again a year later, and managed 536 marks out of 700 marks.
“This time I was happy but due to the financial situation at our home I couldn’t join high School,” he says.
The future seemed bleak for him and that was when he decided to go back again to Standard Eight, for the third time.
This time, he hoped to perform extremely well in order to join Starehe Boys’ Centre or secure a bursary.
“My teachers, and especially my headmistress, were not happy and kept insisting that I go back home and wait for my parents to raise the money for my high school education,” he explains.
That was not to be as in 2001 he once again did his KCPE exam.
Time managed to score 402 out of 500, a performance that secured him a place at Lenana School in Nairobi.
For the third time, lack of school fees threatened to shatter his dream, but this time round his parents were able to fundraise some money to pay for his first term school fees.
“After I completed that term I was able to secure a bursary,” he says.
TOUGH LIFE IN HIGH SCHOOL
However, this did not mean that high school life would be easy for him.
His parents had to struggle to raise as little as Sh500 for his fare from Bomet to Nairobi.
“Most of the time I had to beg for a ride from lorries transporting potatoes from Bomet to Nairobi where I would sleep at the back,” he says.
But as he puts it, high school life was fast and in 2005 he sat the KCSE and managed to score a B+, which again was not enough to take him directly to medical school.
At this point he was forced to do odd jobs at various tea companies in Kericho in order to save money to apply for the parallel degree programme. At the same time he was looking for a sponsor.
In June 2007 he got a sponsor courtesy of an American, Dr Steven Willing, a volunteer doctor at the Tenwek Mission Hospital in Bomet who pledged to cater for his financial needs while studying.
As they say, the rest is history.
It is now seven years now since Lang’at joined medical school and on December 5, 2014 he expects to graduate as a doctor, with his first attachment being at the same hospital where he got his break.
