Poverty pushes A plain boy to Jua Kali sector

As he steps into the dusty Jua Kali garage to start his day, 22-year-old Moses Odour is like many of the artisans streaming into the open premises that specialises in panel beating and spray painting.

Clad in a tattered grey dust coat splattered with paint and grease, a grey t-shirt, a beige trouser and a pair of plastic sandals, Mr Oduor looks disturbed and in deep thought when the Sunday Nation team visits.

He is carrying a black bag. This is not an ordinary tool bag. The bag carries his hopes as it contains vital academic documents that put him in a class of his own.

The bag contains documents that separates him from the ordinary artisans at this dusty Jua Kali garage at Kabazi trading centre in Subukia constituency, Nakuru County.

The soft spoken Oduor, who hails from Anduro village in Alego Usonga constituency, Siaya County, is not your ordinary school dropout trying to eke out a living as a Jua Kali artisan.

BRILLIANCE

It is when he opens his bag and displays his certificates with his oily hands that one is left speechless by his sterling performance in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.

Mr Oduor sat for his KCSE exams at Sawagongo High School in Siaya County in 2015 and scored a mean grade of A plain with an impressive 81 points.

He was among the 18 out of 257 students from their school who scored A plain that year.

He scored straight As in mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, history and government and geography.

He also managed to get an A minus in Kiswahili and a B plus in English.

ORPHAN

His bag also contains his school leaving certificate, two death certificates of his parents, his birth certificate and an introduction letter from assistant chief Joseph Aloo of Nyandiwa sub-location, confirming that he is indeed an orphan who desperately needs help.

“Many people who are shocked when they see my sterling results wonder where my parents are. When I tell them I am an orphan they still don’t believe it, that is why I carry the death certificates to painfully prove my status,” Mr Oduor explains.

A former MCA, Mr Joseph Mwangi Waithaka, said, “I was shocked that such brilliant brains are rotting in a Jua Kali garage. The government should not allow such a bright boy to suffer."

Mr Waithaka learnt of his plight when he took his vehicle for repairs at the garage.

Mr Oduor says his father died in 2007 while he was in Standard Four while his mother died two years later. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Ms Monica Achieng’.

HOPE

He adds: “Many who come to this garage sympathise with me and photocopy the documents and take my telephone contacts with a promise of helping me realise my dreams of pursuing a course in aviation, but unfortunately that has not changed since I came to this garage in June last year.”

He ekes out a living earning between Sh50 and Sh200 per day scrubbing vehicles that need a fresh coat of paint as his dreams remain unfulfilled.

“I was admitted to Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology to study medicine and surgery, but my poor grandmother was unable to raise tuition fees and other overhead costs as her chang’aa brewing business was a daily hide-and-seek affair with police officers who raided her homestead,” he said.

As his hopes of joining university diminished by the day, he rekindled his childhood memories of pursuing aviation and this saw him write dozen applications to various aviation schools in Kenya and abroad, foundations such as Jomo Kenyatta Foundation and Kalonzo Musyoka Foundation among others, but ended up receiving regrets.

“The foundations I wrote to said they don’t sponsor post-secondary schools students.”

ROLE MODEL

However, this has not dampened his hopes and spirit of one day doing becoming a pilot.

"I love aviation. While growing up I admired Captain Luke Oyugi who was our neighbour. I felt happy when he landed a helicopter at the village and I vowed that when I grow up, I would like to be like him. He was my role model,” he recalls.

Captain Oyugi died on June 10, 2012 in a helicopter crash together with six government officials who included then-Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and Assistant Minister Orwa Ojode.

His disturbing experience and continuous languishing in abject poverty is daily trapping him into more poverty and he fears depression is slowly setting in.

“It pains me when I know my colleagues who cleared KCSE in 2015 are now doing their final year at the university yet I have no hope,” he explains as he wipes a tear with his greasy dusty coat.

Even performing additional odd jobs like washing cars at the garage, many are a time when he sleeps on empty stomach.

“If I get support, I am ready to go back to school and study hard to become a pilot. I promise any well-wisher that I will not let them down,” he says.

Mr Crispinos Owino, who owns the garage, describes Mr Oduor as hardworking.