SUMMOUNTING NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES
I took these photos back in 2008 in Vanga, when I was a student at Kenyatta University.
In 2009, just after graduating was lucky to be shortlisted for an interview by EAPHLN ( east African public health laboratory networks), so that time I was jobless and had little savings from a Sukuma wiki farm I was looking after. So I hopped on the first bus out of Meru and after 12 hours landed in Malindi. The next day I reported to the Malindi District Hospital ready to kill the interview. They called me into the room, walked in with a three-piece suit I had borrowed. The heat was too much; I was sweating like a pig, but I had to appear well dressed to get more points.
The room had five top scientists who looked like they've never smiled in their lives. One had a foreign accent that flew over my head......long story short, I failed the interview flat. I was not prepared at all, I never knew how to tackle questions like " tell us about yourself ", I told them of my tribe's history which isn't what is required, I was asked a tricky question like " tell us why we shouldn't employ you", that question delivered a K.O, I kept mum and never answered it-they were apparently flabbergasted, they were not impressed, I was a greenhorn to some technical questions-these guys had PhDs and Post Docs plus 30 years experience in that shit, it was their shit.
In ten minutes the interview was over. My dream of working at EAPHLN was just that- a lofty dream. I had now to catch a bus to Meru; the problem is that money had run out could either eat and sleep like a sultan but then trek to Meru from Malindi like my ancestors did in the 15th century..so I slept in a cave by the Indian Ocean.. camping it was; I met good fishermen who hosted me for the night in their cave, they even offered me food and we chatted the night away. In the morning I hopped on a bus to Mombasa then to Meru. I arrived home tired, hungry and with a broken spirit back to sukumas..but in 2010 I dodged bullets in Somalia with USAID, that is a story for another day. When I hear young men committing suicide over trivial shit, I feel like slapping them. Life is like an ECG: it has its ups and downs, man up, take the Leopard by its yellow/orange scrotum!.
"Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience."~Mark Manson
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