Growing up; i remember these guys who came to homes knocking door to door asking for coca cola company glass bottles. I would dash to the cupboard and pick two of the five bottles inside and pour the remaining paraffin into one of the remaining three…in exchange he would give me ten shillings for each of the bottles with which i would buy patco! Those were the days.
but this post isn’t about an old guy who has nothing better to do with his time than coerce young lads to pick bottles from inside the house for a small fee.”baba…ntakupatia ten bob ukiniletea chupa” and we kids weren’t as soft as young Turks today. we had chores for sure but no allowances. so that ten shilling coin he whispered into your ear as a promise was always a sweet nothing that beguilled you to the possibilities of being the big fish…the big kahuna during school break the next day. Nostalgia.
and those bottles. ever wondered how they felt? i mean if they were human that is. how much would it break them (no pun intended) if they realized that at any one point in time they were either as good as the soft drink inside them or the ten shilling coin that got whispered into some 5year old ear as a promise. what if they knew that their purpose will always be to be filled and emptied…tagged and bagged…named and renamed. on and on and on until for some reason they just break and are swept away like debris.
now imagine we have living breathing human beings who have lived lives far worse than such a bottle.imagine that unlike such a bottle, someone somewhere has been treated so badly that they doubt whether there are any humans with humanity in them. someone somewhere has been told that they were a mistake and should never have been born. that they are the result of a moments pleasure and should have lived only for a moment just like the pleasure they were a by product of.
i tell you this not because i have been through such a horrific experience. no. i tell you this because i know one who has. and you wouldn’t know.
she looks like a well sought after pearl. like the gold people in western go deep into the ground to get their hands on. she looks like the elixir of an exotic disease with only a single cure…her.
you see her smile and immediately she has your attention, not just because she is gorgeous or intelligent but because in that moment you realize that never again have you seen a more sincere curve of the human lips.
she has tasted the very bitter of herbs that life has had to offer. she has been making lemonade with life’s lemon since she could talk and the only reason her affection is sincere is because she is deep fellowship with God and she knows how bad rejection and pain can be so every time she has the chance she will always be positive and nudge you to the positive direction.
growing up she was told she would never amount to anything that she would be a failure of epic proportions. she was chased from places she had come to called home by those she called family one too many times. she was abused ridiculed and bullied.
now?
she wines and dines with the greatest among her peers. now she speaks for the disenfranchised because she understands what its like to be in the gutter with no hope for the living day lights of tomorrow
she is the incoming president of the Law Students Society of Kenya (L.S.S.K.)
Founder World Young Women Council(W.Y.W.C)
The Country Director MentorMe_Africa. She’s currently pursuing Law as a 3rd year Law Student at Strathmore Law School. She bears a strong passion for nurturing and mentoring Youth and Women Leaders and as a result has offered talks and facilitated training on leadership and mentor-ship in over 30 institutions in Kenya.
She has been featured on several media platforms including print and TV as an opinion shaper and inspirational youth leader in Kenya. This year, she was honored as Top 5 Under 25 Most Promising Young Women in Kenya.
it is her life experiences that have shaped her perspective of life and given her valuable nuggets of wisdom to share among her peers.
her name is Ruth Ambogo and she is not a cocacola bottle…she is a fine bottle of wine that has matured to well deserved God given Greatness. She graced our forum on Emotional Abuse and talked to us about her life story and how she was able to overcome all the emotional abuse that came her way over the entire span of her early childhoodlife all the way to campus. it was lit…we had fun…we were inspired…we grew.
anika254 