I was the Miss U.O.N 2009  1st runners up….AHEM! I wrote this piece a while back, last year, kept it to myself, now i wanna share it…….

Exactly a week before the Mr & Miss U.o.N pageant, all the contestants including me traveled to Murang’a Kandara. We went there for a charitable event, lets just say that by the time we left that village, we had treated over 250 kids and old folks with jiggers too.

To be honest, I wondered to myself what I was doing in Murang’a, I kept on hoping time would pass so I would go back to Nairobi after all, I was scheduled to have a girl’s crazy night out with Wanjeri and the rest. The soil was red, it was dusty, not my kind of thing! So the doctor showed us the 3 ways of how to wash the jigger infested legs with medicine, gloves on and kazi ikaendelea! My attitude was let’s get this over and done.

I want to think that i am a strong person so I didn’t even think of crying… I washed and medicated a couple of kids feet/legs like 10 kids until my eyes caught this little boy….
So I took him to clean his feet, something inside me drew me close to that kid to date I don’t know what it was. As I started washing his legs, I realized that he had the worst of jiggers compared to the other children. His case was a bit severe. As it caught my attention, I asked him if he had ever wore shoes and he said well, yeah until they got worn out. Then I asked him where his mother was, he said she died and that the dad ran away so now he lives with the cucu. I heard the desperation in his voice, the hope that he would have wished things had turned out differently.. the regret, the loss of hope, somewhat apathetic.

At that particular moment, something gripped my heart like a vein went loose and it really hurt. Tears started coming down my eyes and I kept on telling myself, “fuck what the hell?”  These kids were not supposed to see a “role model” crying, you know someone they perceive as well off & all. Someone who is supposed to give them hope. It was bad because I couldn’t wipe the tears, as I was wearing the gloves. So I just saw my tears falling in the water basin the boy’s feet were in. My tears 1 by 1 ……

When I looked up, the baby boy was also crying! And I thought to myself what did I do? Why is he crying? Was it because I asked him about his parents or because he saw me cry? What do u think? I don’t know, i didn’t know then. So I told him to stop crying but he just couldn’t, tears were rolling down his cheeks like a river! Quite a moment as we were both crying. When I was done, with crying and the washing I didn’t care I removed the gloves and wiped the tears from his eyes.

I took him away, we went to some corner to bond. Then I interrogated him, police station style 🙂  He told me where he lived, among other things that he was in class 3 and 10 years old. I felt so weak/ bad because I couldn’t help him. At that particular moment I only had 100 bob (was a popper that day) and don’t forget I needed 50 bob to javv back home from town so I told him we could only split my 100 bob. I asked him wat he would do with his 50 bob and he said he would buy a mandazi, because he always gets hungry. Then I asked him to buy 1 mandazi per day for the next 5 days cz he said mandazi was 10 bob. So we became friends and we was chilling,  then suddenly he tapped me and told me in kikuyu, “ne wega” (thanx) BTW I hear and speak Kikuyu. Then I said “hatire na oru” (don’t mention it) then we was back to chilling …..

Then I realised shucks!! Hadn’t asked the kid his name, he said he was Joseph Ndungu’, and my heart skipped a beat!! And I asked him his surname, Njoroge, i got dumb folded….SHOCK.

What were the chances that I had gotten into a pageant randomly, went to Murang’a for charity, I even didn’t wanna be there, washed so many kids feet and not even looked at their faces leave alone asking them their names, but the little boy who touched my heart & made me cry shared a name with one of my closest friends, my homeboy who lives right across our house, we call him Ndocha but his real name is Joseph Ndung’u Njoroge, just like the little boys’. Identical!!

It then dawned to me, that things normally don’t just happen for no reason. The same way we don’t just meet people for no purpose but everything is written!!

At that same moment I saw my friend in another life. That would have been my friend, if he was born in an unfortunate world. Same to the little boy, if he was fortunate he would have been my neighbour today. I saw the same person in two different lives. Am sorry but am like that, that critical.

I was so freaked out, when I left that boy he ran out of my sight and I never saw him again…..

That night when I came back home, I showered and blackout on the couch thinking about that boy. When I woke up and decided to go to bed, I prayed for that kid. Then I got into bed but I couldn’t sleep!! All I could see were flashes of his crying face, haunting me for almost 40 minutes and I asked God wsup ??

That day I gave birth to a new ambition, that one day I will go back to Murang’a and find Ndun’gu and take him, adopt him. (SOMEHOW) He was in class 3 then, now 4. I have exactly 4years to go.. If I can’t adopt him, i gotta be realistic too, at least I can go get his contacts so one day I can check up on his life and may be one day I can be able to decipher why God made me travel all that way just to meet my friend in another life..

May be I am a dreamer, so help me GOD.