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Biographical recollections and sketches from Nick Kipkorir My parents treated me in a sly manner. I didn't have freedom as a member in my family - I was treated as a house boy - sometimes in a beastly way. My education was the most problematic part of my life. I was in and out of school until I forgot how it felt to be in school for one uninterrupted month. First it was the school fees, next the uniform, then the need for notebooks and pens. I was quite different from the smartly dressed kids of the Siani Primary School. I wore torn and tattered uniforms, sometimes I went without shoes.
How could I when innumerable domestic chores awaited me at home after school? It came to a point that I thought I came from a family of donkeys as I was working so much. By the time I completed the chores it was always close to midnight. I would get into sacks that passed for bedding and fall fast asleep out of tiredness. Sleeping on the ground with some small chiggers crawling on me the whole night - scratching as if I was paid. What a kind of life! Rats were another problem to me. They used to wake me up at night, sometimes I spent the whole night as a watchman trying to kill them.
Teachers mistook my failure to do homework for rude behavior. The subsequent beatings and other forms of punishment followed suit with a vengeance. These sufferings were eating my soul away. Some holidays were nothing but torture for me. I spent the days working in the garden like a laborer. Many times I wished I was dead rather than bear the sufferings. To this day parental love has been so elusive that I do not know what it means. I often wondered if there was anybody in this world who really loved and cared for me. I was made to believe that I was worthless, unwanted, and above all useless. I hated and despised myself for what I was. I often cursed my mother for having brought me into this world to be what I was. I envied my friends whose live's appeared problem free. How I often wished I was born in their families to be like them.
Sometimes I would stay outside my small house trying to fight my brain. Things were going up and down. One day was like a month and I even started thinking of being a terrorist gunster and many other evil things. But now life is changing.
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Life
Growing Up in the Slums 
I would pin
papers together and use them as my exercise books. Many times I was
given corporal punishment for failing to do my homework.
In
1998 I finished my primary school (junior high). My results came
back but my parents were not able
to educate me. Oh my God, what kind of life did I prepare to meet?
By then I was forced to drop out of school because of fees. This condemned
me to totally slavery at home. Life became so difficult that I attempted
to kill myself. With time I realized that my life was very precious.
No matter what type of hardships I was going through - suicide was
not an option.
I resolved to
let God's will be done no matter what I was undergoing. 1999 was a
year I'll never forget in my life. It is the year I experienced the
roughness of the world. It is the year I tried all sorts of things
to survive.