Samson, the emerging leader

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He bulldozes his worn-out motorcycle through the deceitful puddles, determined to make it to Nairobi without being hit by a stray elephant, attacked by a lion’s pride or taken down by a pack of hungry hyenas. The rain pellets his forehead, his tired thighs, his soaked feet, but he can’t stop or he’ll die. His speed is close to 100 km. per hour and the headlights must be on the bright setting at all times for the same reasons.  He occasionally jerks his hand to his glasses, forcing his index fingers to act as windshield wipers, in the attempt to sidestep the treacherous holes and not tumble to the ground, as it happened not too long ago.

It is 3:00 AM on a Friday morning. Samson, after a 14 hour-day workweek, commutes to Nairobi to attend the weekend college that Africa Hope Alliance funded, leaving behind his exhausted mother, his disabled, blind father and his four brothers and three sisters in a mud-hut the size of a modern American kitchen in the Southern part of the Maasai land. It is only Samson’s sheer determination and strenuous work that keeps the members of his family alive. He shares his daytime between tending to few goats and the one cow they own, and as a public health officer for the Kenyan’s government, his long-held ambitions to help his country raise from poverty the tie to this profession.

He bounces off his motorcycle every time he hits a hole.

“I am not going to make it. God please help me,” he whispers to himself. Perhaps as an answer to his prayers, his mind travels back to when he became a Maasai warrior, the hot, twisted iron branding his adolescent face, a ritual to become part of a distinguished and enduring group of young men.

“If I survived that,” he thinks, “I can survive anything.”

And on he goes, knowing that, after killing a lion alone with a meager spear and spending days and nights in the Savannah alone, vulnerable to the aggression of wild beasts, facing a few pot holes and incessant rain is truly nothing.

Africa Hope Alliance funded Samson’s education because it believes in this young man who hands his $175+ monthly stipend entirely to his family, and especially to his 11 year old sister's education so that she is not circumcised and immediately forced into early marriage with a man several years older than her, as it is often the case in their village.  He sacrifices his sleep, his free time, his entire life to lift them and his country out of poverty through the education that AHA is financially supporting so that he may better himself, his family and ultimately his community and country.

“Mum,” he sometimes cries to us. “I can’t take it anymore. There is too much suffering,”

“We know Samson,” we reassure him, “it’s hard, but you have to keep on going.”

Off he speeds along the muddy, dirty road, making it just in time for the first class on Friday morning, tired, hungry and covered in sod. He will spend the whole weekend studying, attending lectures and doing homework, then resume his day-time jobs after another seven long, grueling hours on the road.

“Will it be different one day mum?” he calls to us.

“Yes, it will,” we reply.

And it will. One day. For sure.