Nothing you have been through is wasted.
Years ago, I got a scholarship for a Master’s degree programme abroad. Excited, I wanted nothing more than to have my family join me in seeking the golden fleece of knowledge. Well, everything seemed alright except for one thing. I was pretty confident that our visas would be approved that I had spent a substantial amount of the scholarship money to buy plane tickets, book a hotel, pay for medicals and visa fees. I literally held nothing back in spending. After two weeks, I got the email that the application has been processed. Eager, I dashed to collect the ‘package’. Then, I opened the ‘bulky’ file and mine was approved but there were so many other white papers. Their visa had been refused. Right there, I slumped and shed an avalanche of tears. It was only but a simple error in filling the forms. A very simple one!
I applied yet again explaining the error and once again refused. Then I went to the lawyers and filed my case twice yet again refused. No cogent reasons given. By now, the hotel had debited, flight tickets were non-refundable, multiple visa fees gone and the lawyers had been paid. In disbelief, I realized I had spent more than 75 percent of the scholarship money.
In painful tears, I departed for studies and to my dismay, the 25 percent left was no match for exchange rates when converted. After settling in and three months abroad house rent, all the scholarship money had gone. So here I was, distanced from family with books to read, essays to write and of course no scholarship money left. Naturally, I was dispirited, disconsolate and disheartened.
Then my survival instincts kicked in. I had survived unemployment, survived a take home salary that never took me home. I had survived travelling several long distances to 31 states in search of ‘daily bread’ no matter how much was paid. I had survived disappointment, sense of failure, depression and ‘poverty’ and then I realized I had been through ‘this kind of road’ before and if I could survive all those harrowing experiences, I would not succumb to this. I said to myself, ‘I have seen 99 what is 100?
Determined, I put ‘fine boy’ aside and got to work. By day, I was a factory worker, plate washer, sandwich maker and customer service agent. At night, a care giver, bar tender and support worker. On Saturdays, an event MC and on Sundays, I was an Usher and a Sunday School Teacher. Every other day, I was a student and would read while travelling on trains and buses to my various work destinations. Always on the move, I recouped all that I had lost and saved for my numerous travel ‘odysseys’. I bagged more than a Master’s degree certificate in the end. I finished top of my class but beyond that I also bagged a new kind of certificate, ‘sabificate’. To ‘sabi’ is to know.
That was years ago, but all those experiences would nudge me to the man I am becoming. My factory work taught me the value of hard work and diligence. Plate washing how to give a helping hand at home. Sandwich making sharpened my culinary skills and customer service how to sell brilliant research ideas. My bar shifts made me a wine connoisseur and my care giving role, made me an auxiliary nurse. Through my Saturday work, I mastered the fine art of speaking. My Sunday work, the beauty of teaching people.
For I have realized that life is a process and a journey. The ‘process of the journey’ and the ‘journey of the process’ often brings sweet and bitter experiences. In the end, nothing we go through is wasted.
