Valerie Musimbi Autobiography

I’m 15 years old. My father died when I was only six years old. My mother, who was expecting was travelling to Nairobi to visit her husband (my dad), when she delivered me on the bus. Six months later, she was back at our rural home burying him. She did not understand why her life had decided to take her through such a bad twist. But she got over it and focused her life again on her own. She decided she needed a job, since she knew relatives and friends in Nairobi.

She travelled back to Nairobi as soon as I was old enough to stay with my grandparents. My sister was four years older than me. She started school when my mother left.

From the very start I was strong and fat. I was bigger than my age-mates. I wore boys’ clothes and preferred to play with boys. I felt that girls were boring and crying all the time. I even fought with boys. I remember when I was in class two, a boy lost his toy car and accused me of stealing it. He threatened to beat me up.

That was a mistake! At home time he approached me and beat me hard on my head with a big stick. I turned around and snatched the stick from his hand, and whacked his head his several times before he fell down and ran away home.

He was not seriously injured but to the shock of my grandparents. I was expelled for that. My grandparents found another school for me. News of my strengths spread everywhere and the pupils in my new school were afraid of me. They were afraid I would kill one of them. It was hard for me to make friends with girls again. However, boys love strong people and soon all my friends were boys.

I am not a cry baby. I am tough. Am still the biggest and fattest pupil in my school. Everyone wonders what I eat. I think it’s just the way God made me. It has advantages. I can play any boy’s game. I love soccer, my best game. By best friend in class is Moses because he can play soccer like a man. Ninety minute of soccer is not a joke and he scored! I play for the girls team soccer is fun.

I had been warned about fighting in school. But I’m a friendly girl. It’s not my habit to fight and so I promised not to fight. It was still hard for me to make friends with girls. They were too busy being jealous that I was free with boys and played with them all the time. Just then our deputy head teacher stopped to see what was going. That earned me another expulsion.

My mother came home from Nairobi for a visit and found me without a school.