Wake Up, My Dear

By James Kemoli Amata

Wake Up, My Dear is a call to leaders and the led to change their narrative from overemphasis on academic papers to life skills in counties.
Appetite for higher education with false promise of better life should not make anyone crave for secondary and university education, yet real life is in life skills obtained in vocational training centres, technical institutes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Kemoli Amata
• Release date: Jul 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005710194

James Kemoli Amata

I am a retired secondary school teacher of Kiswahili (and Christian Religious Education) and an excited preventive healthcare marketer with Green World Health Products Company.I am a 1976 University of Nairobi Bachelor of Education [Arts (Hons)] graduate and a freelance content writer with a passion for writing and indeed I am a farmer-like author with many titles.I published my first book in 1985, by traditional publishing. I have tried self-publishing and now I am in great heat to explore E-publishing.However, I will never forget my Taaluma ya Ushairi (with Kitula King’ei) from which the publisher ate fat alone, and happens to be an E-book without my knowledge.As I do my business, I worship God in African Kenya Sabcrynnsk of Soi (Prayer and Healing) Church.

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Wake Up, My Dear

James Kemoli Amata

Copyright © James Kemoli Amata,

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Published on Smashwords.com on Wednesday, July 21, 2021

By James Kemoli Amata

A Dedication to

Vocational training Centres, technical institutes and polytechnics – key to skills and lots of money

Prologue

Dear reader,

Kindly, let me talk to you. You lack a job, also known as employment. You have some education, called basic education. You have a lot in your hands. Just weed your thoughts.

In the past, we were made to believe EDUCATION IS BETTER THAN MONEY. That education is Key to good (well paying) jobs (employment) and good life. These two things – education and money – are equally good.

Today, basic education, with MONEY IS obviously BETTER THAN HIGHER EDUCATION without money.

It is better to have skills in your hands and lot of money in your pockets than to have wonderful academic papers in your head and no money, or no money at all, in your pockets.

You do not have to go to secondary school or university to have a lot of money in your pockets. It is not a must that you be employed for you to earn money.

You will have money, and even a lot of money, in your pockets if you value and join a vocational training centre, technical institute or polytechnic – not a secondary school or university.

You will provide the needed and well paying, yet lacking labour force in your county or country or any other.

You will be looked for always, even before you complete your training.

Remember, a county that does not have plumbers, constructors, and electricians, drivers... always have to import from other counties this labour force. Therefore, thee money that would have been theirs ends up by going elsewhere and they remain perpetual beggars.

Chapter 1

Kalahi entered their house silent like a snail and gloomy. She went straight to her bedroom and looked the way a dying sheep looks. It was to her as if a person determined to enjoy mutton had sank a heavy sharp knife into her throat. In short, she was just sad, sad, and sad. Maringo felt sorry for her but he could not help. It would be odd for visitor to take his help to the daughter of a host in her bedroom uninvited.

She had gone to her former primary school to collect her KCPE results. She had been a brilliant girl. She had always said she wanted to be a doctor. She always admired the white overalls that medics put on. Her heart always overflowed with love and desire to help sick people. She was always particularly attracted to crying people, people in pain. Her desire to help gave her courage to see blood like water and her boldness gave her ability to help, even if her resources did not allow.

She had studied the very way many parents wanted to see their children study. Maringo often felt that she was excessively over reading instead of studying little by little systematically.

Maringo had known Kalahi for a number of years. She was a hardworking pupil at Lidala Primary School. Her parents had sacrificed all that they could to help her achieve her dream. Her father had only one pair of shoes, two old suits, and not more than five simple shirts. Similarly, her mother lived a simple life, with only six ordinary dresses that revealed old age.

At the age of eleven, Kalahi’s parents had moved her from Lidala day school. Insight knew very well that as a day pupil she lost a lot of study time. Being a girl in a traditional village, she faced countless challenges. Before going to school, she swept the kitchen after tethering their cow and two adult goats. After school, she went to fetch water and look for firewood. On weekends, she had to attend to their kitchen garden. The same hardworking pupil had to participate in the preparation of supper. By the time the young big girl sat down to do some preparatory studies it was nine in the night – nine is the time boarding school pupils go to bed, to rest in preparation for a fresh following day.

In spite of the endless challenges that Kalahi went through, she still did well in school. Despite the good performance, she had a lot of room for improvement. It was for that reason that the parents took Kalahi from Lidala day primary school to Gavole boarding school.

At Gavole primary school, Kalahi had all the time that she needed for her studies. She woke up at five thirty in the morning and was able to do some morning preparations in her studies before breakfast at seven. During lunchtime, she ate and was able to read something before going back to class at two. There was a big difference. She was no longer under pressure to run home for lunch, eat very fast, and run back to school and class. As a day pupil, at two in class, she was already half hungry and quite tired from running.

At first, Kalahi was excited that she was in a boarding school. For one term, she was full of excitement. It was not until the end of that term that all the excitement she had felt ended. She forgot that she was able to read from seven to nine at night without getting tired. She had forgotten that unlike days of studying at home, she was able to read past nine only for the school rule to force that lights had to be off in classes, latest, fifteen minutes after nine.

How did it happen that by nine there was no slightest feeling of sleep in her sparkling eyes?

School food had all the advantages for reading. Kalahi was ignorant of this. She was unaware that experts had formulated the diet. It was enough to keep the students focused on their goal of being in school. It was enough to keep sleep away from the eyes and tiredness from the brain of a pupil. Incidentally, it was a double-edged sword. It slashed Kalahi’s excess weight and seemed to donate it to some of her schoolmates. They had joined the school thin as sticks but in no time flourished in body.

The work of a pupil is to read and study. It has never been to eat and grow fat. In the days Kalahi was a day pupil, she was used to three things: eating, eating and eating. This habit made her body to puff up. At ten years of age, when she was in standard five, she looked as if she was in her late twenties and a mother of six. However, nothing had ever bothered her that she was sick. Even her parents believed the body had loved her. It was a popular belief that bigness of the body was an indicator of good health. People did not know they led a risky life of obesity.

Kalahi had slipped into the territory of obesity. It was a territory of an army of many soldiers. Each had a troop of lifestyle diseases, each with all the negative consequences you did not need to imagine. They were all visible everywhere but all blame was thrown on Satan, even when he was not anywhere near. Anytime someone fell sick people blamed Satan. They were ignorant of the fact that their health was in their hands while their lives were in God’s hands.

After being in school for two terms, some pupils for no known reason had grown big and very smooth-skinned. It was not that the school fed them on fat. They were