December 2024 - No Más Mulas

The chains of regret

I am currently incarcerated at Lo Wu Correctional Institution for drug trafficking.

My life has been marked by significant challenges from an early age. My parents divorced when I was just five months old, and I was raised solely by my father, who worked long hours to support us. This meant I spent very little time with him. My mother remarried and started another family, leaving me with little guidance. I lacked supervision and, compared to my peers, became willful and unruly. My father, a traditional man, introduced me to smoking and drinking at just 10 years old.

Seeking warmth and love, I began dating at 11. By 13, I was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, believing my boyfriend would support me. However, my parents insisted I have an abortion, thinking I was too young to care for a child. This led to my temporary suspension from school, and I never returned after ninth grade.

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Beyond the stormy waves

I grew up on Cheung Chau in a family of fishermen, raised by my grandmother, and completed my education up to Form 3. As the eldest son, I have one younger brother and two younger sisters. After my mother had my second sister, she stopped working on the boat to care for us, leaving my father to fish alone, which ultimately led to his tragic death at sea.

When I was eight, my father bought a house on Cheung Chau, and our family began to live together comfortably. After finishing Form 3, I took a one-year painting course and started working as an apprentice at a painting company at 15 to help support my family.

At 17, I began dating a girl who was a classmate of my cousin, and her family was also made up of fishermen. Our relationship blossomed over three years, and we enjoyed spending time together while our families got along well.

Tragically, my father developed heart disease at 40, which affected his ability to work and our family’s income. Fortunately, my sister and I were employed, allowing us to support the family, although my father occasionally went out to fish.

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Sixty eight pellets of desperation

Praise the Lord.

I am a 35-year-old single mother to a 9-year-old boy. I am a Christian from a humble background in Nairobi, Kenya.

This is my story.

I was raised by a single mum who passed away in 2015. Life has been really hard for me and my siblings after our mother passed on.

I remember mum would go hungry most of the time to sacrifice food for us children. She would ask for assistance from church every Saturday, and the little she got, she would save for my school fees to go to high school since I had performed very well at my primary level. She only managed to send me to a boarding school after an organization called Well Wishers fundraised for me. Meanwhile, my brother went to a day school, but he would be sent home now and then because of failure to pay the fees. I thank God because finally, we managed to finish high school. It was so unfortunate that we lost her. It pained me because she never got to know how I performed. She left us behind with our niece and we were to bring her up by ourselves. Life taught us to be responsible at a very young age.

All this time my brother and I had to do odd jobs to survive, pay the bills, and support our niece until we got stable jobs. I went to university after my relatives helped to pay for my engineering degree and after 2018, I wanted to start my own company that deals with the installation of biodigesters. I needed to set up a website for my company, payment for my Facebook page, capital for printing out brochures for marketing and set up an office. So I approached a friend of mine who was working for a micro-financing agency and who offered me a small loan, that I was to pay monthly with interest. I managed to set up my company and business picked up until the COVID pandemic struck.

At this time, life became so hard for self-employed people. I had to close down the office and had no money to pay the rent and my staff. I started selling rice, and I would pack and advertise my business online and do deliveries to get enough to sustain me and my son.

The friend who had facilitated my loan approached me again and asked me if I would like to make extra cash. Knowing the need I had, with all the debts incurred for the office I agreed without further thought. She later told me that it was a very quick job and that within 14 days I would get paid. This got my attention, but still, a small voice told me “Wait, the deal is too good, think twice”. I was reluctant at first, scared, and kept procrastinating. My friend assured me that she had successfully done it before and had traveled to Thailand. I took my time to think, but since I desperately needed money, I gave in.

She later organized a visa for my trip to Thailand, after convincing me that it wasn’t risky at all because it was as simple as carrying a backpack delivery and then getting the payment.

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