After losing her husband in 2006 just when her son was three years old, Adeline Nekesa-a city guard, has been through tough times.
She has been on all sorts of menial jobs to ensure her son who was left under her care after her husband’s demise gets all that life has to offer.
And with a lot of sacrifice, hard work and prayer, she has seen the young boy through school and yesterday, it was her turn to smile with gratitude.
Her son, Joseph Orenga, scored an impressive 360 marks.
He attended a public school in Kitale where he lives with his grandfather as her mother works in Nairobi with a security firm.
Nekesa while celebrating her son’s performance said she previously worked as a school and hotel cook; house-help and now a security guard with Senaca Security Company.
She lives in Pangani in a single-room together with her daughter.
She said she had to send Orenga to Kitale because it was difficult to live with him in a single room in the city.
“Being a boy, he could not live with me and my daughter in a one-roomed house so he lives with his grandfather in Kitale where he was studying,” she narrated to Nairobi News.
She said she sacrificed a lot to ensure her son’s school fees was paid.
“I used to send sh2, 000 every month for his school fees and upkeep as I had talked to the teachers to allow me to pay school fees in installments.”
Before coming to the city, she worked in Naivasha for sh3, 000 a month taking care of baby class children.
The nursery school later closed and she was forced to secure a job at hotel in the town where she earned sh100 a day for washing utensils and cooking ugali.
It is then that one of the customers she served gave her a job as a house-help in Rongai for sh5, 000 a month.
“I worked in the Rongai home until three years ago when a friend referred me to Senaca Security Company where I was trained and employed.”
The young Orenga has promised his mother to stay focused in school.
He has a vision of becoming a teacher or a pilot to support her young sister and mother.