When someone, a customer, speaks to me badly at work, I don’t react. I keep quiet. Maybe they think I haven’t heard them. I have. I hear everything. I go home and think about the words. I ask myself why they spoke to me that way. Why they felt they needed to speak to me that way. They have never spoken to me like that before. What happened? What did I do? What did they mean? 

I am a very sensitive person. I think I was born that way. 

People say being sensitive is a weakness. Maybe it is. The bank where they posted me gave me a month. That was years ago. 

My mother was like that. I think I got it from her. She raised us with the Bible close to her. Every Friday evening and Saturday, she took us to church. When I came to Nairobi and work made it difficult to go, she told me: if you cannot make it to church, keep the Bible close to you. 

I still do. 

I read it early in the morning and before I sleep. 

She was also the person who believed I could become something. I wanted to be a journalist. She registered me for a course. I went for one month. Then she died. 

Suddenly. 

I was on duty along Kangundo Road when she collapsed. She had high blood pressure. 

I had only just started working at Securex. She had paid for my first month of college because she wanted me to continue studying. After she died, I had to stop. I went to Sudan, where she was working, to fetch her. It was not easy. It’s not easy at all to bring back your mother as remains. 

I have worked at Securex for fourteen years. I built my house in the village. I have three children. My wife wakes me early, makes porridge and gets the children ready for school. I look at that and think: we have to stick together. We have children to raise. I still want to become a journalist. Maybe that dream never really died. 

I still hear it. I still hear everything.