Journeying towards Andela

When I first arrived at Andela all that was on my mind was coding and then some more coding. It took me only a few minutes to realize that much more is expected of me. After an inspirational talk from one of the Andelans, most of my mental blockers have evaporated thanks to a growth mindset. It is not about what I cannot do but how long it will take me to learn and do it. Even though my journey towards Andela started some time back I did not realize it.

I was attached to a company in Kakamega where I was in charge of a system that was managing the feeding procedure of around 30,000 fish in an extremely large pond. As I traveled there I was enthusiastic because I did not know the challenges that were waiting for me. On arrival, orientation went smoothly and I knew this was going to be an easy task.

All the systems were working perfectly until the middle of the night I heard a knock on the window. In a state of partial awareness, I managed to make out what the foreman was saying. It was the start of the rainy season and as the rain lulled me into a deep sleep, the Olympic size pond was swelling. I put on my work boots and ran downhill towards the site. What I saw was the beginning of an endless cycle of headaches that never ended until the day I finished my rotation at the site and returned to Nairobi.

The pond seemed to have doubled in size, which was hard to believe since the pond was so large you could paddle a boat comfortably. With all hands on deck, the hours that followed involved filling bags of sand and piling them at the inlet to prevent the swelling stream from overwhelming the pond. The rain did not let up no matter how hard we prayed. Eventually, the water flow was controlled and things started getting back on track. Or so I thought.

I had gone to sleep at around 4 a.m when I heard a knock on the window again. At first, I pretended I was in deep sleep. The foreman simply said, ‘ Come and see’ as he walked towards the site. I got out of bed and followed him wondering what had happened. As soon as I started descending towards the site, from uphill you can pretty much see everything downhill, I kept asking where is the other half of the pond.

A landslide had somehow shrunk the once Olympic size pond into what seemed to be a narrow trench. I wondered to myself have all the fingerlings been squashed by a mountain of mud and rocks. One of our team members took a walk and I never saw him again. I felt like giving up myself but I had come too far to quit. Then next week consisted of an endless group of workers trying to dig out the mud from underneath the dam liner. Some fingerlings did die, but most of them somehow got pushed to the remaining half of the pond. They were small so they fit easily but the pond needed to be restored as each day they needed more resources.

Each day brought other challenges but I never knew this experience would come to mold me into the person I am today. Without perseverance and patience, I would not have been able to survive through the endless challenges from home study to the pre-boot camp workshops.

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