“‘You Will Never Succeed, They Said” — What Happened After I Refused to Give Up Shocked Everyone in the Village
They said it openly, without shame. At the shopping center in Kanyadhiang’ Village, Siaya County, men laughed as I passed. Women whispered behind their lesos. Even children repeated the words they heard at home: “That one will never succeed.” My name is Otieno, the last-born in a poor family of five, raised by a widowed mother, Mama Achieng’, in a mud house with a leaking roof. Every morning, I walked past the same people who mocked me, carrying a torn notebook and big dreams that nobody believed in.
Life was hard. After finishing secondary school, I failed to join college because we had no money. I tried small jobs—burning charcoal, carrying stones at construction sites, selling vegetables by the roadside—but nothing lasted. Each failure added fuel to the village gossip. Jared, my childhood friend, stopped greeting me. Uncle Onyango told my mother to stop “wasting prayers” on a hopeless child. Even my girlfriend Atieno left, saying she wanted a man “with direction.” At night, I lay awake listening to the wind hit our iron sheets, wondering if the village was right.
One evening, after a particularly bad day when I was chased from a construction site for asking to be paid my balance, I sat outside our house and cried like a child. My mother sat next to me, silent for a long time. Then she said, “My son, not everyone who laughs today will laugh tomorrow.” Her words stayed with me, but the weight in my heart did not lift. I felt blocked—like no matter how hard I tried, something invisible was holding me back.
