At 25, some of his age-mates are university graduates. Some are even pushing for their master\u2019s degrees or own them by now. Yes, others remain unemployed and are still toiling but a number of them are employed, driving or being driven in high-class vehicles.
\nYet, Kenneth Brown is a regular cyclist on the Senga Bay side of Salima. He cycles, not for physical fitness, as other people do. Brown does so to earn a living. He is among several young men who operate bicycle taxis trade around the beach.
\nThe bicycle taxi business-well known as dampa in Salima, kabaza in some areas and several other names in different area\u2014is more often than not associated with men who dropped out of school, gave up on life and just strive to keep their families alive. Brown has a different story though.
\nBorn in Chitsa Village, Traditional Authority Tengani in the Shire Valley district of Nsanje in 1992, Brown sat Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations at Kadabwako Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) in 2013.
\nPrior to 2013, together with his brother and other family members, Brown lived a difficult life of poverty under the parenthood of his late mother\u2019s aunt.
\nThe grandmother, who is a mere peasant farmer in the village, tried to pay fees for Brown and, out of the challenges, he scored 25 points in MSCE examinations.
\nBut the grades failed to impress Brown, a young man with an insatiable appetite for tertiary education.
\nHe deeply considered the competition for university space in the country and totally forgot about the 25 points.
\nThereafter, he embarked on a journey to the country\u2019s old capital, Zomba. He had gone to the city to visit a friend and, while there, he befriended another man from Lilongwe.
\nWhen G4S, a security company employed his Lilongwe friend as a Salima-based guard, Brown saw it as an opportunity to make a move to the lakeside.
\n\u201cI asked him if there was a school nearby and he told me about Parachute CDSS. He also told me about piecework along the lake and I arrived in Salima in September 2015. I initially started working along the lake by helping in preparing fish for the market. But I was not going into the lake for the actual fishing,\u201d Brown recalls.
\nIt is at this time that Brown enrolled at Parachute CDSS as an open distance learning student.
\nHe was working at the lake in the morning hours and attending classes in the afternoon up to the time he started the bicycle taxi business.
\n\u201cAt first, I was using a borrowed bicycle whose owner was receiving some money at the end of every day. Thereafter, I met another friend who sells fish and he bought a bicycle for his fish trade. He allowed me to use it for taxi purposes whenever it was not in fish business,\u201d he says.
\nThe kabaza business and afternoon Form Three classes continued up to the time the head teacher saw potential in Brown. The head teacher told Brown to start reporting for morning classes.
\nIn September 2016, when schools opened for the new academic year, Brown changed the schedule and started Form Four with morning classes while attending to the kabaza business in the afternoon. All this time, he was paying fees and buying basic needs such as food, clothes and paying rentals using proceeds from the bicycle taxi trade. Of course, in the second and third terms of Form Four, he found a Good Samaritan, one of Parachute CDSS teachers.
\nWhen the results of MSCE examinations that Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) administered between June and July 2017 were released, good news out of Brown\u2019s long and winding academic journey arrived. He scored 10 points.
\n\u201cI think about life and I know that, for me to move out of poverty, I need education,\u201d Brown says.
\nThe American neurosurgeon and 2016 US elections Republican candidacy hopeful, Ben Carson, inspires Brown.
\n\u201cA friend in Nsanje told me about Ben Carson and I bought his book [Think Big] when I was in Zomba.
\n\u201cBen Carson will tell you that \u2018every child is a champion worth wrestling\u2019. Ben Carson has a touching and inspiring story. Everyone should have a goal in life and that is what propels a person to move on in this life of challenges. Challenges are just part of life,\u201d Brown says.
\nDespite scoring good points, Brown remains a troubled man. Hearing stories of how other needy students in public universities are struggling to access loans for their education, he feels the 10 points are not enough to move him out of poverty.
\n\u201cI need tuition fees for university education and I know that, without that, I cannot continue and I will not realise my dream,\u201d the man who aspires to pursue university education in environmental science signs out.
\nAfter narrating the story, Brown cycles on with the hope of finding the next passenger for his bicycle taxi to at least get food for the da<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 25, some of his age-mates are university graduates. Some are even pushing for their master\u2019s degrees or own them by now. Yes, others remain unemployed and are still toiling but a number of them are employed, driving or being driven in high-class vehicles. Yet, Kenneth Brown is a regular cyclist on the Senga Bay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57623,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57613\/revisions\/57623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}