I was born into deep poverty, where even hope felt too expensive for us. My first memory is of my mother boiling water and pretending it was porridge so my siblings and I could sleep without crying from hunger. We lived in a mud hut with leaks, and every time it rained, we would gather in one corner to stay dry from the water dripping through the roof.
Going to school felt like a distant dream. My father often said, “Education is for the rich. People like us are meant to suffer.” He truly believed this. If it weren’t for a Catholic church in our village that saw my strong desire to learn, I might never have gone to school. A kind foreign missionary helped me and paid for my education through the church. That was my only chance, a small miracle that let me see a different world. But even with this help, life still made it hard for me to escape poverty. To read more click here.
