A 57-year-old Aden Muhumed who sat for his KCSE last year at Young Muslim Secondary in Garissa County on Monday celebrated after scoring D+ in the 2023 KCSE.
Determination and resilience describe his journey from a cattle herder, and hawker to a student with a burning desire to pursue further studies.
Brought up in a pastoralist family, since childhood he was herding cattle in Fafi constituency in Garissa town and Bura Dima and Garseni in Tana River county.
Aden Muhumed says he never got a chance to join school at a young age since they were moving with their livestock transversing between the two countries in such for water and pasture.
“Every year a cycle of drought came to kill our cattle that kept on reducing in number, from a herd of almost 400 we remained with none during my youthful age and life became difficult," said Aden.
At the age of 24, he was employed to herd cattle belonging to a relative and he got two heifers for his two years herding task.
Unfortunately, drought came again to kill his two hard-earned heifers forcing him to seek an alternative source of income in Garissa town.
Aden realized life was not promising in Garissa town and he made an overnight decision again to travel to Eastleigh in Nairobi to seek job opportunities.
“I travelled to Nairobi by lorry ferrying cattle and I was dropped at Eastleigh 10th Street. It was a new beginning and the weather was not friendly," asserts Aden.
He knew none in Eastleigh and as he strolled around the streets he saw a mosque at California Kona Bidii where he spent a month while he prayed for a job and endured the suffering of going without meals until a day he was approached by a physically disabled person who realized that he needed help.
Through the man, he secured a job at a retail shop in Eastleigh and later, he became a hawker in Eastleigh, Kisumu, Migori and Kakamega.
During his hustling moments, Aden said he developed a dream for education following a language barrier he encountered.
He returned to Garissa in 2013 and he enrolled for adult education classes before sitting for his KCPE as a private candidate in 2019 and he scored 296 marks.
Aden was admitted to Boystown Secondary School, a public day school in Garissa but joined Young Muslim Secondary School, a private school in Garissa town due to the proximity to his home.