'I was a miserable little human' Nana Owiti opens up

Nana Owiti has for the first time opened up about facing hardship as a young girl.

She described in a passionate post about walking to school with torn clothes and shoes, to sleeping hungry.

"Walking down memory lane. When I look at this picture, I am overwhelmed with emotion. It reminds me of a time in my life when I was a miserable little human, a disheveled young girl with little hopes of making it in life. But weirdly most of the time so happy inside. Like other girls my age in the area, I had short hair because it was easy to maintain. I had one school uniform, two blouses and one sweater. I remember my auntie Nduku washing our uniform mid-week because it was the only set we had and she was still is a clean freak. Thankfully it dried quickly because of the ever scorching sun." Nana shared

Another shocking revelation was that she was bought for oversized uniform by a woman  who later turned out to be her long lost mother.

My mom (who I had no idea was my mom until later-story for another day) deliberately bought me an oversized uniform to take me through the remaining years of primary school. My green sweater, had patches on the elbows, of different colors and patterns. It looked like a tie and dye gone wrong. My skin (Esp my legs) were cracked and had visible scales. I had no shoes. I remember now, how desperately I wanted shoes, because of how the terrain had badly ravaged the soles of my feet. Thankfully I had no cracked heels like most of those women in the village. Cracks so deep, so intense, that they looked like tributaries of a dried river. We often joked,’Kiangai! Ena mialíka yiania Ing’olo’ meaning the cracks were deep enough for the 5 shilling coin that had 7 sides. Anyway, the journey from school was so grueling, because the ground was intensely hot due to the heat from the blazing sun. It made me an athlete by default, running back home every evening to escape the effects of the sun. I would run so fast under the few surviving trees, rest my feet a bit because Jesus! The Soil was on FIRE 🔥 I would watch the soil as steam blew off from it(Mirage). My face tells the story of a difficult upbringing. My eyes speak the language of sadness, of a girl who is holding on to life by a thread. My eyes are puffy, significant of the little hours of sleep I would get every day either because it was too cold, too hot, or because I had slept hungry.

Nana Owiti is King Kaka's wife and she may seem all bubbly on social media but it took her some time to get to where she is - being in a stable relationship with a good job.

A reminder that bad times do not last, so stay strong the best is yet to come.