Sitawa Wafula - In a Moment

 

I love numbers. I love how straightforward and direct they are. I love how one plus one is always equals to two. And how two plus two without a doubt equals to four. And so, when it was time for us to decide what we wanted to do in university, I knew for sure that I wanted to work with numbers. So, you can imagine my joy when I heard about something called Actuarial Science. [audience laughter] For those of you who do not know what that is, it's this really amazing course that has you spending your days doing things like calculus and probability and statistics. It's what insurance companies use to know the mortality rates, hence tell you how much premium you need to pay. It's what governments use to know what areas to invest. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend the rest of their lives doing that? [audience laughter] 

 

But just before I went to university, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. And the doctor told me that I had to make sure I did three things. Ate well, slept well, and never missed my medication. So, armed with the doctor's advice, I enrolled to do actuarial science at the University of Nairobi. A few years into it, I was lucky enough to get an internship at an insurance company. I remember my first day there. I had a mismatched suit, but it was a suit nevertheless, and the director's assistant was assigned to show me around. And since we were almost the same age, we quickly clicked and made it a routine to come very early in the morning just to share our dreams and ambitions.

 

A few weeks into the job, the company got a really big business deal, which meant all of us had to chip in. And we spent one Friday afternoon learning how to use this new fancy photocopying machine. [audience chuckle] On Saturday morning, when I reported for duty, I got the honorable duty of working with a new photocopying machine. I remember walking into the copier room armed with a rim of papers and a stack of files that I needed to photocopy. I opened the machine just to make sure it had enough papers, as we had been instructed the day before.

 

Then I woke up in the hospital, and the doctor told me that I have something called photosensitive epilepsy. This is a type that is triggered by flashing lights, and in my case, with the beam from the photocopying machine. And since I had a known history of epilepsy, the doctor said that there was no need for me to be admitted and that I should go home and get some rest. So, I went home, got some rest, and was looking forward to Monday morning to redeem myself at the workplace.

 

On Monday morning, I went back to the office and the director's assistant told me that I had been given two weeks to get more rest. I was really excited about this because here I was doing my dream job and I was working for a company that cared about my health. And so, I went home and I did some research on this photosensitive epilepsy so that I could make sure it never happens in the workplace again. And after the two weeks, I went back to work and the director's assistant told me that they'd given me two more weeks. This time round, I wasn't as excited as I was before. For some reason deep within me, this two plus two was not adding up to four. [audience chuckles] 

 

And so, in the evening after work hours, I called the director's assistant and I asked her if she had heard anything about my case. And after a few minutes of silence, in what was almost like a whisper, she said to me, "Sitawa, the director said that we cannot work with someone like you." This meant that they couldn't work with someone with a health condition like mine. And after a few more moments of silence, she said that he was thinking of telling the person who'd introduced me to this insurance company to break the news to me. I can't really recall how that fun conversation ended. I don't know if she hung up fast or if I hung up fast, but I remember bursting out into tears and I cried because of the pain I felt that the director of this insurance company did not have the courage or the integrity to tell me to my face that I didn't have a job anymore. But he kept giving me two and two more weeks off. But most of all, I cried because I didn't ask for this. I just started falling down.

 

And so, after a few days of crying, I turned my tears into words and moved those words to a blog. And before I knew it, people living with epilepsy were coming to my blog for inspiration and information and support. And as the numbers grew, I started a hotline and they were able to get prompt support from it. I still love numbers. I love the truth in them. I love the fact that numbers tell us things about people. And from the numbers I have interacted with, I see a future where people like me living with epilepsy increase in the workplace. I also see a future where people working with us know that they can work with us and they can touch us and they will not get this thing that we have. And this thing that we have only puts us down for a little while. And after that, we are able to rise up to contribute to the well-being of this amazing world that we live in. Thank you.