Edward Mwasi: Lessons my mother taught me on money, sacrifice and debt

Growing up in different environments and set-ups, I can confirm today that everyone has a mentor, consciously or unconsciously. The effect of these special people is often fully appreciated later in life. We too could be mentoring others unknowingly for this act is never announced when it starts to take effect.

One commonality with the mentorship definition is that no matter how scarce or small it may be, it will continue to bear effects in the future. We learn a lot from what we see. We sometimes pick up habits from those that influence us and it's also true that we could also learn from their mistakes never to repeat them. In other words, we may not necessarily end up doing what they do in life but their impact on our lives follows wherever life choices take us.

Take for instance my own mother’s story. The last time I told a small part of her story to friends and colleagues at my place work, they looked at me in shock at what I had gone through as a child to reach where I was then and, better still, where I am today. My story had been captured by a section of the press under the title, "A Child of Two Worlds". This story received many hits and was published in several newspapers. It spelled out the difficulties and challenges I and my siblings went through as we grew up in a prison camp, where my mother was a warder.

Life roadblocks and hurdles were plenty in life then, but this special lady, my heroine, overcame them and made sure that all her children went through school smoothly. As the firstborn child in the family of six then, I shared in her challenges as she never stopped to encourage us to study to the best of our ability to get out of the rugs, which was our life in the camp.

Father lost his job

My father had by then lost his job in the Armed Forces and could not get any other form of employment considering the circumstance of his termination – the 1982 Coup attempt. Our mother now became the sole breadwinner, which also included the extended family in the village.

In my previous story, which I would not wish to retell, at least for now, it had touched on the intrigues and exclusive naked truths that bedevilled a family of a soldier in the prisons camp, where we grew up.

Unfortunately, my mother, bless her soul, did not live to enjoy the fruits of her sweat. Sadly, she rested in 2000 after a short illness, having tackled a very heavy burden of developing a generation that we are today.

Something that would not go without mentioning is the lessons of her struggles to keep a family afloat. We learned that life is what you make it. A human being can live on almost any budget, but this would call for a lot of adjustments of priorities. Budgets are never enough in this world and even the richest of the richest still feel they need more to stabilise, and this never comes. Our mother was alive to this fact.

Whereas it would be a huge assignment even for a middle-class today to take one child to a simple school, leave alone a private academy, it was possible for a prison's corporal, with a four-figure salary in the mid-eighties, to take four children to a boarding school. It was never easy as it may sound, many sacrifices had to be made and priorities redefined.

As a first-born and the first one in the family to go to secondary school, I saw my beloved mother slim-adjust her skirt uniform and the buckled belts at least three times to hold her thinning waist. This she did manually using a simple needle and thread in the house. She wasn't cutting weight because of going to a gym but from the burden of providing for her children.

School assignments

Being the eldest in the family, I was quite alive to what was happening and it was really stressful to bear, but what to do? This shaped my perception around the value of education and work forever: There was no option but to work hard never to go back to the problems with nothing tangible if I failed in any school or work assignments.

This could only make us look at life very differently: When it's time to succeed in life, sacrifices must be made even if it means foregoing a meal to make some saving. As a young man, I experienced everything first hand and this gave a meaning to my life, providing some very serious mentorship that is hard to find anywhere else.

Coming back to how we managed to go to school, my mother's genius ways of getting school fees was applaudable. Other than her negligibly tiny salary and other small side hustle that she was involved in, she had become a financial institution in herself. Picture this! Shylocks were her best friends and they had grown to trust her so much on debt repayment all through. She made her remittances promptly and was ever approached by the same money lenders for more refinancing because of her unique discipline.

What the shylocks did not know is that they were actually trading among themselves. My brilliant mother could borrow from one to settle the other one before the expiry of the period of borrowing and only remained working extremely hard and smart to raise the commissions as she waited for her other small side hustles to mature.

Sometimes things could become so difficult until she went for some loans at her place of work with the small salary to keep up with payments.

The moral of this story is that, whereas today large institutions are arrogantly trading with the customers' monies to make profits, my late mother, over 30 years ago, knew that in business you must reinvest, should be trusted and, above all, must be patient to achieve your goals. Then, she could not afford a bank account for she could hardly save anything. Salaries were paid in some perforated envelopes. Her money was ever in transit, just like any serious business today.

She always put a smile on her face whenever she was making her painful repayments. That’s the power of business customer relations.

Hard-working lady

The hard-working lady was aware that what she owed the shylocks was not her money but a privilege that could see her carve a future for her family. The debt was useful in that it was what would help take her children to school. Yes, it is!

As a generation mentored by this great woman, we have learned not to take for granted anyone who offers any form of support: We get favours including from our employers, but we should ever remain grateful and focused on moving forward to strengthen her legacies.

Out of the hard work we grew up seeing from our parent offer to her employer in spite of the many challenges that saw her grow through the ranks, we have had no option but to put our best foot forward.

The mentorship in her has opened doors for us and, looking back, we wouldn't be where we are today without a home-made case study of a small salaried woman doing great things.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I salute those women, like my mother, who have opened doors for others and, in particular, those that go the extra mile to provide for their children regardless of their ever-pressing challenges. Wherever my mother — Sergeant Catherine Bwari — is, she must be smiling down at her achievements seeing her offspring earning a better and decent living. Some of us are in high positions in society, also supporting others, only that now with milder effort as compared to hers.

Her formula and philosophy in life would continue to inspire generations and the story will live to be shared among others in her lineage. Thank you mum!

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