Boat tragedy survivor's bid to pick up her pieces

The survivor of a boat tragedy that made headlines in May 2016, Marceline Auma, has slowly turned her life around after a close brush with death, although the going remains tough.

The former band member of Boyieta Wuod Awasi music group once based in Bondo Constituency, recalls how she survived the accident in Lake Victoria that killed her colleagues.

“We set off from Liunda beach for a trip to Ndenda Island where our band was to perform the following day, but our boat capsised barely a kilometre into the journey. I clung onto a jerrican as my nine colleagues drowned,” says Marceline.

“Many of the band members made frantic telephone calls to their loved ones as our boat gave in to the hostile waves,” she says.

The 25-year-old who worked in a hotel in Bondo before joining the resident band as a dancer and part time singer, has had a difficult time growing up.

Her father died when she was only three and her mother when she was in Class Two. She was left under the care of her grandmother.

“My frail grandmother’s friends offered me menial jobs for as little as Sh200 a week. I worked in the evenings after school and weekends to put food on the table for us,” she says.

She later worked as a shopkeeper for Sh1,500 a month, but was forced to quit due to sexual harassment by the shop owner.

Unable to join Form One due to lack of school fees, Marceline spent her time with her peers, and before she knew it, she had embraced their chaotic lifestyle.

At only 19, she got her first baby, marrying the father of her baby, a businessman. But they soon parted ways after because he was abusive.

“Life was hard and I contemplated suicide severally,” she says. It is at this time that the youth joined the music group, eager to make something of herself, a stint that was also short after her band members died in the boat accident. 

She was back to the drawing board, and lady luck came smiling her way and Marceline was last year able to go back to school with the help of a Good Samaritan.

But the new season has been short-lived since the Form Three student at Barchando Secondary School in Siaya County’s sponsor, Charles Ndaga, pleaded inability to continue paying her school fees.

“Neither the local leaders nor the Bondo CDF approached by Ndaga to assist have been able to grant me help to offset the Sh92,300 school fees arrears.

I fear dropping out of school before completing my high school education. Although I joined Form One just three weeks to the exams I managed to perform fairly well,” she says.

Marceline’s biggest need today is to finish off learning even as she dares dream of a brighter future.