***Black Rainbow Pearl-Origins***

My friends have been constantly asking me why i call myself  Black Rainbow Pearl when clearly I am not black-well i dont think so-not inside not outside. Infact, Im a yellow yellow. Well here goes....When we were studying for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E)Mock exams, yes seems like quite a long time ago..I was in a state of panic. I remember we were studying for a Biology paper, which was one of my favorite subjects, but that day i felt overwhelmed. There was so much to read for and there was no time, literally. The paper was the next morning and I just felt like I could not handle it. So in my state of panic, I took my jumper in class and covered my head and started reading-crying, in a bid to make all the body systems and functions plus all the other biology stuff sink in. My friend, and soon to be doctor, Mbatha Wambua, came to me. She was the only one who had noticed, with no words spoken, of the fear and panic I was facing. She sat on my desk with a handwritten note. Nothing fancy, but the love in the content made me sooo rejuvenated. It was a plain white paper, coloured lightly in rainbow colors and words, I cannot quote it word for word but I have kept that note since then. 

Yes many many years. Something about how Rome was not built in a day and I have to take stuff slowly, one day at a time. She told me how she believed in me and how i can achieve anything I want to. With that, she sat with me and we went through our biology mwakenya's-in my state of panic I got the feeling that I knew nothing and I had to read from the textbook- She told me it was not practical and that we could go through the mwakenyas(short notes). " Lulz, you have been studying hard since form one there is no way you have forgotten everything at this time". And she was right.I actually did very well. She believed in me when I did not even believe in myself.
That rainbow became my motivator since then. I have been studying since form one there is no way it had all vanished when I needed to have most of the information to put in writing the next day.


She drew for me a rainbow, a sign that despite all the rain, there is something magical in the skies that makes it all better. The rainbow, the sign Noah got  from God after the floods that took away all the evil people. That rainbow gave me so much motivation that I have had it since then. It reminds me, with the risk of sounding cliche, that Yes I can.She calls me Black Pearl. My name, Lulu , is the swahili word for Pearl. And my darling Mbazz always told me that I am a Black Pearl, because it is rare, it is magical and special. And she is my Rainbow. She was my sign that all is not lost that I could still score in that Biology paper many years ago. And not just in Biology, but in all aspects of life. I just have to work at it and do my best. Today, I am doing what I have always wanted. Human rights work. It makes me happy and gives me fulfillment that I can never ever explain. So Madam Doctor, thank you very very much. For believing in me, for being my friend, my mentor and the girl who always believed that I could. Mbatha is my Rainbow, I am her Black Pearl, hence the name : Black Rainbow Pearl.