Francis' Story

We have been very fortunate to have Francis Dagala as our driver and guide during our travels to Nakuru and our upcoming trip to Kisumu.  Francis works for AMPATH, coordinating all of their transportation - getting folks across the Kenyan countryside, and handling rescue efforts when there are breakdowns, etc.

Francis was born in Eldoret as a member of the Luya tribe. He is one of thirteen children born of parents who didn't understand what it took to meet the basic needs of their children. So Francis ran away and became a street kid at the age of 6. On the streets, Francis joined the other kids who spent their days getting drunk on Chang'a, sniffing shoe glue and petrol, and doing any other drugs they could get their hands on. At night, after everyone went home, they would just curl up on the streets and sleep. Francis told us that the street kids probably have a more balanced diet than kids who live at home, because they are eating food from the trash of restaurants. Francis says, "It's just that the hygiene isn't so good".

A minister named Michael Nieswand found Francis at age 13 and brought him off the street and into his home. He took care of him and sent him to school.  Rather than send him to high school, Michael sent Francis to get training to be a mechanic and a driver. Francis tells us that his siblings and other friends from the street are either sick with AIDS, drug addicts, in jail, or dead. Francis survived.

When he was 20, Francis went to work at the Rescue Center, going back out from whence he came to counsel street kids about getting off the streets. Joe Mamlin met Francis at the Rescue Center in 2004, and hired him for his current job.

There was a grinding wheel outside the gates of the Rescue Center where people would go to grind corn to make ugali. One day, there was a girl there named Rebecca. She had come to grind some millet to make porridge. "She pulled my eye" says Francis. He introduced himself and soon, they fell in love. Now, it isn't easy to get married when you were once a street kid, your sweetheart is from a different tribe (Rebecca is a Meru), and you don't have five cows required for a dowry. But Francis knew what he wanted and he persisted. Rebecca's family saw that Francis was a good man and eventually the wedding occurred.

Rebecca and Francis are now the proud parents of two children, Glory, age 12 and Abendigo, age 9. Abendigo wants to be a lawyer and Glory wants to be a "medical person". Francis and Rebecca have also taken in two street kids, Moses, 11, and Daniel, 26.

Francis