FOR MY PEACE I FORGIVE MY ATTACKER

"for my peace I forgive my attacer " This are not my words but the belong to Kelvin. It is very painful when you get punished for some reasons that you don't know. The following is a story from Kelvin Kairu Nyambura who was attacked by the unknown person with sulphuric acid which led him disfigured and made him to try to kill himself twice. 

  

Kelvin recounts the event of that fateful morning. It was a morning like any other for him. He was living in Nanyuki and working for security company at that time. He wake up early and went for work around 5am. Just outside the mall where his office was, a man wearing a mask over his face suddenly emerged from the shadows and splashed a liquid on his face.

He thought the masked man would mug him but the thug dashed off as quickly as he had appeared. The air was pungent and his face was burning and his eyes were on fire. He knew he had been attacked with sulphuric acid. He tried to wipe his face with his hands and felt the skin peel. Now his hands were burning too.

Kelvin cried out to one of the nearby security guard who helped him to wash his face under a running tap. He called a friend who arrived in minutes and rushed Kelvin to Nanyuki referral hospital. It took 3 hours to be attended at the hospital but finally the doctor showed up and leansed his eyes out with a special liquid. He remembered they used 6 bottles and he had them whispering amongst themselves how there was good chance he should have lost his eye sight for good.

It took two weeks for Kelvin to start regaining his sight. The first time he saw his face in a mirror, he was shocked. His face looked like Nyama choma. The skin had peeled off, leaving open sores which were oozing pus. His relatives took him to Kiambu level four hospital and later to Kenyatta National hospital for further treatment. He had several surgeries to reconstruct skin on his neck which had sores which weren't healing and therefore they had to graft skin from his thigh to fix it to his neck.

As he healed physically, Kelvin's mental health deeped. He would joke and laugh when in company but inside he was dying. He could not sleep and he kept wondering why was he attacked and why him. He would particularly hurt when people will compare how he looked before with his unscarred face. Such comments became harder for him.

One day he decided to go to chemist and buy thirty antiallergy peels which he thought that they will make him sleep forever. He took them all and lay on the sofa. Luckily his next door neighbour got suspicious when he came knocking and he didn't answer. He opened the door and found him unconscious. He called other neighbours and took him to the clinic. He was disappointed that his plan had failed.

He attempted the second suicidal plan when he went to Thika and booked a cheap hotel room. He wanted this second plan to succeed. He took more pilltons, added a dose of antibiotics and a bottle of undilluted pesticide. He thought of how his relatives would start looking for him, so he decided to go on Facebook live and say Goodbye.

To his dismay he was still alive in the next morning. He went down stairs intending to buy more drugs to complete his mission. Fortunately a concerned stranger approached him. His legs were weak so he was staggering slightly. The old man asked him if he was okay and he lied to him that he was just drunk. Someone recognized him from the Facebook video and alerted everyone that he was suicidal. They rashed him to the nearby hospital where he received his medication and he was taken through therapy which helped him to realize that his life still had purpose inspite of his scars. He also decided to forgive his attacker for his peace.