One of the heroines feted today, Wednesday, October 20, at the Mashujaa Day celebrations will be a 12-year-old girl who rowed her pregnant mother across Lake Victoria in the dead of night.
Virginia Aoko touched many Kenyans’ hearts in May this year when she told how she single-handedly rowed her mother across the crocodile-infested waters of Lake Victoria when she was in labor.
The brave girl described how her mother awoke her at 3 a.m., writhing in anguish, and she had to act quickly because her father was away fishing.
She was well aware that every second counted in ensuring her mother’s and unborn sibling’s safe arrival at the hospital.
The Class Seven student requested her mother to board a boat in the deep darkness, and she took a paddle and rowed her to the hospital.
The devoted lass rowed her mother the two kilometers stretch to Rukala Health Centre over water hyacinth, tangled reeds, and foggy dawn weather.
Apart from the young girl, famed sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala will also be honored today for his outstanding achievement in 100m competitions around the world.
He is the current African record holder and the world’s eighth-fastest man. Gregory Peter (Kiambu), Nelly Yetich (Baringo), Daniel Boswiemo (Migori), and Amina Abdallah (Migori) are among the others (Mombasa).
