Jubilation and ululation rent the air in the sleepy Mwalupembe village in Kwale county soon after the 2021 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results were announced.

 It became clear that 13-year-old twin sisters- Racquel Malemba and Michelle Cheptoo were among the top achievers.

Racquel scored 392 and she was trailed closely by her twin Michelle with 386, to rank among the top four at Makemba Academy.

While the sisters relish their success which came as a result of handwork, commitment and God’s grace, their mother Caroline Wonge recalls an uncountable predicament that shrouded their journey to success especially during Covid-19 period.

“The results are a testimony that when you trust in God, He will always favour you. The circumstances were not conducive by any stretch of imagination,” recalls Wonge, a single mother of two.

She says Covid-19 struck just as they were preparing for their final year at St Augustine Preparatory School, in Mombasa. Her then self-employment job stalled, plunging the family into a financial crisis.

To cap it all, Wonge recalls, they were forcefully evicted from a rental house they were living in Tudor area.

“The landlord told us that he had sold the house and we were supposed to vacate…we were unprepared for such news. By then I had no money to facilitate my move into a new house, we were stranded,” Wonge told People Daily.

The only option she says was to seek refuge at  a relative’s place in the neighbouring Kwale County, but there was a new hurdle. The government had just announced a partial lockdown of Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale counties, meaning that movement between the affected counties was restricted.

“It boiled down on how we could move from Mombasa to Kwale. I had to seek guidance from authorities and explain my situation. That’s how we were allowed to move. We moved to Kwale in May, 2020,” she said.

The shift would also mean that the twin sisters had to be transferred from St Augustine in Tudor to a new school in Kwale.

For Wonge, finding a new school and supporting the girls to dodge the subsequent psychological suffering, settle and prepare was another daunting task.

“With the financial hardships,  bearing in mind that I am a single parent with no steady income has been a real challenge… I encouraged my daughters to work hard and trust in God. For sure it was a difficult moment and its only God who has made it possible,” she explained.

The twin sisters are passionate about child health and it is against this backdrop that they aspire to be pediatricians in future. “We wanted to join Mpesa Foundation Academy but we were not selected… However our alternative choice was Kenya High. We would like to be pediatricians so that we can help children,” said Racquel and Michelle.