Rosemary Mokaya is a Kenyan born US based trucker. Together with her family, they relocated to the United States where they are thriving in the trucking industry. The trucker, who was in Kenya after receiving news of her mother’s admission to the hospital, took Lynn Ngugi through her journey in Kenya and the US.
Here is her inspiring story as told by WoK.
Background
Ms Mokaya was born in a family of 12 siblings and raised by her mother after their father passed away while she was still a child. Some of the elder siblings had to drop out of school in order for the younger ones to get an education.
Their mother had a small vegetable kiosk and was also fortunate to get a contract with the Kenya Prisons Staff Training College.
Kenya Prisons Service
Later, Rosemary joined Kenya Prison Services and rose to become a superintendent. She also worked for close to two decades in the Planning and Development Department.
When performance contracting was introduced by the government, she and a colleague were tasked with the job.
Her colleagues shied away from the job as it involved a lot of paperwork. They drafted the performance contracts and eventually worked on the Vision 2030 blueprint.
This experience in developing policies helped catapult her career and she was deployed to work at the United Nations in South Sudan and later moved to Darfur.
While in Darfur, she fought for the rights of the underprivileged to the point where she faced death threats.
Gender based violence was also rampant and she saw a lot of women go through sexual abuse no action being taken against the perpetrators as some were men in uniform. She left Darfur with PTSD due to the kinds of things she saw.
Rosemary Mokaya Move to the US and Life Abroad
Her husband and their two children had already relocated to the United States after winning a green card. Their eldest son, who was born with cerebral palsy could not go because he was an adult.
She joined them in the US where they would deliver food to make a living. Her husband was the first to join trucking school before she too decided to join.
The journey was not easy as she failed the test more than once leading to a breakdown. However, she pressed on and successfully completed trucking school.
Her husband was impatient and wanted to go back to food deliveries as he felt he was being paid too little as a rookie trucker.
However, she encouraged him and after a year she helped him get his own truck. Six months later, she also bought her own. Today, she delivers goods with her truck in different parts of the country.
The Oklahoma based trucker also revealed that things were not easy. Her husband got diagnosed with cancer and it became very hard for the family.
However, they stuck together and he is currently doing okay. She has also faced racism with a client even lying about her deliveries because they didn’t like her.
However, she presses on when she thinks of her livelihood. Nearly a month ago, she was involved in a serious accident that completely ruined her truck and also affected other cars on the road. Luckily, there were no fatalities.
According to her, what has kept her strong is faith in God. She also does Tik Tok videos to avoid boredom especially as she waits for her turn to pick up goods.
The 55-year-old trucker told Lynn Ngugi that there are no secrets between her and her husband.