CHAPTER 1: WHEN DREAMS BLEED
They say dreams are for the rich. That if you're born in dust, you die in dust. But I’ve never believed that. Not even when the world tried to shove the same lie down my throat a thousand times.
My name is Kibe. Born and bred in the backstreets of Eldoret-a small city in kenya- where every sunrise smells like smoke, and every sunset feels like a warning. I grew up in a single-room mabati house with walls thin enough to hear our neighbour’s arguments and dreams—both loud, both broken. My mum, Mama Kazi, known to many, sold vegetables by the roadside near Huruma. She called herself a hustler, but she was really a soldier. My soldier
I was ten when I fell in love with movies. Not watching them—making them. It started with my cousin's phone, an old Tecno Pop with a cracked screen and a camera barely holding on. I’d record scenes with my friends pretending to be gangsters, pastors, or lovers. We had no script, no money, but too much imagination.
People laughed at me. "Kibe thinks he's in Hollywood!" they’d say, mimicking my fake English accents. Even my teachers didn't take me seriously. "Acting won't put food on your table," one of them told me. "Stick to real subjects, like biology."
But at night, when the town quieted and Mama had drifted into her soft snore, I’d lie awake staring at the rusted ceiling, dreaming of film festivals, red carpets, and my name—Kibe Sukwe—glowing in bright letters on a screen somewhere far from here.
That dream stayed small and quiet. Until the day it got stolen.
It was a school film competition. I’d written a script titled Shadows of the Streets, a story about a homeless boy who becomes a filmmaker. I printed it out, handed it to the drama teacher, and waited with hope. Weeks later, the winning entry came from another school—same title, same storyline, even some of my dialogue.
I remember standing there at the back of the crowd, heart frozen, fists clenched. My idea. My soul. Stolen.
I walked home in silence, the noise of the crowd still ringing in my ears. I wanted to quit. To bury the dream. But that night, Mama looked at me across our smoky kitchen and said, “You know why they steal from you? Because even your dreams are richer than theirs.”
That’s when I decided I’d fight for it. For every word, every frame, every scene.
My desire and passion for filmmaking made me leave for the city-Nairobi.
☆☆☆☆☆HERE'S WHERE MY STORY BEGINS-GLAD TO HAVE YOU ALONG♡♡》》》
