On 31st December the list of those selected for Higher Education loans was out in the news paper and my name was not there. Devastating as it was I gathered some courage to write an appeal letter. All the way from Northern Zambia. I traveled to come and submit the appeal letter.

When I reached the HELBs offices I didn’t know which direction to go to submit the letter. The despair in my heart and mind was visible on the outside I suspect. Some woman came out of some office, held my hand, asked me if I wanted something. Before I could speak, she asked the next question, you really needed this sponsorship right? “Am sorry” she added.

She got my documents and said call me on this number around 18 and went back. I started thinking about it. A few seconds after 18hrs, I rang the number. She picked and I told her that she told me to call her, she asked if I could manage to meet up with her the next day at a certain location. I could sense something was wrong. But I really wanted the student loan to study at UNZA and be a lawyer I had always wanted to be and that’s what pushed me to go see her.

I reached, the very woman, she asked me how much I needed the loan, I told her that I didn’t understand why I was left out because I met all the prescribed qualifications; female, from a rural district, good results, raised by a single parent what else was I missing. Then she asked me if I could find a k5000 to be automatically added to the list of the successful appeals.

I was short of words, that 5000 is an amount I had never seen in my whole life and if at all I could find it anywhere, it only needed a k3000 on top to make it k8000 the amount I needed to be registered for 2016/2017 academic year. I told the woman I had no such money and didn’t know I needed to bribe someone to be on the list. She laughed and said, it’s not a bribe, you are just helping me so I can help you. It broke my heart. And that’s I let it go. The list came out, I was not one of the selected ones again. I stopped school and went back to the village.

The end.

Northern Province