Dead End, Fresh Start: A Rider, a Trader and the Tools That Got Them Moving

What do you do when the road runs out? When the job is gone, the money is thin, and the only thing left in the yard is a motorbike nobody thinks you should ride?

For Samson Chore, the answer was to climb back on. Dismissed from his job as a conductor, he took up the stage his late father once worked, paid off two bikes and raised a house, one post at a time.

For Brenda Cherotich Keter, the answer fit in the palm of her hand: a phone that would not freeze mid-sale, with room enough to photograph every piece of mitumba she had to sell.

One works the road, the other works the screen. Both have learnt that a livelihood is rarely bought in one go. It is paid for in small sums, week after week, by people who refuse to stay at the dead end.

After Form Four, I got work as a conductor. It is not a clean job, but I tried hard to stay presentable and look after myself. That is what cost me. Every time I bought new clothes, my employer grew more suspicious. Soon they were accusing me of stealing money from the vehicle, and in the end, I lost the job.

I went home and spent some time thinking about what to do next. I had only completed Form Four, and one question kept coming back to me was: what can I do with my life?

Then, I remembered my father's motorbike. It had a terrible past. It was the one he had the accident on, an accident that took him. I looked at it and thought; this is the one thing I can use to help myself.

So I went to the stage where my father used to work and started riding. His stage became mine. But some of the riders recognised the bike. It was the one, they told me, from the accident that killed my father. I should get rid of it. In the end, I took their advice and sold it.

After that, I rented a bike, paying the owner KSh 300 to KSh 350 a day. Then I learnt there was another way. For KSh 385 a day, only a little more, I could finance a bike and one day own it. I thought, 'Why keep paying someone else when, with a bit more effort, the bike could be mine?'

That was how I found Watu Credit. I used my savings to pay the KSh 20,000 deposit, and I took home my first bike, a TVS 125.

Back then I lived in a mud house, and at night the bike had to stay outside. I prayed a lot. I asked God to keep it safe from thieves, because everything I hoped to build depended on that bike.

The payments went smoothly. The logbook came through without any trouble, and that gave me the confidence to think about a second bike.

At the stage, I could see riders acquiring brand-new motorbikes through Watu, while I was still on the one I started with. New motorbike means less maintenance costs and higher efficiency. I saw that riders could get new bikes and thought, why couldn't I? I could sell the one I had, put the money as deposit towards something better, and own that one too.

So, I got a Boxer, and I cleared the payments just as I had on the first.

The more I earned, the more I noticed where the money was going: road trips, entertainment, alcohol. I stepped away from some of those friends and decided to put my money into something more meaningful.

That would be a simple house.I started with the foundation, buying building materials bit by bit. Whenever I had a little money, even if only a week had passed since the last time, I would go home and add another post, take another step towards the house. I would bring in a fundi, and slowly the house began to take shape.

Today I have a house, and these motorbikes built it. Now I'm looking ahead to my third bike. I want to move up to an HD, and from what I've seen, the HD 125 is a good option. That's my next step.

I sell mitumba. I started small, with the little money I had, because I needed a way to earn a living. The business picked up, and I began to see that it could grow into something bigger, something that could improve my life.

My old phone was holding me back. The storage was small, and it kept hanging. I needed a better phone: more space, a good camera, something I could use to advertise my stock on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

But I couldn't afford to buy one outright. A friend who was paying off a phone in instalments told me about Watu Credit. I could take a phone home, they explained, and pay for it bit by bit.

I've had this phone for about a year and a half now. My old one had 32GB of storage. This one has 64GB. The extra space makes it much easier to advertise and to share photos of my stock. When a customer asks to see something, I just take a picture and send it.

The battery helps too. One charge carries me through the whole day.

I've paid consistently the whole way, and they've never called me with a complaint. The process has been simple. Watu Credit has been an enabler and I believe they can be to anyone who needs a phone but doesn't have the cash.

When I get my next phone, I believe it will give me the confidence to expand even further. In two or three years, I hope the business will have grown well beyond where it is today.