Overcoming Hardships, Woman Becomes Citizen, Earns HSE
January 2, 2023 at 10:27 p.m.
Overcoming Hardships, Woman Becomes Citizen, Earns HSE
By David [email protected]
Despite that, the 32-year-old woman from Kenya earned her U.S. citizenship in summer 2022 and in December earned her high school equivalency diploma.
She recently began working at Kroger, picking orders, and sat down Dec. 14 for an interview at the Starbucks inside Kroger for this story, along with Warsaw Adult Education counselor Rick Swaim.
Kangeri said she’s originally from the village of Chaka in Kenya.
“I came here in 2010. I came here with a Green Card. My boyfriend - when I was in high school back there - he won the Green Card and he put me on it. He was like, ‘Because you’re my girlfriend, I’m going to put you down on my Green Card,’ so if I wanted, we were all going to come over here,” she recalled, noting it was two years later when they arrived to America.
By that time, they had a daughter, Angela Munene, and she came to the U.S. with them. Angela was 2 at the time, but is now a Warsaw Community High School student.
Kangeri, her daughter and her boyfriend stayed together in America a couple years, but her boyfriend decided that he didn’t want to stay in the U.S. any longer and he went back to Kenya.
“But, here I am. I’m still here. We just became a citizen, me and my daughter. It was in August,” Kangeri said.
In Kenya, Kangeri had completed her schooling all the way to what’s considered 11th grade in America. High school is very expensive in Kenya and her parents could not afford to pay for all their children to continue their schooling. The boarding school cost $30,000 ($300 in U.S. dollars) for three months for one person, she said. Kangeri has five other siblings, though one has died, and Kangeri is the second from the last. At the same time, Kangeri was working on immigrating to the U.S., so she stopped her schooling to work on the process of coming here.
After her boyfriend decided to return to Kenya, Kangeri said she decided to stay because it would be more stressful to return to Africa.
“We are so used to this life, and I did not want my daughter to go back and start all over again. I knew the struggle we went through to get here - it was a real struggle,” she said.
When her boyfriend returned to Kenya, she said he could not find a job and has had a hard time.
“But me, I wanted to stay here, just to give my daughter a better life,” Kangeri said.
In 2015, she wanted to finish her schooling, but she and her daughter traveled back to Kenya to see her parents and siblings and her sister died. She stopped going to classes and focused on just working to provide for her and her daughter.
While working at different jobs, Kangeri kept thinking about going back to school to get her diploma.
Then on May 20, 2019, she was involved in a one-vehicle accident on South First Street in Pierceton. She was traveling south on First when her vehicle swerved to the right, quickly made a hard jerk to the left and accelerated at a high rate of speed before hitting a large tree, according to an accident report. Kangeri was unresponsive at the scene and taken by Parkview Hospital’s air ambulance to Fort Wayne.
When Kangeri woke up three days later, she didn’t know where she was and couldn’t remember anything about the accident. The doctors had to tell her she had an accident. When she looked down at her legs, she saw they had pins and other medical devices on them.
“My brain went completely blank. I was like, ‘This can not be happening.’ Then I touched my eye. I could not feel it. I could not even move my body,” she said, adding that her whole body was swollen. “I could not remember anything. They gave me medicine and I went back to sleep.”
The next day, when she woke up, she had to have assistance going to the bathroom and was told she’d probably need help using the commode for the next six months. She cried for hours because she couldn’t believe the condition she was in.
When the Pierceton Police Department officer came to see her, Kangeri’s first thought was that maybe she was going to jail for something. The officer told her he was the one that responded to her accident and he tried to explain to her what happened. She still couldn’t remember anything.
After a week in the hospital, the doctor told Kangeri she could go home. However, he told her, if her left leg got infected, they would have to cut it off. They weren’t sure she would be able to walk again.
She stayed with her cousins in Fort Wayne for three months in a wheelchair. Thoughts of returning to high school continued and a friend encouraged her to follow her dreams, whether she was disabled or not.
She knew she wanted to return to high school and get her diploma. College might be something she’d like to do, too, but after the wreck all of that looked impossible to her.
The crash resulted in her having traumatic brain injury and the loss of her eye.
“I was seeing the eye doctor, I was seeing the brain doctor, I was seeing the foot doctor. It came to the point where they all - especially the eye doctor and the foot doctor - said there was nothing else they could do for me,” Kangeri said.
No matter what, the doctors told her, she could still accomplish anything she wanted if she just puts her mind to it.
Kangeri said her neurologist helped her the most. He told her he thought she was a smart lady, too young and was capable of doing anything. She was still having difficulty remembering anything.
In August 2021, she decided to take a leap of faith and go back to school.
“I’m telling you, it was not easy for me to walk in that door. I did not sleep all night knowing I was going back to school (out at Ivy Tech). I did not sleep that night,” she said.
In the classroom, she met adult education teacher Diana Clark, adult education Director Steve Ferber and other teachers. She was still having difficulty understanding everyone and remembering things because of her brain injury.
On the first day, she was given a placement test to see where she was academically. Kangeri failed, but she was encouraged to not give up.
“I told myself, ‘I don’t want to be a quitter. I’m going to keep going. I don’t want to stop,’” she recalled.
Kangeri kept going to classes every day. Four months later, she was getting comfortable around the teachers, especially Clark, so she shared with her the information about her car crash and brain injury.
She especially struggled with the reading. Swaim met with Kangeri at the Kroger Starbucks for several weeks to work on it.
The adult education teachers helped her a lot, Kangeri said, but her memory often failed her. In May 2022, her brain started improving, she said, and she could tell the difference because she was able to remember things she couldn’t before. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her brain, but told her keeping her brain and herself active were good for her.
Eventually, she passed all five parts of the test - science, social studies, math, language and reading, and writing - though not always on the first attempt.
Swaim said, “She’s obviously very driven, just what she’s gone through the past 3-1/2 years, to succeed and get things done. I’ve seen that in her. She just will not give up.”
Kangeri attributed that to her daughter. “Let me tell you what drives me. It’s my daughter because I don’t want my daughter to see me as a failure.”
She said she wants Angel to see that her mom never quit and accomplishes whatever she put her mind to.
“This keeps me going, no matter how hard or difficult my life sometimes looks like. I want my daughter to look at me and be like, ‘I’m going to follow my mom’s footsteps,’” Kangeri said.
Despite that, the 32-year-old woman from Kenya earned her U.S. citizenship in summer 2022 and in December earned her high school equivalency diploma.
She recently began working at Kroger, picking orders, and sat down Dec. 14 for an interview at the Starbucks inside Kroger for this story, along with Warsaw Adult Education counselor Rick Swaim.
Kangeri said she’s originally from the village of Chaka in Kenya.
“I came here in 2010. I came here with a Green Card. My boyfriend - when I was in high school back there - he won the Green Card and he put me on it. He was like, ‘Because you’re my girlfriend, I’m going to put you down on my Green Card,’ so if I wanted, we were all going to come over here,” she recalled, noting it was two years later when they arrived to America.
By that time, they had a daughter, Angela Munene, and she came to the U.S. with them. Angela was 2 at the time, but is now a Warsaw Community High School student.
Kangeri, her daughter and her boyfriend stayed together in America a couple years, but her boyfriend decided that he didn’t want to stay in the U.S. any longer and he went back to Kenya.
“But, here I am. I’m still here. We just became a citizen, me and my daughter. It was in August,” Kangeri said.
In Kenya, Kangeri had completed her schooling all the way to what’s considered 11th grade in America. High school is very expensive in Kenya and her parents could not afford to pay for all their children to continue their schooling. The boarding school cost $30,000 ($300 in U.S. dollars) for three months for one person, she said. Kangeri has five other siblings, though one has died, and Kangeri is the second from the last. At the same time, Kangeri was working on immigrating to the U.S., so she stopped her schooling to work on the process of coming here.
After her boyfriend decided to return to Kenya, Kangeri said she decided to stay because it would be more stressful to return to Africa.
“We are so used to this life, and I did not want my daughter to go back and start all over again. I knew the struggle we went through to get here - it was a real struggle,” she said.
When her boyfriend returned to Kenya, she said he could not find a job and has had a hard time.
“But me, I wanted to stay here, just to give my daughter a better life,” Kangeri said.
In 2015, she wanted to finish her schooling, but she and her daughter traveled back to Kenya to see her parents and siblings and her sister died. She stopped going to classes and focused on just working to provide for her and her daughter.
While working at different jobs, Kangeri kept thinking about going back to school to get her diploma.
Then on May 20, 2019, she was involved in a one-vehicle accident on South First Street in Pierceton. She was traveling south on First when her vehicle swerved to the right, quickly made a hard jerk to the left and accelerated at a high rate of speed before hitting a large tree, according to an accident report. Kangeri was unresponsive at the scene and taken by Parkview Hospital’s air ambulance to Fort Wayne.
When Kangeri woke up three days later, she didn’t know where she was and couldn’t remember anything about the accident. The doctors had to tell her she had an accident. When she looked down at her legs, she saw they had pins and other medical devices on them.
“My brain went completely blank. I was like, ‘This can not be happening.’ Then I touched my eye. I could not feel it. I could not even move my body,” she said, adding that her whole body was swollen. “I could not remember anything. They gave me medicine and I went back to sleep.”
The next day, when she woke up, she had to have assistance going to the bathroom and was told she’d probably need help using the commode for the next six months. She cried for hours because she couldn’t believe the condition she was in.
When the Pierceton Police Department officer came to see her, Kangeri’s first thought was that maybe she was going to jail for something. The officer told her he was the one that responded to her accident and he tried to explain to her what happened. She still couldn’t remember anything.
After a week in the hospital, the doctor told Kangeri she could go home. However, he told her, if her left leg got infected, they would have to cut it off. They weren’t sure she would be able to walk again.
She stayed with her cousins in Fort Wayne for three months in a wheelchair. Thoughts of returning to high school continued and a friend encouraged her to follow her dreams, whether she was disabled or not.
She knew she wanted to return to high school and get her diploma. College might be something she’d like to do, too, but after the wreck all of that looked impossible to her.
The crash resulted in her having traumatic brain injury and the loss of her eye.
“I was seeing the eye doctor, I was seeing the brain doctor, I was seeing the foot doctor. It came to the point where they all - especially the eye doctor and the foot doctor - said there was nothing else they could do for me,” Kangeri said.
No matter what, the doctors told her, she could still accomplish anything she wanted if she just puts her mind to it.
Kangeri said her neurologist helped her the most. He told her he thought she was a smart lady, too young and was capable of doing anything. She was still having difficulty remembering anything.
In August 2021, she decided to take a leap of faith and go back to school.
“I’m telling you, it was not easy for me to walk in that door. I did not sleep all night knowing I was going back to school (out at Ivy Tech). I did not sleep that night,” she said.
In the classroom, she met adult education teacher Diana Clark, adult education Director Steve Ferber and other teachers. She was still having difficulty understanding everyone and remembering things because of her brain injury.
On the first day, she was given a placement test to see where she was academically. Kangeri failed, but she was encouraged to not give up.
“I told myself, ‘I don’t want to be a quitter. I’m going to keep going. I don’t want to stop,’” she recalled.
Kangeri kept going to classes every day. Four months later, she was getting comfortable around the teachers, especially Clark, so she shared with her the information about her car crash and brain injury.
She especially struggled with the reading. Swaim met with Kangeri at the Kroger Starbucks for several weeks to work on it.
The adult education teachers helped her a lot, Kangeri said, but her memory often failed her. In May 2022, her brain started improving, she said, and she could tell the difference because she was able to remember things she couldn’t before. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her brain, but told her keeping her brain and herself active were good for her.
Eventually, she passed all five parts of the test - science, social studies, math, language and reading, and writing - though not always on the first attempt.
Swaim said, “She’s obviously very driven, just what she’s gone through the past 3-1/2 years, to succeed and get things done. I’ve seen that in her. She just will not give up.”
Kangeri attributed that to her daughter. “Let me tell you what drives me. It’s my daughter because I don’t want my daughter to see me as a failure.”
She said she wants Angel to see that her mom never quit and accomplishes whatever she put her mind to.
“This keeps me going, no matter how hard or difficult my life sometimes looks like. I want my daughter to look at me and be like, ‘I’m going to follow my mom’s footsteps,’” Kangeri said.
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