In 2012, Valary Olesia was a young, bright and bubbly girl. Being a Form Three student at Keveye Girls High School in Vihiga County, she was looking forward to passing her Form Four exams a year later, and to join one of the top public universities.
In any case, she had scored Grade B+ in internal examinations in Term One. Then she started experiencing a severe headache, and writings on the blackboard started appearing blurry. Little did she know that her world was about to change forever.
At first, the school administration dismissed her complaints. But when it was clear that she couldn’t read her books nor write properly, and the headache persisted, the matter was brought to the attention of the school principal.
“I was in much pain. I couldn’t sit down well, lie down nor even stand…crying also became painful. I convinced one of my favourite teachers to call my uncle, Ronald Shikanda, who worked as a doctor at the neighbouring Chavakali Boys High School to check on me,” Olesia said during the interview at Nation Centre in Nairobi on Wednesday.
Her uncle collected her from school, and took her to Kakamega General Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was the main cause of her persistent headache and blurry vision. Scans revealed a growth on the right side of her brain, which was putting pressure on the optical nerves, leading to the symptoms.
Valary Olesia makes a point during the interview at Kenyatta University, Parklands Law Campus in Nairobi on October 16.Olesia won four silver medals at the 2024 World Powerlifting Championships for the Blind.
Photo credit: Chris Omollo | Nation Media Group
“I lost vision completely in the right eye, but the left eye sees blurry images. I can’t read or write,” Olesia said. She was referred to Kenyatta National Hospital for surgery, but a doctors’ strike at Kenya’s main referral hospital saw her transferred to Nyeri General Hospital, where a successful surgery was done in August 2012, and the brain tumour removed. While the headache subsided, she lost her eyesight. Her trip back to school to collect her belonging proved emotional. Fellow students broke down upon seeing her condition.
For almost six months after the brain surgery, Olesia slumped into depression while undergoing treatment.
“The realisation that I couldn’t see hit me hard. As a young girl, I was determined to pursue a course in medicine since I was good in biology and chemistry. I loved bespectacled people as a young girl, but there I was and not even spectacles could help me regain my sight,” Olesia explains as she breaks into a telling laughter.
Born to Alex Vusaka and Mercy Vusaka in 1996 in Milimani, Nairobi, Olesia attended Itegero Primary School in Vihiga till 2009, before proceeding to Keveye Girls High School. She is the first born child in a family of four children; two boys and two girls.
She hated being told the truth about her condition and could lock herself at her parents’ house in Milimani after they left for work, just to avoid interacting with people, who kept asking questions about her condition. Some people told her that she had been bewitched for being bright at school.
She had two choices; either to go back to school and learn Braille language and revive her dream of pursuing university education, or stay at home and continue languishing in depression.
“The thought of going back to school as a blind person was like a big joke to me since I had not encountered that,” she says.
A change of mind saw her join Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind in February 2013. She took Braille lessons for six months, and accepted her condition. Braille is a form of written language for blind people, in which characters are represented by patterns of raised dots that are felt with fingertips.
Olesia, who is now 29, was introduced to sports at the institution. She learnt goalball, which was part of the institution’s curriculum. In 2014, she was enrolled in Form Two at Nico Hauser Special Secondary School for the Visually Impaired in Bondo, Siaya County, where she sat her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination in 2016.
“I was appointed the sports captain in Machakos, and in Bondo,” Olesia says. She scored Grade C+, and pursued a degree in Gender and Development Studies at Kenyatta University, where she graduated in 2021.
“At KU, we showcased goalball during the sports days,” Olesia says. She was elected a committee member of the Kenya Sports Association for the Visually Impaired as a second year student at Kenyatta University, a position she held for four years. She was elected deputy secretary general of Kenya Sports Association for the Visually Impaired from 2022, and travelled with Kenya Under-19 team to the World Youth Championships in August last year in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Her major breakthrough came when she took a shot at powerlifting in August this year in readiness for the Kenyan team selection exercise ahead of the World Powerlifting Championships for the Blind. The championship was held from October 5 to 13 in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Olesia was picked in a team of 10; five men and five women for the championships in which Kenya won 12 medals; five silver and seven bronze. Olesia won four silver medals in women’s 82kg B2 category. She lifted a total of 152.5kg to win silver medal from the performance of 50kg in squats, 32.5kg in bench press, and 70kg in dead lift. She got the fourth silver in overall.
“Every challenge has a solution. It is just that it takes a mindset to get a solution to a particular problem,” she said. “It took change of mindset to realise that my situation was permanent and that I should go back to school, get a degree and to take up other challenges like sports.
“Because I was good at school, people thought I had been bewitched but God was preparing me for something different in life,” said Olesia, adding that after goalball, she challenged herself to do powerlifting.
“Here I am on top of the world. It’s incredible,” said Olesia, who attributed her performance at the world championships to her coach David Waore Miduda, whom she describes as “strict for a worthy course.”
“He really prepared us well in camp, detailing what we should eat and what not to, so as to keep us within the weight categories and fit for power,” said Olesia, adding that her participation in the world event has changed her life completely.
Mududa, who handled the team to Kazakhstan, praised her lifters for posting a good performance,having only been in training for a month.
“Olesia was particularly impressive, but she can get better with more training,” said Miduda, adding that the team’s participation at the world event is key to their plans for 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games.
“Olesia and all the medallists have gained good points for the Los Angeles Games. Participation in more events will get them more points,” said Miduda, who will come up with a training programme for the lifters to prepare them well.
Olesia said it takes hard work, discipline, time and dedication to win because that way, one doesn’t need to be policed around as an athlete.
“One has to work hard, whether the coach is around or not. Discipline is paramount,” said Olesia, who was born on November 21, 1996 in Nairobi.
She is an Assistive Technology Computer Instructor at Enable Africa, a non-governmental organisation based in Nairobi which aims at empowering visually impaired youth through assistive technology.
She has now turned her focus to the African Games Goalball Championship scheduled for December this year in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
During the world event in Kazakhstan, Sella Adikinyi Odhiambo claimed a bronze medal with a total of 220 kg in the 67.5kg category made of 40kg - in bench press that gave her bronze, 70kg in squats that handed her bronze and 110kg in deadlift that gave her silver.
Dennis Cheruiyot lifted a total of 287.5kg in men’s 75kg to get bronze that comprised his bench press of 70kg for bronze.
