“I was born and raised in Nakuru, Kenya. My family and I have a complicated relationship. Growing up, I was very close to them, especially since I only have 2 brothers. After leaving for boarding school in South Africa, our relationship grew more complicated. I was discovering things about myself that my family wasn't as comfortable learning, so I found myself living almost a double life. The 'me' at school and the 'me' at home were not the same person; at home I would need to cover things up.
I've had to learn to be independent from life's necessities. There's things I hadn't known about myself simply because I didn't have the right people to talk about it with while growing up. Coming to Yale was less about learning to be “independent”, and more about identifying what I wanted to create in this new space. I think a lot about my interactions with others, and how they affect the person I want to become.
Here, I've gained clarity in understanding what's important to me-I'm a lot more involved with the LGBTQ+ community, something I never had the chance to be involved in back home. But queerness isn't something many people are comfortable with in the black community, so I don't know how that will manifest itself after my life at Yale.
For most of my life, I was interested in medicine. Growing up-when I was still very close to my family-my dad contracted meningitis. Not knowing how to treat it, and sitting there waiting for him to get better, my motivation for studying chemistry came from wanting to make a difference in people's health. For most of my life I assumed there's a story I'm supposed to be building, and need to live up to. But I also need to enjoy the moments I'm living in right now, and chemistry doesn't fit. I'm trying to diversify and find things I'm actually interested in learning, to fit that into my “journey” later on.” -Felix Morara, '22 #HumansOfOISS
