How Kenyan lady got Dubai cabin crew job despite borrowing clothes for interview

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

- Peris Maranga from Sipili could not afford interview clothes for her cabin crew applications, so she borrowed an outfit and shoes

- She was determined to actualise a dream that was first sparked in her by a childhood classmate

- Despite years of applications and setbacks, Peris eventually broke into the aviation industry and is now based in Dubai

Peris Maranga, a young woman from Sipili, is now working as cabin crew and flying out of Dubai. Still, her path to the aviation industry began with something far more humble than most people would expect.

When the time came to take the photographs required for her cabin crew applications, she could not afford to buy the clothes she needed.

Childhood Dream

So she did the only thing available to her: she borrowed them. The outfit and shoes were borrowed, but behind that assembled appearance was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted.

Peris traces the beginning of her dream back to a school courtyard at Amazing Grace Primary School.

It all began when a classmate named Kalyn, who had come from Nairobi, once told her she wanted to become an air hostess.

For the young girl from Sipili, those words quietly took root and never left.

Rejection After Rejection

Years later, when she found herself filling out application forms for cabin crew positions, she realised she had been carrying that conversation with her for most of her life.

Kalyn may not even remember saying it. Peris never forgot.

The applications came and went without success. There were long periods of uncertainty and seasons when the dream felt further away than ever.

Each disappointment could have become a reason to stop, but Peris kept submitting applications, one after another, refusing to let her starting conditions write the ending.

From Sipili to the Skies

She did not have the right clothes. She did not have the money. She did not have connections waiting to fast-track her way in.

What she had was clarity about where she wanted to go, and the willingness to keep trying until she got there.

Eventually, after years of persistence, the day came when Peris was no longer an applicant. She was cabin crew.

The girl who had once pieced together a borrowed outfit for a photograph was now the woman in the uniform.

Her story carries a message she is eager to share, especially with anyone who feels embarrassed about where they are starting.

"Do not be ashamed of where you are starting," she has said. "Your current situation may not be your final destination."

She believes that the gap between dreaming and achieving is simply time, and that delay is not the same as denial.

Someone may be struggling financially, watching a business stall, or sending out applications into apparent silence. For Peris, none of that means the dream is over.

The photographs from her difficult early days, the ones taken in borrowed clothes and borrowed shoes, now represent something she is proud of.

They are evidence of how far determination alone can carry a person, when circumstance offers very little else.

Source: TUKO.co.ke

Reporting originally appeared via TUKO. Read the full source for additional context.