Sometimes you see mosquito that takes the initiative to try and suck your blood in broad daylight. Perhaps it is hunger, perhaps it is audacity but it can shamelessly try and bite you in daylight.

As someone who was brought up with the words "use your initiative!” I have to admire that in some way. Same goes with the daytime hookers that you see outside carwash, shamelessly parading their wares, not able to wait until dusk or even twilight. Even more shameful is the man who stops to pick them up, but that is not my theme today.

I want to talk about audaciously taking your blessing, not waiting for manna to fall but taking what is yours. There are still Jews in Egypt, when Moses was going to leave, some stayed behind and 3,500 years later their descendants are still there.

A human being can get used to anything, if you have a leaking sewer in your backyard it stinks for a few hours, then you get used to it. The same sewer can even smell sweet after a while. What you need is to get fed-up, to say you will take your blessing come what may.

The Bible has a story of Jacob and Esau; the younger trickster Jacob cheated his father into giving him his blessing after his older brother stupidly traded it.

Even though tricks were involved the blessing was valid, and his descendants are blessed to this day. There is a saying that "an opportunity of a lifetime should be taken within the lifetime of an opportunity.” It is important to take the initiative and take that chance, so what if you fail? The inventor Thomas Edison failed 150 times before he invented a working light bulb.

Everyone is blessed with innate qualities that they do not even know about; my young sister is running a hectic office on behalf of executives in London. She never knew she had the ability until she was given the opportunity, and she took it with both hands.

Every moment in life is preparing for that opportunity, times get hard and you can give up trying to even try. Failure is the best tutor; you have to remember lessons learned the feeling of failure and let that spur you on.

Then you have to have the audacity of a daytime mosquito, to know that you cannot wait to starve or die of hunger. To know that the time is now, not tomorrow, and not the day after.

You have to keep your eyes open for that opportunity, and even better to make the opportunity for yourself. To do that you have to recognise the abilities within yourself and trust in them, just like the daytime mosquito trusted in its own ability to fool me in broad daylight.

To the extent that I even risked malaria and let it suck, just for the audacity. That is what Rwandans need today, audacity and self-belief to take what is theirs and even risk their life to get their blessing.

Ends