DENNIS OMBACHI OPENS UP TO CNN ON ATTEMPTING TO TAKE HIS LIFE

Former Kenya 7s rugby player Dennis Ombachi was recently featured on CNN’s African Voices. 

On the show, Ombachi opens up about battling with bipolar disorder and his love for cooking. Popularly known as The Roaming Chef, he said after suffering a severe leg break, which side-lined him a year. He was forced to move home and with nothing to do but wait for his leg to heal, Ombachi struggled to cope and eventually attempted to take his own life.

“Bones and muscles eventually do heal. But what I really didn’t factor in was the mental toll that it was going to take on me and which dragged on, even up to now that I still suffer a bit from it,” he recalls. Thanks to intervention from friends and family, Ombachi was hospitalised and finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In dark phase of life, he remembered his cooking hobby. “My love of food is intertwined with playing rugby because it started when playing the HSBC legs, you tour close to 18 countries a year and all these countries have their own culture, languages and food. We used to eat different kinds of foods. I used to come back home and challenge myself to try and create some of the different dishes I had here and there. I think that’s how the passion grew.”

Ombachi learned most of his cooking by watching Gordon Ramsay’s videos on YouTube, “Through his YouTube channel I managed to understand the fundamentals, the principles and how to use your tastebuds. That’s what actually got me through most of my depressive moments, especially the times I was injured,” he says before adding, “In cooking, Gordon Ramsay was my mentor although he doesn’t know about it.”