Born in Zimbabwe, Tshakalisa, 34, had many sisters and brothers, and strict parents. He didn’t do well in high school even though he worked hard. They sent him to a boarding school thinking it would help. It only made matters worse because he was isolated from friends and family. So he tried to commit suicide when he was at home for a holiday, by overdosing on aspirin, the only thing he could find in the medicine cabinet. His sister saved him by pouring milk down his throat. Not long after that, when he was 14, that sister was killed in a car wreck; the only one of four people in the car to be killed. At that point his father suggested he go to America and try to make some money he could send home to help out because there was no work at home.

He ran into an educational recruiter from the U.S. who said he could help him get a scholarship and airfare to college in Texas without taking the SAT exams that constantly stressed him out.

He thrived on science classes. It was there at the university when he learned he needed glasses and was slightly dyslexic, which explained his troubles in a rural high school. His plan was to become a doctor.

Through college he worked at fast food restaurants to supplement his scholarship and pay rent. He graduated with a degree in biology and secondary education in nursing.

From Texas, Tshakalisa went to Oklahoma to go to nursing school. While there he worked at different health care organizations, including a jail clinic. Following a Christmas vacation during that job, he returned to find his name missing from the schedule. He soon got another job with the health care group HCA as a surgical nurse. While working, he went to nursing school, studying to get a Masters of Science degree as a clinical nurse specialist. Eventually, however, HCA couldn’t help him get an H1B visa. Meanwhile, his parents talked about war and conflict back home. So he applied for and was granted asylum in the U.S.

Tshakalisa pursued his love of the medical profession, but his dyslexia got in the way as he tried to take the MCAT exams. Then his dog Tank died. He admits he lost control at that point. He started smoking a synthetic marijuana called K2. He got sad and angry and pulled a knife on someone. “I wanted to run away from my life,” he said. “In a way that I could save it.”

It wasn’t a good plan. He ended up in jail. He decided to start over, start trying to understand his life, rather than fighting a losing battle towards a goal he realized he might never achieve: becoming a doctor and returning home a hero.

He decided to start over again, getting away from the drug scene and look for love instead. So he got a ride to San Diego from a friend who was driving to Alaska. He’s been here since 2011.

“Basically what I found when I came to the streets was I could evaluate a lot of things according to how I know how to evaluate them, or I could start to experience them and let that be the evaluation,” he said. “And I decided that that’s the way I wanted to go.”