Would you have done what he did?

Joseph Kamau was 53, three of his four children had long moved out of home, and were married.

It was just him and his wife Lucy Muthoni, and they were just getting used to a quiet, undemanding life that revolved around just the two of them.

Kamau was working as a caretaker then.

On the day that an unexpected bundle would be thrust their way, Kamau’s instructions from his employer were to kick out a tenant that had not paid rent for three months.

He knocked on the door, determined not to be swayed by the pleading he expected.

When the door opened however, the only people in the house were five distressed and frightened-looking children. The older one implored him not to kick them out, assuring him that their parents would come “soon” to settle the arrears.

He knew that he could not just kick out the children while their parents were away, and as he contemplated what to do next, one of the tenants who had witnessed the exchange pulled him aside.

She told him that the children were orphans, and that they had been living with an aunt, who had abandoned them a few months earlier.
Says Kamau,

“I was in a dilemma – I could not throw them out, but I could not allow them to continue living in the house for free either.”

The children also seemed weak, a sign that they had not had enough to eat for a while. The first step he took was get them food, and then reported the matter to the local chief and the nearby police station, hoping that they could trace the children’s relatives.

The next day, he made an announcement through one of the radio stations, appealing to anyone who knew the relatives of the five to contact him.

When no one came forward to claim the children, he desperately went on a door-to-door search, and even placed posters with the children’s photograph in public places. Meanwhile, the children continued to live in the house.

“No one seemed to know them, or even where they came from,” he says.

With no forthcoming help, he went back to the chief’s office, who he hoped would come up with a permanent solution

At a loss of what to do, the chief asked him to house them until he got a safe place for them to live in. That day, a disturbed Kamau went back home and told Muthoni about his fruitless efforts to get the children a home.

With no other solution at hand, the couple decided to take the children in, as they looked for a permanent home for them. There was a problem though, they lived in a one-room house, which was just enough for them, there was no way the room could house an additional five people.

Kamau earned Sh6, 000, but in spite of this little amount, he rented the children a room in the same compound, and he and wife ensured that they had food and other basic items.

“The biggest challenge was getting enough to eat for everyone…money was never enough, and I would end up borrowing from friends before the month was over,” he says.

You would think that such a selfless act would get the couple nods of approval, instead, they became the talk of town, with neighbours mockingly calling Kamau “Baba Onyango.” One of his two adopted sons is called George Onyango.

Some even had the audacity to question why they were helping children from “another tribe”, yet there were many desperate children from their community who would have appreciated their generosity.

The few positive voices included those of their children, who assured them that theirs was a noble gesture.

In fact, Muthoni points out; their children support them financially whenever the need arises, which is often.

Undeterred by the negative voices, the couple enrolled the children in school - Phoebe, George, and Linda to class eight, Mercy to class seven, and Lawrence to class five.

While they managed to take them through primary school without struggling too much, taking them through secondary school was an uphill task, especially since Muthoni had no job, and could therefore not support her husband financially.

By this time, the couple considered the five their children, and was determined to see them succeed. With no means of raising the school fees required for the first three children, Kamau and Muthoni organised a fundraising. It was a flop.

“Only two people honoured the invitation,” Linda would later tell us, when we interviewed her and her younger sister Mercy.

However, one of the two who turned up was Francis Waithaka Kairu, the director of Engineer Wisdom Schools in Kinangop Constituency.

He was so touched, that he gave full secondary school sponsorship to both Linda and George.

Today, Linda, and Mercy are students at The Presbyterian University of East Africa in Kikuyu. Mercy is studying for a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance, while Linda is taking a diploma course in Clinical Health Sciences. They both joined the university in September 2011.

The elder sister, Phoebe, graduated from Egerton University, Njoro, last year, with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting.

SOLDIER ON

Their younger brother, Lawrence Godana, completed secondary school in 2011 and scored C+. He is yet to join college and lives in Dandora, Nairobi, with their eldest brother George, who is a casual worker.

Kamau says that they plan to help the two brothers advance in their education once they manage to pay the girls’ fee arrears.

Linda owes the university over Sh200,000; while Mercy has a balance of Sh160,000. Both sisters will be graduating later this year, but cannot get their certificates unless they clear the fee balance.

Their elder sister, Phoebe, also owes Egerton University, Sh150, 000, and is therefore yet to get her degree certificate. She is a cashier at a supermarket in Nakuru.

Linda and Mercy’s story

Linda Anyango was 13, while her sister, Mercy Atieno, was 11, old enough to spend sleepless nights wondering where their next meal would come from.

When they heard that loud and firm knock 11 years ago, they had no doubt that they would spend the night in the cold for the rest of their lives.

The five lived with their aunt and her three children at City Council Estate in Naivasha. One evening they came back from school to find her and her children gone.

“We lived alone for three months before dad discovered us,” says Linda.

Their clothes, they say, were old and tattered, including their school uniform. Their poverty was so announced; their teachers summoned them to find out what was happening.

Says Linda,

“When they learnt about our situation, they asked other pupils to donate clothes and food they could spare. This helped but it took away the little self-esteem that we had left.”

Their biological parents had passed away earlier on, and they knew no other relatives apart from their aunt.

“The only information we have of our parents is that they worked at the flower farms in Naivasha,” she continues.

The day that the man they call “dad” came knocking will forever be ingrained in their minds.

“We had not eaten anything the previous day - the first thing he did was buy us food,” says Mercy.

For survival, the sisters would wash laundry for families in the area, while George, their elder brother, would go fishing on River Karati in Naivasha, and whenever he got lucky, they would eat fish that day, and sell some to buy maize flour.

And then Kamau and Muthoni came into their lives.

“Before it happened to us, I would never have believed that such kindness exists – just like that, we had a family we could call our own, says Linda.

The girls add that the couple’s children welcomed them wholeheartedly.

“From the beginning, they treated us as if we were part of the family, and for the first time in a very long time, we felt loved and secure,” Linda says.

They say that the most difficult challenge for their parents has been educating them, but with their usual fortitude, they keep soldering on.

“We are where we are because of their love and determination – they could have educated us until primary or secondary school and left it at that, but they didn’t,” Linda says.

The university administration has been kind to them and listens whenever they plead to be allowed in class or to sit for exams. They hope that by the time they graduate, Linda in December this year, and Mercy next year, they will have somehow managed to clear their fees balance.

Besides their parents, the sisters are also grateful to neighbours who were generous with food and kind words when their aunt deserted them.

“Rachel or Mama Sabina Gathoni, stands out among them. We had breakfast with her family every morning for those three months, and she would bring enough lunch at school for her two children and the five of us. Whenever we had no food, we would have supper at her home. Not once did she turn us away and was always generous,” Mercy says.

“We stand here today because of other people’s generosity, people who are not relatives, and who were not obligated to help us, and to them, we say thank you,” she continues.

Their dream is that their parents live long enough, so that they can harvest what they sowed in them.

You can reach Joseph Kamau on 0726 918 532 or his daughter Linda Anyango on 0702 573 079