MUM STORIES: My grandma’s bittersweet motherhood journey

Faith Karimi poses with her grandmother Hellen M'Kiriinya. Her grandmother was hardly 13 years old when she got married to her age mate. PHOTO| COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • One evening, some men in military boots knocked her door down, asking about her husband.
  • They did not believe that she was as clueless as they were about his whereabouts.
  • She was breastfeeding her youngest child, my mother.
  • Do you have a mum story to share with us? Please e-mail: [email protected]

My grandmother was about 13 when she got married to her age mate.

“I had not started my period when I got married,” she once told me. It was customary to get married as soon as the 'red robot' visited.

But all her age mates had left the gicee and were married, meaning that she could not continue staying in the sheltered abode, where the circumcised girls were hosted before marriage.

She already had accepted her suitor’s proposal for marriage. After 11 months of patiently waiting for the red visitor, with no show, her mentor gave word to her suitor.

One night, 14-year-old M’Kiriinya, as was the tradition, sneaked his sister and female friends into the gicee where they lured her outside. He ‘stole’ his young bride and took her to his mother’s house, where a wedding feast was already in progress.

NEVER SAW HER HUSBAND AGAIN

My grandmother, with clarity of mind enviable for someone her age, recalls her motherhood journey vividly.

It seems motherhood was more than happy to honour her.

She got pregnant just before the awaited menses showed up.

Within five years of her marriage, she had three children. They were toddlers when the Mau Mau uprising took root. Her young husband had already signed up without her knowledge.

“One evening, he came home and told me that he would be travelling to Nairobi for construction work.” He promised to bring her a blanket and dresses. Only the wives of chiefs or other prominent men owned dresses back then.

He had managed to get her one dress earlier on in their marriage. She had no idea that she would never see her husband again.

Months turned into a year of waiting.

The Mau Mau sympathisers or those suspected to be were a wanted lot. She was in more trouble than she knew.

One evening, some men in military boots knocked her door down, asking about her husband. They did not believe that she was as clueless as they were about his whereabouts. She was breastfeeding her youngest child, my mother.

SLAP THAT RATTLED HER TEETH

“One of the men gave me a slap that rattled my teeth. Another yanked my baby off the breast and threw her out the door.”

Thankfully, her mother in law who was wailing and begging for their lives managed to grab the baby before it could hit the ground. My grandmother received a thorough beating, meant to break her. Instead though, she thought of her children. They needed her alive.

One of the home guards beating her was a suitor that she had turned down. He had looked at her older child, her son, and told him that he would come back and marry his mother once they had found and killed her husband. It was on that day that grandma learned that her husband was in the Mau Mau and would likely be killed. On that day too, she made the resolve to become a warrior and protect her children and herself.

She brewed the now illicit alcohol. It put food on the table. She was mocked for being a young single mother. It was taboo. Men offered to marry her. She adamantly refused.

“My children would have been mistreated by a step family. My sons would never be bequeathed land by anyone. They would have been destitute, unwanted.”

Her periods which before had deserted her became too heavy. Her mother, who was a herbalist, advised her to go to a hospital. The white doctor, through an interpreter told her that she needed to remarry or risk losing her life.

“How can remarriage stop the bleeding?” she asked.

“You are young and you need to bear more children. The other option is to remove your uterus, which would mean death for you,” said the doctor.

My grandmother reasoned that for a piece of sausage, she did not need to rear a pig. She never remarried but went on to have three more children within the fifteen year timeline of problematic menses.

MOCKED FOR DOING A MAN’S JOB

She took her children, including the daughters, to school. She was the only woman on the queue in her area, when after Independence land was being allocated to those previously displaced. She was mocked for doing a man’s job. She was kicked out of the line. She stepped right back. She got her allocation. She found Jesus. She stopped brewing beer and cussing. She started farming. She prayed for her children. She prayed for her grandchildren.  At 95, she now prays for her children, grandchildren and her descendants. She says this of motherhood:

“Being a mother gave me life, made me a warrior, continues to make me a mother many times over.”

Being a mother too gave her the most pain, she says, when she had to bury one of her children, my mother.

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