Marisela the Great
I must write this down. I
have been planning to write a tribute to my mum and try as I have in the
past I have not done it and it is not for lack of material for my
mother was a great woman. She was born before her time and she continues
to live beyond her present. But first things first.
Meet
Marisela Nyarigu Kahiro, born in 1932 at small village in Gatundu 40
kilometers north of Nairobi. As a child my mother did what all other
girls and boys did in the village; look after their parent’s livestock.
Marisela was not content looking after goats though, she wanted more and
at the age of 12 went to Gatitu Mission where she enrolled herself in
Muthiga School in 1944 despite opposition from my grandfather, the Late
Ng’ang’a Wairachu. She was among the first Christian converts in her
village. She loved to read and write and what that world opened to her.
She said her catechism classes and was confirmed Catholic by the time
she sat her Common Entrance Exams in 1948. Much as she loved school and
despite topping her class, she didn’t enroll at Kilimambogo teachers
college which was her dream college. She regreted this throughout her
life but also used it as motivation. Her father, my grandfather did not
see the need of educating a girl then. This burning desire, for
education, would later manifest itself in her how she pushed all and
sundry to acquire education.
A woman of faith
Marisela
was a woman of faith. She had so much faith in God that the local
parish priest, the late Father McGill, allowed her to marry her
sweetheart, my father, even though he had not said catechism classes and
was not fully catholic then. We always joke that they got married
solely on her faith. She had a church wedding in the middle of Mau Mau
uprising and to my knowledge her marriage certificate was the oldest one
in my village. She was an eternal optimist, a firm believer that good
always triumphs over evil, that the God she fervently prayed to was a
just God and that everyone had the capacity to do well for themselves if
they worked hard, put their trust in God and loved the fellow human
beings. She always had her rosary and we didn’t need many catechism
classes when growing up, we didn’t need to, we had our own in the house!
Contradicting everything the mzungu
priests were teaching her in the mission church, my mother joined Mau
Mau liberation movement and became an active member, ferrying weapons
hidden in sweet potato vines from Ruiru river to River Chania for onward
transportation to the fighters in the forests. For this, she would
suffer like many others in our village from beatings administered by the
colonial homeguards and the separation from her husband occasioned by
detention. The struggle meant a lot to her and helped shape her outlook
in life. Later, when people in church spoke of power of forgiveness, she
would tell us that she was living the topic of forgiveness, serving in
the same church committee as the colonial home guards who administered
brutal beatings in the 50’s.
But don’t get me wrong, she
was a believer yes, but she didn’t take lightly to people trampling on
her rights. She was widowed at a very early age and the realities of
life as a single mother quickly hardened and made her wise up very
quickly. At times when women rights were only in theoretical frameworks,
she asserted hers and quickly made it known in gathering of our clan wazees
that in absence of her husband she had full rights as a member of the
extended family, clan and her say was equal to theirs. This
assertiveness ensured we inherited the land due to our father in age
where we simply would have been chased away. She never failed to remind
us when we growing up that you have to stand up for yourself before you
ask others to do it for you and that injustice to one was an injustice
to all.
Disciplinarian and fair
Marisela, as everyone called her, was a disciplinarian per excellence.
She brooked no idiocy nor nonsense. Bringing up 6 boys, she didn’t have
much choice if she wanted them to become respectable men that she
desired them to become. The duties in the house were divided with
military precision and time frames for finishing clearly set. When it
was unfashionable for men to cook, all the men in Marisela household
were whipping up dishes that any girl would have killed for and if you
were not cooking, then you were washing dishes, taking care of your
siblings and doing any other chores as Marisela had directed and as
Marisela wanted accomplished. As the youngest in the family, I would
often go astray and everybody in the family knew the drill of bringing
me back in line. It would go along the lines of, “I have five grown men
and they have never defied me, so who do you think you are?” And 5 very
mean looking men would make sure I toed the line and did what was
required. In fact the sobering reminder from my brothers was that “if we
hear Mother getting angry over you again, then you will explain to us
why”. That in itself was enough deterrent because I knew they meant it
The
most important lesson though was not the use of force or how tough one
should get but in the importance of three words – I am sorry. In my
young mind, I never imagined adults ought to say sorry because they were
always right, after all weren’t they adults? But the lesson was taught
to me in the most painful but also in a way that inculcated in my mind
eternally how powerful taking responsibility and saying you are sorry
is. I had been sent to the shops by mum to buy her salt and I had my in
my hands a fortune then, a green ten shilling note. It was a lot of
money and I was reminded to be careful. I quickly took my mubara (a round ring usualy made a drum top) and
rushed to the shops, bought salt and came back home. Marisela was in
the shamba and I dumped the salt in the kitchen and put the change in a
drawer which I forgot as quickly as I went out to play mbira with neighbourhood kids. When
she came back, she found the salt but I could not remember where I kept
the change. I received a thorough beating, reminded that she would not
tolerate dishonest behavior and that every action has a reaction. My
action that day had attracted a painful reaction.
I was
furious and angry for many days. Deep down I knew I had not spent a
penny but I was a child, wasn’t I? I was pleasantly surprised when a
week later mum called everyone to the sitting room table with a drawer
and before all of us children displayed the exact change I had brought
back that painful afternoon a week earlier. She said she had judged
wrongly, punished me for a misdemeanor I didn’t commit and I asked for
my forgiveness. I could not believe it, that Marisela, could ask for
forgiveness. More poignantly, the lesson was for everyone, that we can
all make mistakes but the right thing is to own up, say the magic words –
I am sorry and never repeat the mistake. From that day, my mother never
beat me ever and I learnt that violence, although a deterrent, never
worked in the long run. Before policy mandarins at the Ministry of
Education had banned corporal punishment in Kenyan schools, Marisela had
enacted the policy 20 years earlier.
Marisela was a
confident and fearless woman. A good thing because I think I have
inherited a tiny amount of that from her but her fearlessness I hope to
God I can get half the courage that dear woman had. But before that I
have to tell you about Rarimi, our neighbour. He was the complete
dictator, four wives, ex Mau Mau detainee, big shot businessman in the
village and everyone feared him except Marisela. Rarimi would whip you
if he found you playing football on a public road as long as it was
adjacent to his shamba. He was Osama bin Laden before his time. He was
aptly nicknamed “Boer” due to his brutality and in comparison with the
treatment meted out to black South Africans by white minority then. He
would constantly to shift the boundary posts to try illegally to gain a
couple of meters of our farm. Marisela would politely remove them and
set them back to the actual boundary but “Boer” didn’t take kindly to a
woman defying him when he was the commanding officer of his four women
and nearly 20 children. Marisela got tired of making polite hints for
him to keep off our land and gave him a beating .How she was able to do
that, I cannot explain. The news spread fast in the village. The mere
sight of Marisela on the fence line would drive him away back into his
hut where all his four women converged on a lecture of how not to be a
woman like Marisela.
But Rarimi and his encounters with my mother also had another important lesson for me. In as much as we disagree, I have to always remember you are a human being.
The lesson came in a way that I hardly expected and the Good Samaritan
parable even become more real. I was coming from Gatundu town with my
mum and the route to our home consists of sharp turns on a steep incline
from Gatundu town to Magomano coffee factory. Halfway down the
distance, Rarimi our neighbor passed us with his bike doing down very
fast. Of course there were no greetings as he was going faster than
Lance Armstrong on Tour de France. We found him ten minutes
later sprawled across the road after he failed to control the bicyle.He
was injured and his bike’s front wheel was dented like figure 8. What
made it worse was the he was even drunk, something Marisela abhorred
with passion. I thought we would just get on our away as it was an open
secret that we were sworn enemies. I was mistaken. “You get his bike
and I will help him up” Marisela commanded. I was about to protest but I
was silenced by the next words. “We may not like him but he is our
neighbor, a human being and the only way to be a Christian is to help
him now". I maneuvered the bike while Marisela helped drunk Rarimi to
make a painfully slow ascent to the Magomano hill next to our home. We
delivered him and his bike to his four women. Much later he agreed to
common arbitration on the boundary and the issue was resolved once and
for all. I even heard "Boer" greet her "Muthoniwa" (in law) which is an
endearing and respectful term in my language.
There are
many more lessons and life skills that Marisela impacted not only on us
as her children but also on others -the determination to give your
children the very best in spite of your station in life. She believed
deeply in education and gave every child a chance often at huge
sacrifices to herself. You see, we never came from a rich family, we
were not even average, we were dirt poor and school fees was a luxury
when food was not even available. But she sacrificed, worked long hours
in hot sun and in rain at coffee farms to raise the fee.Later, she
started a small business as a grocer and everything I ever learnt on
customer care and building long term business relationships, I learnt on
that stand. All of us, six boys, went to school and each had a fair
crack at life.
Amazingly, Marisela was not content with
average way doing things, and certainly not with average achievements. I
remember when I told her that I was pursuing a scholarship to study
abroad; she didn’t even look up and get excited. In between pushing a
few pieces of firewood to rekindle the fire, she told me “Njenga, the
world is not a table that you will fall off at the edge, go far and
conquer the world but more importantly conquer yourself. If you want to
study abroad you know what to do” Needless to say, I started applying
for scholarships and praying for a miracle and it happened soon.
She would always tell us – haria iikagio tiho iguaga
(where you want to place someone is not where they will end up). I
believed and I still believe in her wisdom. Although she never lived
long enough to see me conquer the world, I could feel her presence when I
stood up for a honours at a wintry Canterbury Cathedral. Although she
left us in August 2009, she continues to live amongst us and we hold her
memorial not once but three times a year where reflect on her lessons
and teachings on life, kindness, family, work and spirituality. God has
been faithful to us and we each have a Marisela daughter, mine coming
the exact date a year later after mama left us. Marisela witu, you may be gone but you continue to live in us for without your guidance we wont be the men we became
