by OP | Sep 24, 2025 | Articles, Reflections On The Ones We Lost
He preferred the sports club at this hour. The early birds had drifted off, leaving the padded track, for the regulars, the retirees. Today, his walking partner, the General, wasn’t around, so he would have to make do without a pacer.
He picked up his pace, zipping up his dark blue Adidas tracksuit. The air was cool and the sky overcast. It reminded him of the monotonous greyness of his college days in the Netherlands. He felt energetic and he looked forward to a brisk ten laps. His breathing rhythm steadied, a slight lean in his gait, his eyes focused on the padded surface.
A younger man jogs past him. The pace, a bit fast for a steady jog and sure enough, as he deduced, the young man slows down to a trot, alternating between jogging and walking. The older man takes it all in. He is overexerting and this face is not familiar. The young man has a good running cadence and a rugby physique but no stamina and as soon as he returns to walking, a heaviness is apparent about him. They do not acknowledge each other at first.
Two laps in and the young man stops running for good. He has a laboured walking style as he tries to stay ahead of the older man. The effort shows in the swing of his arms. The old man calculates that he could pass him by the next lap and half, and true to his estimation, by the time they loop past the terrace, the older man is gaining on the younger man. He diagnoses the limitation. It’s in his stride. Too short and too much upper body movement. Bad technique. The younger man stops at one of the cement benches around the padded track and starts to tie his shoelace to allow the old man to pass him. He gets what’s happening. Face saving.
The young man is behind him now, his presence apparent because his breathing came in ragged hitches. The older man is now all warmed up and hitting a stride that is in contrast to the younger man’s discord. The young man finally levels up but needs to labour hard if he has intentions of overtaking this father figure and creating distance. Instead, he turns towards the older man, nods respectfully and then offers a greeting, “Good morning, my senior”.
The greeting softens the older man who offers back a warm response.
“Good morning, young man”.
Well brought up, respectful. He decides to engage. It is only the two of them on the track. He is not averse to company.
Doris, the Jamaican lady, who is a regular company at this hour, has completed her customary two laps and was seated at her corner table on the terrace, sipping her morning coffee, scrolling on her phone, probably Facebook. A creature of habit that one.
The older one asks a simple question, “I have not seen you here before, are you a member?”
The younger man says he was a member but never ran on the track. He used to frequent the gym with his wife in the evenings and the old man asks, unable to mask the surprise, “With your wife?”
“Yes, we had a routine, two times a week.”
Still somewhat in disbelief, he repeats,
“You go to the gym with your wife?”
“I should say, used to…as we have gone separate ways”.
The older man gives a soft grunt in acknowledgment. There is a moment of palpable silence between them and the older man can sense the harbored pain of a story waiting to be told and his curiosity gets the better of him.
“Hmm…what happened?”
The young man began to speak and poured his heart out with a kind of honesty that at once surprised the older man. He told the story in fragments, quantifying the magnitude of loss, starting with what he would miss the most, his purpose as a family man and the most disappointing, the kids.
“How many?”
“Two? Boy and girl”.
He continues. They were too busy. Too much focus on their careers and giving the children a good life. He used to travel a lot for work. Wife got a promotion, senior management. Children raised by nannies and we grew apart. That is when he started the affair. He found comfort in the company of a professional colleague and it turned into a routine. They were very discreet. Things fell apart after his wife found out about the affair.
“How did she find out?” the old man prodded.
“A moment of stupidity. She had sent me…well… aahh!…discreet photos that I should have deleted and it was my daughter who found them while playing with my phone.”
The older man shot him a look that made the young man feel like a naive school boy.
He felt the need to qualify it, in between an awkward laugh. He had known the other woman longer than his wife, more friends than lovers, a friend with benefits and her place was like a safe house.
These were interesting terms. “Friend with benefits”, “Safe house”. These were childish terms for a dangerous game but that train of thought was interrupted by sight of the curve of Doris’s neck.
They had now come alongside the terrace. Doris had her back towards them, her dark and thick locks falling beyond her shoulders and framing her lean face. She had finished her coffee and the muesli bowl was empty. She was now drinking a smoothie. Deep green. The old man wondered about the order. She needs to start with the smoothie, then the cereal and finish with a coffee.
His mind returned to the young man who was now trying to rationalise his life choices.
“My wife could not understand that the other woman is what kept me going. She was someone who listened to me, let me talk and even after the affair broke out, we still continued to see each other. I needed her more than I realised. I had no one to talk to”,
The old man latched onto the contradiction,
“You said you had no one to talk to, but you just told me you had this woman who listened. Which is it?”
The question seemed to confuse the young man and he ignored it as he continued explaining how everything went south after that.
“We became mean to each other. It was unhealthy and eventually she said she wanted a divorce”.
It had been six months since he moved out of the family home, the house that he bought.
“She asked me to leave… and I left everything I had built”.
He expressed helplessness at his condition and was in clear grief about the loss of his home, family and reputation. He regretted the mistake even though he justified it as a silly mistake that he believed was blown out of proportion. He framed himself as a tragic figure, a victim of circumstance.
The Older Man didn’t offer sympathy.
“You left your own house? Why did you do this?”
The younger man tried to explain the emotional weight of the affair and how it broke any trust that was left in the marriage. The Old Man listened, then asked,
“I get that you were caught? But let me get this right, it was just sex. Did you have children with this other woman?”, and his voice became stern, “Were you beating your wife?”
The young man was taken aback by the confronting tone, and offered a spirited defense,
“ No, No, No…No!, I had my flaws, and I take full responsibility but I am not a violent man. Me, I just keep quiet and walk away”.
“Fair enough, Do you plan to marry this other woman?”
“ No, God no, No…Noo… that would be…I don’t even know what to say … .I can’t find the words…marry her!”.
“You get along, she has been steady and safe”.
“But that would make me look like a complete villain”.
“To whom ?”
“My wife, my kids, her family, our friends”
“So you love the other woman enough to remain loyal but only in secret?”
The young man became pensive. He hadn’t anticipated that the conversation would descend to uncomfortable and confronting territory but at the same time, he had an epiphany about the affair, as a desperate attempt to make up for what was lost in his marriage life.
“Okay, let me ask a different question. What else did you do wrong, apart from this affair? Do you pay school fees, house maintenance, did you do your duty?”
“Oh yes,” a certain confidence that was absent before emerged in his voice, “always, even with her promotion, I still took care of the fees and the house, things like the car”
“But you still left the house”.
“I had to protect my sanity”.
“So where do you live now?”
“I found a small studio apartment…he paused….you know I take full responsibility for my part and I know I have really let down my kids”.
The old man could not understand the logic and offered an anecdote.
“When I was young and living in Europe, I had my adventures. The General and I had a saying: ‘A man must clear his pipes or risk prostate cancer.’ I have my memories, and I also have a forty-year marriage with grandchildren.”
As the old man let out a low chuckle at this memory, his eyes flickered back towards Doris, who was now standing. He could make out the contours of her full figure. She looked quite firm for her age. The General attributed it to a smoothie and yoga regimen.
He looked back at the young man and spotting the dawning confusion, offered his insight.
“You think you are grieving because you lost a wife, a house, your children. Children – you can repair the relationship. The bigger problem is understanding what you truly lost. You lost yourself a long time ago. Your worth is tied to the validation of these women, your wife, and the other woman. The man you were trying to be for them… where is he now? Who is the man that existed before the title of husband?”
A long silence stretched over the next lap. The Young Man’s grief shifted. It was no longer about material loss or shame.
He was beginning to grieve for the self he never was. It occured to the old man that this consideration had never been pondered. The divorce was not a tragedy; it was a symptom. The tragedy was the hollow man who was exposed when the structure fell away.
They looped past the terrace. Doris made eye contact this time. He had seen Doris around the club for about a year now. She was more of the General’s acquaintance. He felt a familiar stir, every time he spotted her – something about the way she looked at him. He knew that look, and what it awoke inside of him.
“Where is your other alf?” Doris shouted, her foreign accent pronounced and musical. She was talking about the General. The old man gestured as if to say, “ Still sleeping” and caught a smile flashing across her face.
The young man had not said a word since his last statement. It occurred to the old man that he was now on his last lap.
“Listen. This feeling of guilt is useless. You have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of your family. So find that man that existed before the wedding suit. He’s the one who has to build what’s next.”
The young man now looked visibly shell shocked and for the first time, he realised what his wife had meant when she called him a people pleaser.
The old man seeing his face, offered a consolation,
“ You are probably going to be okay but for now forget about these women. I listened to you keenly when you were talking. It is okay to grieve after what you lost but don’t get stuck there. That other man is dead. It is time to find the real one ”.
They were now across from the terrace and the old man’s attention had shifted. He was thinking about what Doris said. Was that an invitation? It must be. Usually, she would have left by the time they were on their 8th lap. She was still here.
The two men walked the last 50 metres in silence, maintaining a brisk pace and stopped when they arrived alongside the terrace. The young man was deeply thankful for the insights. The old man shook his hand firmly, his mind still dwelling on Doris’s smile and he was soon off, up the wide stairs towards Doris. The young man watched the old man’s leave, noticing a perk in his step. He stared at him until he shook hands warmly with Doris.
Suddenly he felt like jogging, starting off at a slow pace, the emptiness of the track mirroring the hollowness he now felt inside.
********
Strength & Sorrow has landed in Nairobi! You can now grab your copy at 5 bookstores across the city.
– Text Book Centre
– Yaya Bookstop
– Nuria Book Store
– Half Priced Books
-Prestige Book Shop
Or simply place an order on my website https://oyungapala.com/
I hope you gain something of value from this read. Asante.
by OP | Sep 17, 2025 | Articles, Reflections On The Ones We Lost
To my brothers, who heard the suppressed cry,
The heavy, muffled cough in my voice,
When my world collapsed and turned all grey,
When the clock of my soul froze after an abrupt encounter with death.
Who arrived without summons, a compass in my daze,
Who sat in the wreckage and did not speak,
But helped me sift the ashes of my loss,
Seeking a single ember, fragile and unique.
Who stood guard as I beat my fists against the earth,
Angry at my own helpless, human condition.
Who held the torch in the fog that suffocated my next breath,
Without knowing where we needed to go, simply to illuminate.
Who gripped my hand when it trembled beyond control,
Who did not flee when the levee burst,
And witnessed the deluge, the ugly, wretched truth of my brokenness,
And had the courage to simply stay.
Who held space until I remembered,
In the heap of my disarray,
That this was a burden I did not have to carry alone,
And that it was enough to trust that I would be okay.
To the brothers who spoke their own hopelessness aloud,
And made my loss feel human, find value in mistakes,
Who showed me how to find the child I’d exiled,
In my frantic, desperate rush to be the man with a plan.
Who said, “ We are here. We start again.”
Who were the first to point to the ground,
At the green, defiant shoots emerging,
From the decay of all that I had thought I had lost.
The first to see the subtle change,
And smile at new growth, in a different, truer direction.
Who taught me that strength is not the absence of breaking,
But the courage to acknowledge the constancy of change.
To the brothers who reframed the journey of life,
Who said, “You don’t get over it. You learn to carry its weight.”
Now I stand, and I see you where I once stood,
Barely hanging on beneath the cruel weight.
So I say to you now, brother, be kind to yourself first.
The world sees pillars, but even stones are transformed when they break,
Through the trials, the fears, the regrets endured,
Know this: you are seen in your pain.
To you now, the brother, who stands, where I once stood,
Be kind to yourself.
Grief is not a race to be run but a map to the forgotten terrains of our souls.
PS:
A man once stopped me, his eyes hollow and deep,
Said, “Brother, I fear I have lost my soul.”
I simply said, “I know the way. I can help”.
“Let’s trace your steps together.”
“Tell me, when did you last feel whole?”
******
Strength & Sorrow has landed in Nairobi! You can now grab your copy at 5 bookstores across the city.
– Text Book Centre
– Yaya Bookstop
– Nuria Book Store
– Half Priced Books
-Prestige Book Shop
Or simply place an order on my website https://oyungapala.com/
by OP | Sep 10, 2025 | Articles, Reflections On The Ones We Lost
My new book is out in book shops across Kenya, yet, I haven’t held a copy or touched a single page of it. My decision to print, Strength and Sorrow, in Nairobi was a deliberate choice to honor the people who helped me find my voice and as a gesture of gratitude, to place their access to my words before my own. As I wait for my copy to cross the world to my base in the Netherlands, I’ve reflected on why I wrote this book. The answer lies not in a single event, but in a lifetime of quiet preparation, and a deep-seated belief that writing, above all else, is a service to the public you serve. It has been a journey of 28 years to this point.
I learnt the art of public service from my father. My father was in my view fully realised as a man. He was a man who talked about the future and its possibilities and rarely did you hear him complain. When you come from a large family, different siblings will hold different versions of the man they call father. My three elder brothers talk of a harsh ‘fathe’. A man of few words who did not tolerate crap or sloppiness.
The difference between my eldest sibling and I was 13 years. By the time I was born, I guess fatherhood had mellowed the mzee and I had the privilege of a father who kept me in close company. I was a boy in training, an escort on his daily rounds. I would sit in the car while he talked with his friends, learning to spend a lot of time quietly and observing people willing time away. I realize now that this training was a preparation for a different life, one that would be defined by the quiet art of listening.
By age 12, I had learnt how to handle an oxen plough. It was quite an achievement for a city boy. To wake up at dawn and troop to the shamba to plough. My father never made me feel special. Work was simply work and everyone had to put in their fair share. I still enjoy farmwork but mostly because of the discipline it cultivates.
When my father suddenly died in 1989, it left me adrift. He was my guiding star. Death was one thing that I had never factored in the equation. It was at his funeral that I really came to appreciate what kind of man my father was from people who showed up to pay their last respects. It was all a daze. People and more people sharing the impact he had on their lives. Where did he get the time to help all these people and raise 6 children? He never talked about it.
After the passing of my father, in my mid teens, I got fascinated by the mysteries of life, in my grappling with the phenomenon of death. I had read the Bible regularly as a story, much like a novel but I soon began to ask questions about the historical foundations of the text. I often wondered how a holy book that had entered into our cultural space a mere 100 years ago had obliterated indigenous African spirituality.
Still confused by the nature of death, I found myself questioning life’s purpose. One day as I was walking down a main street in Eldoret town, I noticed a pharmacy run by Asians and decided to just try my luck. I ventured into the pharmacy and asked the lady at the counter where I could locate any literature on their belief system. She handed me a magazine, titled Osho Times and I devoured the copy that same day. It was a door to a new world of esoteric mysteries. The philosophy that a person could master their suffering and forge a meaningful life was a truth I had been seeking.
My early love for reading led me to my father’s small library, a bookshelf in our village sitting room that held a few gems. In it was Peter Abrahams “Mine Boy”, Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities”, Aldous Huxley, “Doors of Perception”, Philip Ochieng “The Kenyatta’s Succession” and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary planted the seed for a mental decolonization.
I would never have fathomed how influential those books would become. But what I truly enjoyed reading were newspaper columns, which became my favourite sections in newspapers and magazines. I was fascinated with how serious topics could be delivered with humour and insight.
Columnists have been a long standing favourite of my newspaper reading. Hilary Ngweno’s editorials in The Weekly Review were a masterclass in political analysis. I admired Philip Ochieng’s fidelity to language long before I could fully grasp the depth of his columns. I regularly read Kwendo Opanga and Mutahi Ngunyi who covered all the political power plays. The celebrated Wahome Mutahi’s satire would catch on later and I started to feel smart when I developed the ability to read between the lines in his columns.
The story of how I became a columnist is a series of happy accidents. I never wrote much outside of my academic assignments until one day a colleague asked me to submit a piece for the AIESEC group in university that published a newsletter. A few encouraging compliments would eventually set me off on my journey as a man of letters. To augment my survival at the University of Nairobi where I was on a bursary, I joined Nautilus gym as a fitness instructor. It was in this gym on Mombasa road in Nairobi that the true beginning came after a conversation with Billow Kerrow, who would become a prominent politician.
He liked my perspective and challenged me to write about fitness, and with a name and a vague address, I set off for the Nation newspaper office. My contact wasn’t there, but while wandering around the building, I found Mundia Muchiri, the editor of a new pull-out Saturday magazine. He took a chance on my typed pieces, and a month later, my name was in the country’s biggest paper. It was a small section that I shared with a Reddy Kilowatt advert. My word count was under 350 but I was now getting paid for my words.
I graduated to writing feature stories for the Saturday magazine when Mundia left to start the Eve magazine and Joy Mutero took over as editor. I always maintained a regular fitness column. The editor who really put me on the map was Rhoda Orengo. I had arrived to submit one of my regular fitness columns in the pre-email days when she challenged me to write something for the Mantalk column. I had an active college life and shenanigans were plenty. I picked up an incident and wrote about it. It got published and I was encouraged to write more. The column was held by three writers, Cylde Morvit (Allan Kopar RIP), Tony Mochama aka Smitta who would mature into a unique and prolific voice with an enviable stack of books to his name.
By about 2000, I had inherited the column and my journey commenced. I thought I could write but I knew nothing about the craft. I was squeezing writing into my day, constantly chasing deadlines. I could never make proper time for writing and did not treat it with the respect it deserved. I had bought into the narrative that you cannot really make a living as a writer and precious writing time was lost in pursuit of side gigs. But, I finally got it. It was a discipline. Writers write all the time because that is the only way you can truly grow.
One subject that I kept returning to in my columns was the subject of death, even then, I thought I was only writing public obituaries. My attraction to obituaries was more generational work. It was the death of Wahome Mutahi that triggered it. His Whispers column was the epitome of column writing. The gold standard. I wanted to write for the public memory but I wrote as a detached, objective observer. I was documenting the lives of others, celebrating them, honoring them and learning from their journeys. But this public act was a shield. The more I wrote about others, the more I was drawn to my unresolved grief and the memories of those I had lost. My public mission to remember others was in essence a private mission to suppress my own pain.
I grew up in a society that avoids discussing death, treating it as something to be endured, not understood. This cultural conditioning taught me to internalize my pain. Death was a “terror monster,” and my initial response to loss was to “suppress and carry on.”
It wasn’t until a motorcycle accident that would happen the same year that I hung up my spurs after 11 years of writing The ManTalk column that I arrived at a critical turning point. It shattered my detached observer role and forced me to confront my own mortality. I could no longer pretend to be a passive writer; I was now a participant, a person who had felt the stealthy approach of sudden death. This moment compelled me to look inward and use my writing not as an escape from my grief, but as a way to engage with it directly.
I had found a tool I could use to reflect on the losses in my own family, alongside stories from my countrymen that I had collected over the years. In listening to their experiences, I realized that my story was not unique. I felt deeply connected to people I’ve never met, and I could empathise with their sorrow. The act of gathering their stories became an act of self-discovery, allowing me to find the courage to relive and process my own forgotten grief.
This book is essentially a communal act of mourning, a collective ritual of remembrance. I return to my Kenyan public in humble service, after years of introspection. Writing about death and loss was not a choice; it was an inevitability. It was the only way for me to heal, and in doing so,I hope to create a space for others to find the strength to confront their own suppressed sorrows borne from loss. This book is not about giving answers, but about inviting my readers into a long overdue conversation, a public acknowledgment of our shared humanity in the face of death.
******
Strength & Sorrow has landed in Nairobi! You can now grab your copy at 5 bookstores across the city.
📍- Text Book Centre
📍- Yaya Bookstop
📍- Nuria Book Store
📍- Half Priced Books
📍-Prestige Book Shop
Or simply place an order on my website https://oyungapala.com/
I hope you gain something of value from this read. Asante.
by OP | Sep 3, 2025 | Articles, Reflections On The Ones We Lost
The heat was oppressive, even though it is not yet midday but the two men were thankful for their shaded spot, underneath the canopy of an old tree with a rugged trunk.They sat on a wooden bench by the roadside, where a closed tin shack marked the junction. The main tarmac was a glistening obsidian river that disappeared over a hill but their narrow road, the one that led to the village, was a rocky ochre murram road, its entry marked only by a stout signboard written Ascona Gardens, and a lonely dwarf banana tree, freshly planted.
They had not planned to meet but circumstances and history had engineered this encounter. The taller of the two men wore a clean ironed white shirt, bulky for his lean frame, tucked into his dark grey trousers and his shoes with slanting heels, were polished. His colleague on the bench had on an lopsided, oversized knitted sweater, that was discoloured from lack of washing, over baggy jeans and tattered sports shoes with different coloured laces. He wore a black cap on his head that looked new and it had an emblem, the Kenyan Coat of Arms.
They were waiting for the hearse and funeral party coming from Kisumu about a 40 minute drive away. Their old classmate from primary school, Junior, had died unexpectedly and his body was arriving in the village later that day for the wake.
A scrawny brown dog passed by them, pausing cautiously, as though anticipating some aggression before scurrying along the murram road. “ That’s Wambasa’s dog”, the dishevelled man said, his voice a low rumble.
“It is probably heard there’s a funeral and it’s going to look for food”.
The lean man watched the dog flee. He let out a dry, dismissive sound from the back of his throat, “Pelele,” he said, using the man’s village nickname, “you know all the dogs in the village?”.
“I am telling you, “ Pelele insisted, his eyes still on the dog, “ This one I know. It never misses a funeral. It’s a survivor”.
They reverted to silence, watching the tarmac road. In the distance, the heat conjured up pools of false water on the road’s spine. Apart from the occasional car zooming past, the air was stagnant, no breeze to rustle the leaves above and the sun bore down from cloudless blue skies.
Pelele pulled out a half smoked cigarette from his jeans pocket and lit it with a match box after many failed strikes. He took several shallow drags and blew the smoke upwards, curling his dry cracked lips to create a funnel.
“We have lost a man who had a clean heart. A giver and he liked people. He never forgot me, never left me thirsty” Pelele grinned and shuffled on the bench, pinching his cigarette as he talked.
“The expensive drinks I had on his verandah … .this death…it has robbed us of a human ”.
“You two got along, but your problem was that you just got drunk together. Junior spoiled you. Whenever he arrived, you moved into his home and did not return to your hut until he left,” the lean one said, tapping Pelele’s shoulder.
Pelele chuckled. “No! Junior knew me. Me! you give me something to drink and eat, Baas! am happy…because Junior knew, I cannot stay with money in my pocket…” he felt his pockets for confirmation and then added, “You know he liked helping everyone, he didn’t choose”.
“Yes he did but if you paid attention, keenly it was mostly widows and, this I also noticed, you had to appear on his Facebook. His own older brother’s son, his own blood, he abandoned”
“But that boy was a madman?“
“It doesn’t matter. Charity begins at home”.
Pelele shifted his position on the bench, now digging into his pockets for a cigarette and found none. The two men returned to their silent gazing as the scrawny dog from earlier walked past them confidently, without looking in their direction. It stopped a few metres ahead, sniffing the bushes and then finding a spot, it lifted a hind leg and began to urinate.
“Wambasa’s dog is back?” observed the lean one.
“It has surveyed the ground. The cooks have not arrived. There are no fires lit in that home?”
Both men smiled broadly and then they were silent again, watching the road as a boda sped past, blaring ohangla music.
Pelele watched it disappear over the hill and then said, “Junior, loved listening to Ohangla… Where will we find a man in this village with the same heart of giving? He was like a supermarket. His stock never ran out”
The lean one felt the need for a response.
“He was our brother, but it is good to tell the truth. I think the money ruined him. This is something I told him when he was still alive. Whenever he arrived in the village, men and even women got thoroughly drunk. People just moved into his home and it was just drinking that didn’t end. Then, he’s back in Nairobi, leaving us with our problems. People like Junior corrupted the village. These days all these young men just wait for handouts, someone to release them from stress and think only of riding bodas, easy money. ”
Pelele shifted his position again, “Me, the Junior I knew, was a man who liked people”.
The lean one gazed straight at him,
“I am not saying he did not like people… but the truth is, he corrupted the village. Especially him and the late Morris. They behaved like politicians during campaigns. Even in church, elders followed him, a young man, because of his money. Wasn’t there a time, he paid for land in boda bodas. Just imagine. How long did Ochiel have the bodas? He couldn’t maintain them and he died landless”.
“But Junior was just trying to help him start a business”
“I don’t refuse but Ochiel was a drunkard. Junior didn’t seem to realize the effect of this habit of his, of just throwing money around”.
Pelele was getting shifty, “The way you say it…like he was doing it with a bad heart ….he was just a life-ist”,
“Junior is someone we grew up with since childhood, in this village. He knows how money can be sensitive. I tried to warn him but he wouldn’t listen…the thing I never understood is how you two got along?”
“I also don’t know” Pelele mumbled, his voice suddenly softer, “ Our spirits, they just agreed since primary school. I could even feel his presence in the village, before I even saw his Pajero”
“I think he liked you for the gossip” the lean one teased, his voice dry.
Pelele was defensive. He shook his head “ No, no. You people don’t know him. I agree with you, he liked the high life. Big cigarettes and whiskey. But he also liked to talk. When you find him in a talking mood…”
“What would you talk about? Women?” the lean one asked with inquisitive eyes.
“He was never busy with women…it was women busy with him…he used to complain that people only saw his money. Do you know, one evening, we spoke until 4am, just the two of us on his verandah, the one facing the hills”.
“I know that verandah. He called it Galleria villa Juno” the lean one said, grinning after the memory.
Pelele smiled broadly in return “That one. Galleria, where only his friends from Nairobi sat. Us, villagers, would be in the front. The back was for his guests. We sat there until morning and he scared me, when he told me that people don’t like him. They just want his money. People, always trying to use him. Told me it was the opposite when he worked in Europe, people did not like him because he was an African with money”.
This caused the lean one to fold his arms and then, he crossed his legs
“And what did you tell him?”
Pelele held out his palms, an expression of surrender on his face,
“What could I tell him? The man was speaking with pain. And it wasn’t only that time”.
“Another day, he surprised me and sent an uber from Kisumu. Kisumu! The car came from Kisumu empty, to pick me up in the village… like a mheshimiwa. A black car. Subaru. All the way to Dunga, by the lake. I found him alone, and that was the day he confused me, kabisa! He said I was the only true friend he had. Me, Pelele” he concluded, poking his chest.
The lean man crossed his legs the other way. It was clear to him that the Pelele was a true confidant of the deceased.
Pelele had now stopped shuffling as he spoke, “Do you know what he feared the most…
The lean one leaned forward,
“That someone would poison him. He was scared of people in this village. That is why he always came to the village with a cook. He gave away money so he could never be accused of being mean. He said making money was easy for him but making real friends is not easy when you have money”.
The lean one tilted his head, as though noticing his former schoolmate in a new light. There was more to Pelele than his alcoholic addiction. Indeed, he had a happy disposition and the ability to get along with everyone. The area MP once called him out by name during a funeral and people were shocked. How do they know each other?
Eventually, after some time in contemplation, he confessed,
“Hmmh…you have made me think… but was he sober… when he told you this?”
“You know Junior never used to get drunk. He could drink all night but he never staggered”.
The lean one was now defensive and he held up a finger as he made his point,
“Me, the thing I vowed, was that I would never ask him for money, even though he was my brother.”
‘And that is why he respected you. He used to say he liked how you were not afraid to be yourself and maintained your own standard in the village”.
This statement seemed to surprise the lean one. He unfolded his legs and then arms and rested his palms on the wooden bench. He remembered the young Junior from primary school. They had grown up together but their paths had taken such wild turns after primary school.
The lean one never ventured far, working sporadically around the county and maintaining a simple, dignified existence in the village. Junior, who was always number one in class, used his brains to change his fortune. He got a scholarship to Europe, started work as a software engineer and he became very rich in a short time. Yet, throughout these changes, he always returned to the village. He never got lost. But he was never lucky with family life. He lost his marriage and children in divorce, and for the first time, the lean one, saw a different side to his childhood friend and feelings of regret washed over his body.
Was that what he lived with, the knowledge that all people, I included, only saw his money?
Pelele finally stood, his movements slow and deliberate. He walked a few steps away from the bench to get a better view of the road.
“I wonder where they have reached”, he said, the words barely a whisper. “I could have called but I don’t have credit”.
The lean one did not offer a response. He was staring sideways, at Wambasa’s dog, that was lying on the bare ground, fast asleep, perhaps also in wait.
******
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by OP | Aug 27, 2025 | Articles, Reflections On The Ones We Lost
The phone was ringing, a shrill and intrusive sound slicing through the sacred silence of their bedroom. Pastor Silas reached to his bedside table to silence it. It was 11pm, late even for a pastoral emergency. His wife stirred from her sleep, looked at him with a knowing, worried gaze, her silent concern hanging in the air. When the ringing stopped and immediately started again, he sighed, he picked it, looking at the caller ID. The name was familiar but the voice that came on was not.
“ I am calling on behalf of Atieno from church. I am the sister. Please come to Aga Khan. There has been an accident”.
Pastor Silas’ wife was now seated upright watching his expression change. He was trying to hide the worry on his face. Earlier in the day, pastor Silas had been called to bless a new car that had arrived from Mombasa. He remembered it clearly. A gleaming white Toyota Corolla Sport Hybrid, fresh from Japan. Its tires were still glossy black. He was used to these routine obligations for his congregants. Prayer for cars. For homes. For businesses. He had done the ritual by heart, walking a full circle around the car, his hand tracing the smooth metal as he spoke of divine covering and journey mercies. He could still smell the newness of the seats on the drive home and the words he spoke to Atieno and her family: an assured promise and guarantee of safe passage.
It wasn’t the first time he had to respond to these emergencies in the middle of the night but this one held a different level of urgency. He looked at the time on his phone and then jumped out of bed and started getting dressed.
‘Have you seen the car keys?’
He was normally an even-keel character, known for his calm disposition but this news had unsettled the good pastor. His wife returned with the car keys and handed them to him.
“What did she tell you?”
“Not much?” and he continued dressing, inserting his collar.
His wife still looked at him with concern and did not press on. She knew the news had shaken him because her husband normally became conservative with words whenever he felt overwhelmed.
Fortunately, he did not have to drive a long distance to get to the Aga Khan hospital in the centre of Kisumu town. His thoughts were racing throughout the quiet drive through the empty well-illuminated city streets. Strange. He remembered Atieno’s husband, not a frequent church goer, but a good man. He had mentioned that he would be doing a short trip to his village, near Maseno which was less than an hour’s drive. What could have happened?
When he arrived at the Aga Khan hospital, he was surprised by how many people he found in the reception area. He was greeted by the sickly glow of the fluorescent lights and a sterile scent of disinfectant. The corridors were a jumble of panicked relatives and weary staffers, a chaos that felt completely out of place at this hour. He was not the only one whose sleep had been interrupted. His heart began beating faster as he took in the scene, his shoes squawking on the polished linoleum as he followed one of the staffers towards Atieno’s shared room.
The staffer announced rather formally that the pastor had arrived.
Pastor Silas was dressed up in a black suit and carried a small bag that held his bible, a note book and pen. Atieno started sobbing the moment she saw him.
Her cry was a guttural ugly sound and it caused her body to heave. Her sister held her by the shoulders trying to console her, the same sister who had called him earlier. There was nothing he could do beyond just saying,
“It will be well, it will be well in his name” and all that felt so hollow.
How fragile was this life?
This was the same lady that had served him tea less than 24 hours ago. Her face was bruised and swollen. Her right hand in a cast.
It was the sister who replayed what had happened. After the prayers, Atieno’s husband insisted that the car needed a thorough clean before the road trip. So they drove to Hippo point, by the lake Victoria where a group of young men specialised in washing cars. They sat by a small kiosk enjoying some fried fish as they waited for the young men to finish washing the car. It would be their last supper as a family. Atieno, her husband and two daughters. It was a beautiful evening drive, the sun was setting over the lake, splashing an orange hue in the horizon and Atieno recalled that her pre teen children were giddy.
Then as they completed the ascent of the Ojola hill, driving at moderate speed, a boda boda appeared out of nowhere from the corner straight into their lane. Atieno’s husband instinctively hit the brakes and the Fuso truck was behind them bumped into them sending the Corolla off the road and rolling down the valley. It took the villagers a long time to retrieve the bodies from the mangled wreck. Atieno’s survival was miraculous. She was found unconscious, still fastened in the upside down position. When she woke to the news that her husband and two children had died, she turned delirious and had to be sedated. That was when the sister decided to call Pastor Silas, who was known to be a calm presence in situations like this.
It was a terrible tragedy. Pastor Silas tried to find words of comfort but his mind kept returning to the events of the previous day. Had he not been present when he offered the protection prayers? What value would words have in this situation? The pain on Atieno’s face was raw and now she was looking him in the eye, pleading for an explanation. She wasn’t screaming, or speaking from a space of rage. Instead it was a pitiful plea that terrified Pastor Silas to muteness.
“But you prayed, pastor?”
“Why did this happen to me? Why would God leave me to suffer like this?”
It was a dreadful pronouncement, a silent indictment that left no room for answers. Pastor Silas felt the suffocating silence, unable to voice a divine explanation. He noticed that her sister was also staring at him in anticipation and he wondered what he could say that would make a lick of a difference. Pastor Silas could feel the weight of his Bible, suddenly a foreign object on his lap. The polished leather cover that offered words of comfort through all seasons, felt empty. He tried to think of a passage, any passage that could make sense of this tragedy, his mind racing a desperate scramble for familiar words.
He thought of the Psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… He makes me lie down in green pastures…”
The shepherd had lost his sheep and there were no green pastures here.
He recalled Psalm 91: “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” The words, once a powerful promise, now sounded like a cruel mockery.
He could hear his own voice from that morning, the words he had spoken with such conviction. “We cover this vehicle in the blood of Jesus… We declare divine protection over your journey…” The words had sounded so certain, so full of power. Now, they were a hollow, ringing lie. They were just words, unable to stop a truck or save two young lives. His mind replayed the sound of Atieno’s plea, and he felt a terrifying emptiness. He had offered an empty promise, a spiritual placebo, and now he had to face the consequences.
This woman had just lost her husband and two young teens. They had done everything right. A model couple who were finally entering their season of prosperity and then this. Their children were just a few years younger than his own. Well behaved girls. And her husband. A fuss free gentlemen. A hard worker fending for his family.
What was he going to tell the congregation? He had blessed the car less than 8 hours before the accident. He left the room and walked to the parking lot to catch some air and clarity. A few of the relatives were gathered there and they greeted him warmly, amazed that he had actually come out at this hour. He found out that the husband and the two children were already at the morgue and they thanked him for being there for Atieno. He was hesitant to receive the compliment, the guilt of the whole affair hovering over him like a dark cloud.
He had to find something to say but couldn’t find the strength to open the bible. He was trained specifically for these circumstances. He had to find something, so he returned to the room where Atieno was. She was now asleep. Her sister who had been with her all along looked so exhausted that pastor Silas asked her to take a break and find something to eat. He sat beside the bed holding his bible, deep in thought.
Then a cleaner entered the room, her face a map of tired lines, her hair pulled back in a simple bun. She moved with the quiet, practiced ease of someone who used to being unseen. The damp slap of her mop was barely audible against the floor and rustling of plastic garbage bags was the only sound in the room for a long time. Without looking up from her task, she eventually asked, in a low, unassuming voice, “ Would you like some tea, pastor?”
The pastor assured her that he was okay and as if on second thought decided to chat her up.
“Where are you from?”
“I am a NyaGem from Kathomo”.
“What a coincidence. My grandmother is also from Kathomo. Which is your door?
“I am from the Kojuodhi people”.
“ Then we are related… this is why talking is good”.
That statement put her further at ease and she stopped moving for the first time since she entered the room and turned to face Pastor Silas as regarded Atieno asleep on her bed before letting out an audible sigh.
“ This story is very painful”
She still held on to a large black plastic bag in her hand as she lingered at the door
“When you work here, you see so many things. Our roads are killing us. Do you know that some days we even see up to 20 people, all road accidents victims. What is really painful, that many of them are pedestrians and passengers of boda bodas. The roads are finishing our children.
Just last week a bus carrying 25 people, coming from a funeral, went off the road and overturned. Only one girl survived. Can you imagine? People from one family and they had just come from a funeral. These roads spill too much blood”.
With that statement, she wrapped her bulging black plastic bag tightly, and offered her words of comfort.
“I say sorry again, man of God”, and she left the room as quietly as she had appeared.
That simple explanation felt like an epiphany for Pastor Silas. He had remembered seeing the item in the news. The bus was coming from Nyahera going to Nyakach. Despite this, he had not even thought much about it. The accident might as well have happened in Ukraine. When he started to think about it, there was not a single week that passed when he did not hear of a road accident fatalities. How many funerals had he conducted of road accident victims?
In that moment he realised how disconnected he was from this everyday reality. This was not a singular event or a tragic anomaly. This was daily carnage happening on our roads and it had been happening for as long as he could remember. From the days when his own grandmother would pray, that they may be protected as they traveled in contraptions made by the hands of men. Nothing had changed. He had just forgotten. He was the one living in a bubble.
He turned and looked at Atieno who was still in deep sleep. He adjusted himself on the chair and then looked up at the clock on his phone. It was approaching three in the night. His wife would understand. He sat still, in silence, the bible resting on his lap.
****
This is written in memory of Comrade Wanjau Wanja (Njau), whose life was brutally taken in a hit-and-run on Thika road, in Nairobi, on August 22nd, 2025. Journey well to the land of the ancestors, Comrade Njau.
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