At the end of this story, you will realize that it is impossible to find Uncle Ben’s daughter. Not because she is mythical. She is real. I held her on my lap in 1995. I was only 13, preparing for my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. My sisters Jackie and Belinda were also preparing for the same examination. And other cousins too. I held her on my lap. Her brown eyes were bright. Full of life and questions. Her little fingers curled around mine as she smiled, innocent of what was happening in the world around her.
Uncle Ben, Bernard Ogowe Ojuondo, lay on the bed that we sometimes shared, tired, looking at us, his head propped up by a thin pillow. He was worn out by the constant cough that robbed him of sleep and reduced his diaphragm to a web of bones wrapped tightly in dry, scaly skin. I was home from boarding school for midterm break. A few days earlier, my mother had sent word to Uncle Ben’s girlfriend to come and see him. And help care for him. That is why she was here. I don’t remember her name. The people who should remember her name also don’t. You will know why shortly. Uncle Ben had craved their presence. Also, whatever remained of him then needed delicate care that only an intimate partner could provide. It was fragile, threatening to fall over and break into pieces, disappearing into the world beyond. It needed rejuvenation. The girlfriend did not stay long. Taking care of a dying man needs a bond deeper than that of boyfriend and girlfriend.
Uncle Ben’s daughter is called Yolanda Denise. That is the name she went by 27 years ago. She may have been three when I last saw her so she is probably 30 now. Her nickname was Yoki. I held her for far too short a time to have any memory of her beyond the truth of her existence. The truth that becomes clearer in my mind with each passing day. One that I have wanted to realize and whose contours I have wanted to touch. And confirm that I am not crazy.
The beginning
Uncle Ben was the first to qualify for university in my great-grandfather’s large family of twelve wives and many children. My great-grandfather, Paul Opiyo Manyala, was a chief and a medicine man. Uncle Ben attended Egerton University in Njoro. He had retaken his “A” levels in order to qualify for university. He was mostly inspired by my father, his brother in-law, who had become a high school principal at a very young age, fresh out of Kenyatta University. My mother would be the second one from a big traditional family to go to university. She would join the university the same year I did, in 2001. At 40 years of age. These details are important. Firstly, because Uncle Ben was the reason a few of my other uncles and aunties did not see the value of education. They reasoned that education took a lot of time and resources, and the potential outcome of joblessness would lead to depression and self-destruction. They had taken the time to study Uncle Ben, and their conclusion was that his degree had contributed to suffering and a painful demise. That education had set his ambition to an unattainable high, yet the reality of the Moi government was one of unemployment, a stagnating economy, and gradual decay,
Uncle Ben graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in the early 90s, right when the World Bank had arm-twisted the Kenyan government into forced restructuring through the infamous structural adjustment programmes – the SAPs. The government was shrinking to allow for rapid and focused privatization of government parastatals, although there was no significant investment in the private sector to sustain this rapid privatization. The economy was shrinking. President Moi and his cronies were grabbing everything. What they couldn’t grab, they killed. Or sent to exile. Degrees were becoming nothing beyond the beautiful photos of graduates in gowns surrounded by their hopeful families. Unless one knew people in high office. Or you were planning to join the ruling party, KANU. A degree held no weight in the dying economy.
Uncle Ben died without having found a job. His résumé, typed on one of those old typewriters, did not list any post-university professional experience. He did not have any. He was, like many others, a professional job seeker. A charismatic one. Tall. Athletic. Handsome. His death from HIV in the early nineties threw my mother into one of the deepest economic crises of my lifetime. Probably worse than the one the World Bank had thrown the Kenyan economy into. And worse than the government would throw graduates with unmarketable courses such as Uncle Ben. My grandfather warned me against studying that cursed course. Never study sociology when you go to university, he said emphatically, his eyes, always red, glowing in their orbits.
My grandfather believed that the sociology degree was to blame for Uncle Ben’s unemployment. When Uncle Ben went to university, self-sponsored access to public university education was not yet available. Later, self-sponsored B-grade students from well-to-do families would go to medical school with government-sponsored students from poorer families who had attained straight As. But my grandfather, a driver in the Ministry of Agriculture, could not have afforded the cost of a self-sponsored university education even were the option available. Uncle Ben received the full government sponsorship that was available for university students before funding for higher education was restructured to accommodate the demands of the World Bank.
Please become a teacher
Uncle Ben should have studied education. At least the government was employing teachers. Or at any rate the school boards of governors were – when the government stopped employing teachers for extended periods. Many graduates from Uncle Ben’s cohort, not finding any prospects for employment, went back to university for something called in-service. Graduates would go to Kenya Science Teachers College for short courses that would prepare them for a career in teaching. They took the courses while teaching as untrained teachers, surviving on the meagre salaries paid by the school boards.
Never study sociology when you go to university, he said emphatically, his eyes, always red, glowing in their orbits.
Uncle Ben did not want to become a teacher like my mum, his sister. He did not want to be confined to a routine, trapped in the rural areas with students. He hoped for the bright lights of Nairobi. Or Kisumu. He hoped for a government job that came with a government driver and a Land Rover. Such as a District Officer. After all, his father was driving a graduate at the Ministry of Agriculture. But he did not mind receiving money from his sister when times were tough. My mum, with her tiny salary and carrying the heavy burden of a first-born, was educating both us, her children, as well as her siblings. Sustaining my grandmother. Sending handouts to my grandfather. And saving Uncle Ben.
When the reality of permanent joblessness hit Uncle Ben, when he saw the government for what it was, a wilting mess of bureaucracy, tribalism, and corruption, he thought of becoming a policeman. He had done his national youth service before going to university. He was tall and athletic. His eyes were blood shot. He was a perfect fit. After all, no one was calling him back from the many offices where his resume was stacked in a pile with those of other job seekers. Or in the dustbin, waiting to be burned along with other useless papers.
The tragedy of a single mark
Everything was fine as Uncle Ben prepared for recruitment in the national police service. Except for that prominent mark on his buttocks. The knife mark extended from his lower back to his buttocks. It was black and pronounced, like a fat earthworm. Or a little black snake. That mark disqualified him. At least that was the excuse the police recruiters gave him. We knew he failed because my grandfather did not know anyone in the police force. And he was not wealthy enough to buy the limited slots that were left after Moi’s cronies had gorged themselves full. Youth employment in the police force was used by politicians to win elections. It was currency. And President Moi’s people were entitled to the first cut.
One day, my aunty Catherine, the most beautiful one, the light-skinned one, the sassy one, came back home screaming at the top of her lungs. Her high-pitched voice tore the afternoon silence into tiny shreds. She was inconsolable. We would later learn that her lover had assaulted her. He had met her by the communal well where she was fetching water and had proceeded to take his anger out on her for jilting him. Uncle Ben was enraged. He was his sister’s protector and wanted to send a clear message as such. In a hurry, with his diaphragm swollen with anger, he set off to look for the assaulter. He charged at him when they met. They locked bodies and tussled. An unemployed graduate and village riff raff met at that junction of anger, frustration and testosterone. The assaulter drew a knife and slashed Uncle Ben in the back, drawing down to his buttocks. A crooked cut. It left a permanent scar. His chances of joining the armed forces or the police force disappeared with that scar. His sister and the man reconciled and rekindled their young love soon thereafter. For Uncle Ben, just like the degree in sociology, that scar took some of the blame for his unravelling life. The scar. Sociology. President Moi and the World Bank were all summoned and declared guilty when Uncle Ben’s joblessness came for up for discussion.
Saving Uncle Ben
My mother, Belliah is one stubborn woman. If she sets her mind to do something, in most cases she succeeds. She had set her mind to save Uncle Ben’s life. In the early 90s, it was impossible to save anyone from HIV/AIDS in rural Kenya. The complexities of the disease were compounded when one was surviving on a teacher’s salary. The salary was little. It came late and heavily deducted. My sister Jackie and I also depended on this salary for our education at the primary boarding school where we were enrolled. The local public primary schools in Ringa where my parents taught hardly took anyone to a good secondary school. The local boys and male primary school teachers were also neck-and-neck in a very stiff competition in the Olympics of impregnating teenage schoolgirls. We were shipped to boarding school to give us a good education and save us from the many local distractions.
There were no ARVs for ordinary people. Not in rural Kenya. Maybe for Magic Johson in America. In rural Kenya, there were sick humans, bony humans, coughing their lungs out on the floors of Russia hospital. Or on reed mats in homes. Surrounded by family and prayer. And traditional healers with their concoctions, and spirits.
For Uncle Ben, just like the degree in sociology, that scar took some of the blame for his unravelling life.
Uncle Ben and I shared a bed at one point. On many nights I would see him dig into that tin of paracetamol, scoop and toss a handful of tablets in his mouth. I lost count of the empty tins of paracetamol. I also lost count of the number of times we used wire cloth hangars to puncture holes in his leather belt to keep pace with his rapidly diminishing waistline. Something had to hold those jeans in place for that hospital visit. And the next one. Only that there was not much left to hold with each passing day.
I remember when I was in lower primary school and Uncle Ben was a full human, oozing life. I remember perching on Uncle Ben’s shoulders, his right hand holding my sister Jackie’s left hand as we watched movies at the open-air cinema at the local market. I remember going back to school the following day feeling cool, discussing my nocturnal adventure with the older boys who were brave enough to go to the cinema. Or when Uncle Ben explained to my aunties how to make chapatis. You put flour first. Then water. If you put water first, and it is in excess, you run the risk of running out of flour before you have a firm dough for good chapati. He called it logical sequence of events. Flour. Then water. In that order. He told us he had learned it in a course called critical thinking at Egerton University.
Or when he would ask me for a list of the most beautiful female teachers in my primary school. Which I readily shared, receiving a Big G chewing gum in reward, only realizing later that I was receiving increased care and attention from the teachers I had informed Uncle Ben about. Or when he would talk to me about university life. About freedom. About justice and the strikes they participated in to keep Moi’s government in check. Or when Uncle Ben, my father and I would watch World Cup soccer through the night in the late 80s. Then spend the day playing soccer, practicing Maradona’s dribbles. His presence filled my childhood the way a sweet smell can pervade a room, so that if the sweet scent fades away, then the room is different. The room is lost, until that sweet scent is back.
We are broke
You do not need to be told that your mother is struggling. Or that there isn’t enough money anymore because the disease is quickly draining away those savings. As quickly as the virus is feasting upon Uncle Ben’s body. The first signs are the slim shopping list. Luxuries like Tree Top mango juice and Blue Band margarine give way to medicine. Numerous bottles and tins of painkillers. And creams to deal with random body rashes. The two kilogrammes of cooking oil become one. The diet slowly changes into a healthy vegetarian one full of sukuma wiki and ugali. Daily. Then we started carrying a note to the local shopkeeper, to get us sugar on credit. Payment was mostly at the end month when the teachers were paid their salaries. Then the payment to the shopkeeper delayed because teachers’ salaries were not paid on time because of some budget deficit. Or some delayed loan to the Kenyan government.
The shopkeeper says something curt as he flips through his record book. He is impatient with me. He tells me there is no sugar in his shop. And while I am standing there, barely a teenager, he sells sugar to someone who has cash. I manage to force the questions out of my tightening throat. I ask. He retorts, “Tell your mother to pay last month’s debt first.” I walk back home confused. I start to hate his son who was a class behind me and never talk to him again. What was hidden to the world was that all the money was going to Uncle Ben’s medication. But one cannot cure death, as my grandmother would eventually say.
The old man
I refused to drink with my grandfather when the opportunity presented itself one afternoon. I sat across from him at Ulimwengu Bar, the small local drinking hole he owned. It also acted as his quasi-office and meeting point where his friends would gather to share with him the little money he had brought back from Kisumu. He worked as a driver at the Ministry of Agriculture. His bar is in a small town called Pap Onditi. In a place called Nyakach, which is famous for having produced Ochuka and a few other men who are remembered for the infamous attempted coup d’état of 1982.
On that day, in 2008, I sat across my grandfather and his friends, and bought them rounds of Tusker, while I sipped a warm Coca Cola. It wasn’t that I was a teetotaller. Not really. I was a drinker and quite in the chaotic loop of post-college partying. I had made it to university too. And I had a job. On this day, I wanted to leave his company before he got drunk on my charity. I also did not want my shoulders to sag with the weight of knowing that it was my money that inspired the drunken anger that he was known to sometimes unleash on my grandmothers. I excused myself, amidst his protests, and left. I promised to MPesa him once I arrived in Kisumu.
His presence filled my childhood the way a sweet smell can pervade a room, so that if the sweet scent fades away, then the room is different.
My grandfather, John Ojuondo, died in 2013 from the complications of a stroke. In my mind, he had existed in two spaces. The space before Uncle Ben died. And the space after Uncle Ben’s death. In the latter he was without glitter in his eyes. It was a complex existence where he was mostly lost in thought. One that I did not get enough time to know and to talk to him about finding Uncle Ben’s daughter. Or his choices. Like, why did he marry two sisters? Was he emulating Jacob in the bible? Did he find acceptance in the church with this choice, like Jacob finds amongst Christians, even though Jacob too, married two sisters. And still became the father of Israel. How did Uncle Ben’s death impact him? And what about my aunty Millie who was murdered by people hired by the wife of her lover. She was a young nursing student at Kakamega Medical Training College. Uncle Ben had promised to revive the cold case and find justice. If only he could get a job. Or become a policeman.
The reality of my grandfather’s demise and the missed opportunities hit me hard as my mother and I sat in my grandmother’s house. The local catholic priest sat across from us, on the green seat where my grandfather used to sit. The priest was being difficult, debating the boundaries of one being born a Catholic, versus one living life as a Catholic. My grandfather was born a Catholic, although the local church records indicated that he last took Holy Communion 48 years before his death. He did not live as a Catholic. He did not desire to live as a Catholic. But here we were, imposing religion on him when he could hardly defend himself. Smelling the strong odour of our desperation, the Catholic priest took a piece of paper and scribbled the amount he felt was owed to the church, payable before the church would oversee my grandfather’s burial; 48 years’ worth of missed holy communions. The negotiated price of posthumous salvation. The church had us in a corner. Just as joblessness had had Uncle Ben in a coma. My siblings and I paid.
I am not sure if my grandfather had much memory of Uncle Ben’s daughter. During the preparations for Uncle Ben’s burial, the old men of the community had come together and decreed that Uncle Ben was to be buried behind his mother’s house. His mother did not have a house since she had separated from my grandfather when Uncle Ben was a baby and become married elsewhere. Uncle Ben was raised by my grandmother. The Luo community are notorious for making a tough situation even tougher by invoking old traditions to appease some real or imagined spirits. A house was hastily put up to fulfil tradition. Uncle Ben’s mother came for the night vigil and the burial. Uncle Ben’s girlfriend and Yoki also came.
The search continues
In the past few years, I have taken an interest in finding out about Yoki. I have talked to my mother. My grandmothers. Uncle Ben’s stepsister. Uncle Ben’s mother. But there seems to be a major collective failure of memory. Also, time continues to chip away at any remote memory that is left. It is like everyone accepted and moved on. There are no photos of Yoki. And no photos of Yoki’s mother. She left hastily with Yoki after Uncle Ben’s burial and disappeared in the wind. Everyone closed that chapter. There are no leads on Facebook and Twitter worth following either. Time seems to have dulled the magic of social media and the line seems to be dead at that end too.
What was hidden to the world was that all the money was going to Uncle Ben’s medication.
I have kept this chapter open because there is something that stays with you as a young man, stuck in boarding school, afraid of coming home and finding your friend gone forever. It also becomes more real when you eventually live that fear. In the last few years, I have worked on constructing the memory of my time with Uncle Ben, block by block, like a Lego building of sadness and nostalgia. I have learned that the anchoring block of my most profound memories with Uncle was learning about Yoki, during those nights when Uncle Ben’s pain kept him awake. Those nights when we passed time between the handfuls of paracetamols that he tossed to the back of his throat. My young mind was afraid to ask many questions then. I listened mostly, occasionally thinking about the upcoming KCPE examinations and my disdain for primary boarding school. And hearing his fear of imminent death pounding through his chest, cracking the silence of the night, before him mentioning Yoki, followed by calmness. The mention of Yoki was the last call for hope during those long nights. It was a signal that the night was wasted, and we should catch sleep before the roosters signalled the break of dawn. That name, Yoki, was the insurance against mortality from HIV/AIDS. Uncle Ben’s mortality.
Yolanda Denise. Yoki. I hope you are out there. When you get to read this, let me know.
