I’m a husband, father and professional footballer. I’ve been kicking the ball since I can remember.
My mother died while I was still a baby, and I was left in the care of my grandfather, a polygamous man. He was a policeman. I shared a home at Gigiri Police Station with my grandfathers’ second family, my step-grandmother, step-aunts and uncles and step cousins. I was the only outsider, the one who didn’t quite belong and I bore the brunt of it.
Every waking day for me was full of misery. I was made to fetch firewood and water while everybody else supervised me.
They whipped my back like a donkey and made me stand out in the cold until they dragged me back into our sad little tin house. They once tied my hands with a rope to a wooden plank supporting the roof and left me hanging like that for what seemed like ages. Poker-faced, straddled on a rickety wooden chair, my teen cousin watched in pleasure as I desperately tried to wiggle free.
Years later, my grandfather, the sole provider of the family, got a job transfer to Parklands Police Station, so we all had to move to Nairobi.
COOKING POTS
The move was hurried and haphazard. Early in the morning, we packed our jikos, cooking pots and sticks, metallic cups and plates, worn out mattresses and blankets, our rickety wooden furniture and clothes. They were loaded on the back of a pickup van and we jumped in.
A bit past midday, we arrived at our destination and the van was off-loaded and we settled into another tiny, congested tin house, just like the previous one.
A bit past midday, we arrived at our destination and the van was off-loaded and we settled into another tiny, congested tin house, just like the previous one.
I was seven years old but had never set foot in a classroom. I spent the days walking around the neighbourhood passing time. Though that young, and though my life was bleak, I believed that there was more to life and I planned to find it.
One early morning, my aunt sent me to the shops to buy bread for breakfast. I didn’t return. I wandered completely off course on Ojijo Road, and I couldn’t find my way back home. I walked for hours, only to find myself in the city centre. That’s how I ended up on the streets of Nairobi.
Hungry, lost and afraid, I found myself at the Ambassadeur bus stop begging for food. There were two other boys, almost my age, doing the same and looking just as scared as I was. We struck a friendship and they introduced me to the rest of the ‘gang’.
First night was liberating
I slept on a dirty sack, squeezed up with 10 other boys at the bus stop. They became my family.
When in Rome, you must suit up like a Roman. My new family taught me street survival tactics, which included borrowing money and sporadic pickpocketing.
When in Rome, you must suit up like a Roman. My new family taught me street survival tactics, which included borrowing money and sporadic pickpocketing.
On one failed attempt at pickpocketing, I was beaten mercilessly by a woman who seemed exasperated by things that didn’t concern me. She cursed at me severally, accusing me of killing her husband. Now that I think of it, she must have had a mental condition that made her act the way she did. Pickpocketing, I learnt, was best executed by older, stronger boys.
The older boys also taught us how to quieten the voices in our heads. We were made to inhale glue, smoke bhang and inject brown sugar. Our reality needed soothing, so we stayed high and happy.
Thika Approved School
We woke up one breezy morning to three rugged men standing over us, faces swollen with hate, hurling insults and grabbing us by our shirts. Our norm in such situations was to take off in opposite directions then meet later at an agreed on location. On this day, less than a year after I joined the streets, I was grabbed along with two others, crudely thrown into a dirty van and transported to Thika Approved School. The ride was rough and the youngest among us cried through it.
The approved school provided decent living quarters, but the general experience was harsher than street life. We woke up in the wee hours daily to morning duties such as cleaning our dormitories, the dining hall, the chapel, and latrines. Every once in a while when duties were not performed to the school’s standards, we’d get our naked backs whipped as we were insulted.
Sometimes the punishment would go as far as being starved for an entire day. I remember it as a prison because we were locked within fences, made to overwork in the shamba barefoot and forced to attend church services. Funny enough, I don’t remember attending an actual teacher-student class. Maybe I did, but I don’t recall.
Six months after we were rounded up from Ambassadeur bus stage, my friends, Crying Mike, Big Pius and I executed our own prison break. We dug a hole at a neglected corner of the school and snuck out. We then removed our school branded T-shirts and buried them in a shallow hole.
Bare chested, we ran to the nearest bus stop and squeezed our little selves under seats on a bus to Nairobi. On arrival, we crawled out of hiding and mingled with the passengers on their mad dash off the bus. Upon hitting the ground, as was our norm, we took off in different directions having agreed to meet at the same bus stage to reconnect with our brothers. My friends never showed up. To date, I don’t know where they vanished to.
One year into returning to the streets, then eight years old, a familiar face from Parklands Police Station, where my grandfather still lived, spotted me at my usual haunt, Ambassador, and convinced me to return home. I was hungry that day, so hungry that I agreed.
One year into returning to the streets, then eight years old, a familiar face from Parklands Police Station, where my grandfather still lived, spotted me at my usual haunt, Ambassador, and convinced me to return home. I was hungry that day, so hungry that I agreed.
CELEBRATION
I quickly realised that I had made a [wrong] decision because there was no celebration on my return and nothing had changed. It was still the same old sad tin house ravaged by poverty and overrun with hopelessness.
I quickly realised that I had made a [wrong] decision because there was no celebration on my return and nothing had changed. It was still the same old sad tin house ravaged by poverty and overrun with hopelessness.
Forced by bleak circumstances here, I continued to practice what I’d learnt in ‘Rome’ — beg for money — and I was good at it. In the daytime I begged, at night I returned home.
As I roamed around one day, I discovered a small church on Ojijo Road, Parklands, and it became my ‘headquarters’. You would not have been faulted to think I was an active member of the church because every Sunday, I’d walk in with the congregation, but on a different mission — to beg for money. I became such a common face that the lead pastors took note of me.
One miserable Sunday morning while walking to church, I was suddenly overcome by defeat and hopelessness due to the abuse I was subjected to back home that I jumped in the way of a moving van. I wanted to die. Fortunately, I landed flat on the ground and the van drove over me.
As I lay there, under that massive van, helpless and staring at death, I was overcome with such remorse and regret, that when I got up, I took off, back to Ambassadeur bus stage, back to the streets, where life was more bearable.
Months later, one of the church leaders, Rev Simon Mwangi, concerned by my absence from church, dispatched a search party that found me at my begging spot.
He offered to enrol me in school and found me a home, Homeless Children International. In a matter of days, my life was transformed. Finally, I had stability, shelter, food, and children my age to interact with.
Play for a European team
In 2001, [when] I was eight years old, I walked into my first class, Class One, at Jamhuri Primary School. Homeless Children International became my home for seven years until I was expelled for perpetual misconduct. I was placed back with my grandfather, but I was grown up, so I could defend myself.
The year 2001 marked the beginning of a new dawn for me. I not only began my education, I also begun playing football, which I continued playing through high school. Though I was rebellious through primary school, I finally shaped up. Rev Simon Mwangi was instrumental in my transformation. He embraced me as I was, and even introduced me to his family.
Every once in a while I’d visit their home and dine with them. They showed me love and acceptance, what I’d been looking for, for years.
This acceptance straightened me out, and I will be forever grateful to him for his generosity. I call him ‘Dad’.
I graduated from Jamhuri High school in 2012 and jumped straight into the football pitch determined to play professionally. I’ve been fortunate to play for nationally recognised teams such as Bandari, Sofapaka and Nairobi Stima.
In my 27 years on earth, I’ve learnt that all a human being needs to flourish is love and care. I’ve a wonderful, supportive wife and daughter. They are my support system, they give me a sense of belonging.
My ageing grandfather finally moved back to the village several years ago to enjoy his sunset years. We are good friends, however. I don’t keep in touch with the rest of the family. I live a day at a time, aiming higher, dreaming to play for a European team.