In 1965, Mr Peter Macharia Maina travelled to Nairobi from Murang’a in search of a job.
Armed with his Standard Four Intermediate certificate from Watuha Primary School in Kangema, Maina, 22, told his wife Hannah Wanjira that their future lay in the city, just two years into independence.
“He said moving to the city was the only way he could guarantee me a life with the stability to start a family and educate our children. He had lofty dreams; he wanted to start a business, build a home, buy a car and ensure we had enough food,” said Ms Wanjira.
For 56 years, Maina toiled in the sun. “He specialised in selling Nation Media Group newspaper brands in Westlands until he died on November 4 while on treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital. It is through vending that he provided for me and our nine children; six sons and three daughters,” she told the Nation.
She described him as a resilient man, considerate husband, sensitive father and an elder who kept tabs with the happenings in the village even as he considered himself “a city man”.
He was a staunch Christian and abhorred crime, laziness and pettiness. Maina later opened a shop in Westlands, bought a car in 1982 and built a house in the village.
Selling newspapers
During his burial at Ihiga-ini village, Anglican Church of Kenya Reverend Paul Wagereka from Murera Sisal Parish said he ought to be used as a case study for “focus in life”.
“Our children often jump from one occupation to the other. Today they are in employment, tomorrow they are self-employed and the next day they are searching for a job. Here we have a case of a man who for 56 years specialised in selling newspapers,” he said.
Those who knew him narrated how, for five decades, his routine would start at 3am when he would move out of his house to go and receive daily publications for sale. “He would hawk the papers in Westlands during the morning rush hour. He would start collecting money from those he had supplied the papers on credit from 2pm and by 6pm, he would be at his shop,” said Mercy Njoki, 70, who first met him in 1973.
Ms Njoki said the difficult phase of Maina’s business was during President Daniel arap Moi’s regime since “not once did he report getting harassed for selling headlines that were adjudged to be critical of authority”.
She said it was worse during the crackdown on multipartyism activists where Maina was on the watch list of Moi’s men “for being suspected to be a media informer on happenings on the ground”.
There was a time Ms Njoki tried to convince Maina to go slow on his association with the media, but he said “such a mentality would not have won us freedom in 1963 had our Mau Mau heroes chickened out”.
Mr Mwangi Macharia eulogised the man who believed that resting in life meant death.
No productive projections
“He used to argue that if one spent his life idling about with no productive projections, it would be a lie to say he has rested. He used to believe in the philosophy that one had to slave for the daily bread so that in death, it can be said one has rested,” he said.
His daughter, Ms Florence Wangui, said the final moments of her father started on the morning of November 1 when he collapsed.
“We rushed him to Jemindas Nursing Home and later to German Medical Centre en route to Kenyatta National Hospital where he died at 5.45pm on November 4, surrounded by family members and friends,” she said.
She said her father urged his children to abhor laziness and embrace hard work. He also had a unique wish: That the newspaper vending stand along Waiyaki Way should never be abandoned.
“Our dad said newspaper vending is his trademark in Nairobi and the pride of his last 56 years in life. The good thing is that he had shared with all of us the nitty gritty of the trade and he can shine on his way well assured that even as he was being buried, his newspapers were being sold in Nairobi,” said one of his sons, Mr Jackson Macharia. BY DAILY NATION