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Little boy's city ordeal

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Published on Saturday, 02 June 2007 08:02

Six-year-old Innocent Ongera is too dazed by his surroundings to pay much attention to the questions he is being asked about himself and his family. His eyes dart from the computer to the lights before studying the ringing telephones and then scanning the faces of the visitors at the Nation Centre's reception area. He might just find a familiar face that will take him away from this unfamiliar place.

Not surprisingly, therefore, he breaks into a broad smile when someone speaks to him in his mother tongue. He quickly opens up and starts talking about his parents. His father is a mechanic and his mother a shop attendant in Keroka, some 350 kms west of Nairobi. He has been in Nairobi for a while and was on his way back home to Keroka – on foot– but instead wound up at Nation Centre.

And where was he staying in Nairobi? "I don't know. But I was with Auntie and Baba Toto," he says. His paternal aunt took him from his Keroka home some time ago (he doesn't know exactly when) for a visit to the city, but ended up taking him to a school, whose name he does not know. In his school bag are a couple of books bearing only his name, the subject and his class (Standard Two), as well as a lunch box containing some bread and vegetables. There is nothing to help trace his city home. And it is hard to tell which school he goes to from his navy blue shorts and sweater because the uniform is common in Nairobi.

Bewildered, Ongera innocently edges closer to John Mwisa, the good Samaritan who found him trying to cross Kenyatta Avenue and, realising he was lost, decided to help him. Taking the unkempt boy by the hand, he had led him to a fast-food cafe for a meal as he tried to get information about his parents. But it proved a difficult task because Ongera would not speak much. So Mwisa took Ongera to a police booth next to Kimathi House to report the matter. But when the officers found nothing on the boy to provide any useful clues, they advised Mwisa to seek help at Nation Centre or the Central Police Station. Ongera is not the first lost child Mwisa has helped; he is the fourth. "When I find a lost child I am really touched. I do all I can to reunite the children with their families. I am optimistic this one's parents will be found, just like the other three I had found and taken home." "I want to report the matter to the Central Police Station and then take the boy home to take a bath and rest as we wait for his parents to be traced," Mwisa, a businessman, says when he brings Innocent to Nation Centre.

Small town

We ask Mwisa to leave the boy with us. Fortunately, Keroka is a small town where most people are bound to know one another so it should not be difficult to trace Ongera's parents.

We get in touch with the Nation's correspondent in Kisii, Beauttah Omanga, who calls his contacts in the town, and sure enough, within a short time Ongera's father, Charles Nyakundi, has been found and told about his child. Afraid that his wife, Janet Kerubo, will be sick with worry, Nyakundi carefully explains to her that he has to travel to Nairobi to pick up their first child, who was lost but is now safe and sound.

But even as he is telling his wife that all is well, Nyakundi is almost sick with panic and worry, wondering whether his son is really safe. At 3pm, two hours after Ongera was brought to Nation centre, Nyakundi boards a Nairobi-bound bus. He arrived in Nairobi after 10 pm and spent a restless night in a hotel. By 6am the following day, he was at Nation Centre, waiting for his son. As his father was travelling, Ongera went home with one of the Nation staff members. On the way, he asked if he could have a pair of sunglasses. A detour to the supermarket did not yield the toy shades he wanted, so he settled for a toy gun and a doll to take to his baby sister, Devina, when he got home. When they got home, a tired Ongera ate his dinner and went to sleep, a long way from the home that he had set off to reach that morning.

When he saw his father at Nation Centre the following morning, Ongera ran to him and wrapped his arms tightly round him, crying, "Daddy! Daddy!" In response, Nyakundi caressed his son's head. For a while, the relieved father was speechless.

"I have read stories about lost children who are found dead and mutilated, and I feared the worst. Thoughts of something bad happening to Innocent really haunted me," he said with emotion when he finally found his voice. He then called his wife to tell her the good news. He gave Ongera the phone to talk to his mother and the boy excitedly told his mother about his new toys, his new friends, and where he had spent the night. His wife had been agonising about her child's safety from the moment she got the news. "I didn't sleep last night. What does the boy look like? Is he hurt?" she wondered. She could only get answers to these questions after talking to her son.

So, how did Ongera end up living with his aunt?

Last December, says Nyakundi, his sister visited them in Keroka and Ongera, like any child his age would, cried when she was leaving and asked to be allowed to go with her.

"My brother, his favourite uncle, had gone to Nairobi with my sister and then flown to the US, and my son wanted to see the plane that took his uncle away. His curiosity was valid and since schools were closed, we let him to go."

At the beginning of January, Nyakundi travelled to Nairobi pick up Ongera from his aunt's house in Mathare North, but found that the boy had been placed in school and was apparently happy. Ongera's aunt wanted him to stay with her so that he could help her son, who had delayed speech, to start talking. So Ongera returned to Keroka alone. At first, Nyakundi's sister called them regularly to let them know how their son was doing. Though they had not spoken in the past few weeks, Nyakundi had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss, and was shocked when he heard that his son had been found roaming the streets of Nairobi alone. Now all he wanted was to get his son home. He would sort out all the other issues later. So, thanking the Nation employees who had taken care of Ongera, Nyakundi led his son away, holding his hand tightly, as if fearing he might lose him again, and boarded the 9 o'clock bus to Keroka.

Three months

The two arrived in Keroka at about 4pm on Tuesday and were welcomed by Ongera's mother, Janet Kerubo, and a host of neighbours, many of whom hugged Ongera tightly. Kerubo carried Ongera around like a baby for several hours, as if afraid he might disappear again. Equally thrilled to see Ongera was his younger sister, Davina. The two children sat close together and kept staring at each other, wondering why they had not seen each other for some time. Ongera falls silent when Nairobi is mentioned and starts crying when asked how he left his aunt's place. "He seems to have been traumatised by his experience but we hope he will forget it soon and move on," says his mother, looking at him adoringly.

Is there anything he misses about Nairobi? "My clothes," he smiles shyly. Asked whether he would like to go for them he says: "Oh, no I can't. I'd rather do without them, he says, before quickly adding," In Nairobi, I would be caned in school. I was also caned at home. I hate Nairobi. Then he dashes outside to play with his friends. Despite his experiences, Ongera has fond memories of some things in Nairobi, like the elevator at Nation Centre and the night he spent at a Nation writer's home. "She was very kind. She gave me clothes and I played with her children. She also brought me to my father, he says. Ongera's parents say they will never let their son go to live with relatives again. "The night my husband left was the longest ever in my life. I was anxiously waiting for him to confirm that my son was fine. I had assumed all along that he was well and comfortable," says Kerubo. Adds Nyakundi: "Surprisingly none of our relatives informed us that Innocent had gone missing. In fact, I was the one who alerted them that I had picked him up from Nairobi. Despite this we are not bitter because he is now safe with us."

Ongera, who seems to have learnt a lesson, says he will never leave his parents and baby sister again. Indeed, as I am leaving, he refuses to come out of the house, thinking I might take him back to Nairobi.

Night at home

Even after a night at home, Nyakundi still hadn't heard from his sister, who he assumed would have called to let them know that Ongera was missing. So he sent an SMS to his sister's brother-in-law, informing him that he had picked up his son from Nairobi, knowing the message would eventually reach his sister. When she was given the message three days after Ongera went missing, she told her brother-in-law she hadn't bothered looking for the child because "it is not long since he disappeared". Attempts to talk to Ongera's aunt were unfruitful. "I don't know you and you don't know me, so why should we meet?" she asked when we told her that we were the ones who had found Ongera.