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Mother's courage after man ran off

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Published on Saturday, 02 June 2007 08:01

Pacifica Nyanchira Nyangwara is a lonely soul lost in the sea of life's turmoil. The 58-year-old woman does not know why her husband ran away from his family twice and left her struggling with their six children.

The first time Nicholas Nyangwara, 68, ran away from his Metembe village in Gucha District was in 1974. It took four years for Mrs Nyangwara to learn that her husband was holed up in Tanzania. By the time of his first disappearance, the couple had six children, Scholastica Minsari, John Nyangwara, Elizabeth Kerubo, Josphine Kemunto, Perpetua Bizera and Sarange. All were left in their mother's care when their father ran away.

Some time in 1978, Nyangwara sent a distress message from Nyamawa Parish in Tanzania seeking help after he had been struck by a bout of malaria. "Because I still considered him as part of our family, we went for him and brought him home. After healing we talked to him and I thought he had come back to his senses," she said recently. But that was not to be. "In 1983, he disappeared again and it has been 21 years since he left for Tanzania never to be seen again," Mrs Nyangwara said. In the first instance, she could not believe that she had been left without penniless but with a two-month old baby and five other young ones to take care of.

A week passed, then months . . . "A week passed by, then months and years. That was when the truth hit home that I had been abandoned by my husband," she recalled. "For the first one year, life was a struggle. At times I contemplated committing suicide but something persuaded me not to because my children would suffer." She tried all means to make ends meet and educate some of her daughters to Standard Seven before others dropped out and got married. The second time that Nyangwara said he wanted to return to Tanzania, he tried to woo her to accompany him but she declined saying she could not walk out of her children.

She said Nyangwara is brown in complexion tall and brown. He understands Kiswahili a bit of English and Kisii. She added that he can never miss to go to a Catholic Church on Sundays. John, 38, who has taken over the family affairs is married to Victoria Bitutu and blessed with a boy. He said the first time he saw his father is when he was in Form Two, in 1978.

He said after his father recovered they counselled him and he said that he had reformed and would never abandon them anymore. He then left for Kericho to look for a job after which he could take his responsibilities as a father.

"We trusted him when he said he was going to Kericho to find a job to fend for us, but after sometime, we heard that he was considering to go back to Tanzania. Immediately I heard of the news, I left to Kericho and after talking to him, he said he wanted to do big time farming in Tanzania. "I knew my father to be a saw miller and wondered why he was cheating me because when I asked him if he could not do it in Kenya, he said Kenya was not as peaceful as Tanzania, I got annoyed and left him never to see him up to date," John said. John said they have heard that his father is in Rushoto, Tanzania as a saw miller. The problem that the family has been struggling with since he left is a land dispute between his uncles which can only be solved in his presence. The hearing of the land case would be on June 30.