Marion Wanjiru Waweru shares moments from her life at her home in Kawendo village, Murang’a County, on August 15, 2024.
In August 1922, Marion Wanjiru, a baby girl who has survived for more than a century, was born.
Now aged 102 — 62 of them being a widow — and still with her memory intact, she has become a societal marvel at her Kibereke village in Kandara constituency, Murang'a County.
She is revered as a cultural oracle owing to her experience through the generations to hit a century.
"I have seen and heard too many things...I have persevered in this life so far and I have had my share of pain," she told Nation Africa.
Ms Wanjiru, whose eldest child is 81 years old, regrets that she only attended school for three days. She would, in conspiracy with her mother, sneak out of her father's compound in the neighbourhood of the now Thika town and attend European-led formal classes.
But one of her brothers discovered the secret between mother and daughter and reported to the family head.
She says about 10 village male elders were invited to whip the idea out of her and mother's head. Girls, they argued, were not supposed to go to school.
Ms Wairimu said her mother received 20 strokes of the cane while she received 10, bringing an end to her yearning for formal education.
"Mine was an era when education for girls was unheard of. It was a near abomination to educate a girl child," she says.
So entrenched was the stigma that she says some men went as far as taking oaths never to educate girls in their families or marry any woman who dared seek formal education.
Holding her head in exasperation, Ms Wanjiru during an interview at her compound on August 15, 2024, says: "The men in those days were very foolish. I hope they came back to life today and witness what became of our women."
Her greatest pride is to see educated women in all spheres of life, some even being global leaders…"
Marriage and violence
Without an education, Ms Wairimu got married in 1942.
"Those were the days that girls remained pure in chastity until a fully vetted suitor came our way," she says.
She adds that those days were unlike today when women sometimes get married after giving birth out of wedlock and with no formalities — or couples even living together for years without informing the parents.
She says Waweru Wanjugi, who married her, was approved by her parents and after the cultural rituals, she moved into her societal roles as per the dictates then — becoming a housewife to populate her husband's clan.
"My problems in life started immediately since my husband turned out to be an alcoholic and wife batterer," she says.
She adds that she would be beaten thoroughly for flimsy reasons.
"In our days, no woman could abandon her marriage and run back to her parents since culture demanded that we stay put and persevere. Divorce was unheard of.
"Clans would arbitrate serious cases. There was nothing like gender-based violence. It was considered ‘disciplining’. A woman being beaten was nothing new, it was part of love," she says.
Ms Wairimu says she wouldn't fancy how today's woman would behave faced with that abuse.
"I doubt whether today my marriage under the circumstances I faced would stand for even a day. I hear on the radio how these days many marriages are collapsing due to violence and I wonder what would be the case if it was during my time," she says.
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She remembers how she and her husband experienced the war for independence "where we were instrumental in feeding the Mau Mau soldiers and giving them intelligence".
She says she and her husband did not go to the forest to fight because they were past the age of enlisting as armed conflict fighters.
"British soldiers branded our fighters as terrorists but to us they were heroes," she says, going into an explanation on the tensions between those who were loyal to the British colonialist and those who supported the Mau Mau freedom cause.
Left a widow at 40
A born-again Christian in the Independent Church faith, Ms Wairimu says her husband struggled with his alcoholism, bad temper and fate till 1962 when he died.
"He got sick for a week and succumbed. I suspect it was out of his lifestyle...but we had no money for specialised treatment. He died. I suspect it was liver problem," she says.
Her mental picture of marriage today as formed by her interaction with the media is uninspiring.
"My analysis has settled on the fact that relationships nowadays are about money, and material love but little respect. My ideal marriage is that founded on genuine love, honest desire to make it work, be bonded by mutual respect and live as one in pure commitment to each other," she says.
Ms Wairimu adds that she was left a widow in the early 1960s with her seven children.
"Three years after my husband died, my two children died after they ate anthrax-infected meat. A neighbour’s cow had died and it was cooked. My children who had visited died after they ate it. They were among six neighbours who died," she says.
Village elders said it was an accident and the matter rested at that, each of the affected families burying their dead.
She says that was her lowest moment where in a span of three years she lost three family members.
As a widow whose hard work was relied upon by her five surviving children, she says she threw herself into barter trade and casual labour to raise resources to offer them their basic needs.
Ms Wanjiku says she was not a rich woman "but my children pursued education, never slept hungry, had shelter and clothing...that is what I was living for".
She says the loss of her husband ushered her into widowhood at the age of 40.
"I had been in marriage for 20 years. I told God to be my husband. I had the option of going to the market and become a woman of the street. I chose to safeguard my marriage, home and honour of my children. I became both the head and the neck in my departed husbands' homestead," she says.
She says she gets surprised to see herself alive this far especially going through 62 years of widowhood.
"I had all along believed that I would live for a maximum of about 80 years. But here I am, my children now tell me I am about the only one alive of my age in the whole of this village. They usually tell me I am among top oldest human beings in the whole world", she says.
She says she is now used to living among people she finds very strange. "Especially these little children who speak in strange languages, dance as if possessed, speak on phones that I hear can cross our boarders to the land of the white people..." she says.
Her parting shot? "Love one another, unity is the first measure of wealth. Keep off alcohol since I have volumes of experiences how it disorganises families".
