Thanks to the success of a son, one lucky mother will in a few months move to a new home in Nairobi’s Lavington estate, a different world from the one she brought up her children in.
Soon, her whole family will move further away from the dust, noisy matatus and burst sewers that characterised a big part of their day-to-day life into a gated compound with manicured lawns to enjoy the sound of chirping birds.
On Friday, Mildred Ayiemba Wanyama was going on with the usual routine that occupies her evenings when she received a phone call from her son. As she usually does, she began by giving him an update on home affairs.
“I was telling him how I spent the money he had sent me earlier by buying a few things for his siblings and paying for the school fees of one of his relatives back in the village,” says Mrs Wanyama.
But before she gave him the complete breakdown of January’s expenses, her son cut her short halfway through.
“I was just about to tell him that I was almost broke when he told me he was at the airport and we couldn’t talk much,” says Mrs Wanyama.
As an ever concerned mother, she couldn’t let the conversation end that way so she prodded further. The more questions she asked, the more she realised that her son was on the verge of making Kenyan football history.
No, he was not boarding a plane to Kenya as she had hoped. The flight was destined for England and there would be no return flight to Italy soon. A deal between her son’s old football club Parma and what is his new home, Manchester City, had been completed.
If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then heaven’s joy can’t match the joy of a mother proud of her child’s achievements.
Even as she tries to maintain a semblance of normalcy in her small clothes shop in Kariokor, she knows the hard life her family went through a few years ago will become a past chapter.
“The Wanyamas grew up in Muthurwa Estate,” says the slightly more than six-foot Mrs Wanyama. “And, as parents, we tried to give our children all that they needed.”
Her clothes shop is the last one in a row of kiosks behind the Kariokor chief’s camp. Within its mabati walls are several shelves on which layers of multi-coloured kitenge fabrics are neatly arranged. Four sewing machines dot the interior.
Today, none of them is being used. Perhaps the Wanyamas and all those close to them are a bit excited by the news of one of their own going to one of the richest football leagues in the world. Every shop owner around her knows of her excitement.
Most of them are friends who used to see the face of her son in the local sports pages. On this day, however, he is on the front page. Everyone around seems too eager to share a thing or two about the Manchester City player.
“The shop was a present from him when I got retrenched from Kenya Railways. At that time, life in the city was becoming expensive and I had decided to go back to the village,” she says.
“He told me to look for a rental house that went for between Sh30,000 and Sh35,000,” she says. Just like that, the family moved from Muthurwa to old Race Course estate.
In May, the Wanyamas will be moving again.
MacDonald’s younger sister Cynthia says of her brother: “He has always been polite. From an early age, we have been brought up knowing how important it is relating well with each other,” she says. “He means what he says.”
“He wanted to buy me the house last year but he only had five leave days. Once this football season comes to an end, he will come home and give me the keys to the new house,” she says.
Even with a transfer fee of close to Sh1 billion, and a salary that could easily get to millions of shillings each week, the proud mother of eight is confident the pounds will not change her son one bit.
The mother of five boys and three girls and wife to former Kenyan international Noah Wanyama is proud of her children’s achievements. Two of her sons are footballers as well.
Victor Mugabe plays for Belgian side Germinia Bearschot while another, Thomas Wanyama, plays for local football club Sofapaka.
However, old habits die hard. Mrs Wanyama insists that even if her son moves her to Lavington, she would find it hard to quit her clothes business.
