Posted by Jambo
When a father and son are entangled in a love triangle, the consequences are dire.
Four young children in Kajiado are half orphaned, the only bread winner is ostracised, and the education of a teenage son is in jeopardy.
Thousands of miles away, a 26-year-old London gym instructor, the cause of the love tragedy is patiently waiting for the father of her child who is also her step-son to join her.
But residents of a village in Kajiado are not taking this lying down and have vowed not to allow their son to fly out of Kenya.
Welcome to the strange world of Mzee Rempesa ole Kirkoya, the Kajiado butcher and widower, who is also about to lose his only son to the white woman he once loved.
It is a hot afternoon when we arrive at Mzee Kirkoya’s homestead in Olooshobor, Kajiado County.
The three-roomed iron sheet structure and adjacent two-roomed structure are devoid of life and all the doors are wide open.
In the nearby homestead, Joseph ole Kirkoya and his brother were conversing in low tones, discussing what had befallen their brother, something that has become the talking point from London to Nairobi.
The whole neighbourhood is in shock and the entire family is in the process of organising a special cleansing ceremony so that Mzee Kirkoya popularly known as Masikio (ears) on account of his elongated earlobe and his Standard Seven son, Lawrence Kanare, can be allowed to come back to their home from exile.
According to the UK’s online publication Daily mail, Rebekah O’Brien, 26, had a relationship with Kirkoya, 40.
After their relationship ended, Ms O’Brien began an affair with 19-year-old Kanare; she became pregnant and has since given birth to a baby boy. “O’Brien, a gym receptionist from Kent, was so entranced with his (Kirkoya) culture and theconnection that moved her 7,000 miles to be with him; even though he was a married man,” reported the Daily Mail.
According to Kirkoya, O’Brien visited one of the women in the troupe in 2013 when they met.
“I had a butchery in Kisamis near Kiserian and she had accompanied the woman to buy something in the shop, which is next to my butchery. When she saw me, she ran towards me. We communicated with hands and through facial expression because I do not understand English since I never went to school,” Kirkoya told The Standard.
According to Kirkoya’s brother, Mr Joseph, the woman was warmly received by Kirkoya’s wife, Joyce (she is since dead).
“My brother takes liquor and when the visitor came to the homestead, his wife Joyce was alarmed about her conduct. My brother entertained his new girlfriend and he even sold two acres of our land and used the proceeds to entertain her,” Kirkuya said.
Kirkoya said he broke up with O’Brien in 2013 after Joyce committed suicide; unhappy with the sale of the family land. At that time, O’Brien was in the final stages of her pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter who died weeks later.
“I admit that I was the father of the first child who passed on weeks later,” Kirkoya told The Standard when we caught up with him in Kimuka at the foot of Ngong Hills.
Though he is aware of reports that his former girlfriend has a baby boy for his first-born son, he termed the reports as lies.
When we caught up with the son, Lawrence Kanare, in Kimuka on his way from school, he admitted to being the father of the child.
O’Brien according to the Daily Mail confessed to being Kanare’s stepmother before they became romantically intimate. She admitted she had sent Kanare Sh88,127 to enable him visit his child in the UK. But the teenager said he had not received any money from O’Brien.
“I am ready to go and see my baby. We always communicate with O’Brien via phone and I have promised I will visit them and return home to continue with my studies,” he said.
But the uncles will hear none of it.
“Our brother’s son has gone against societal norms. We are shocked by these evil deeds and see him as an outcast because he got involved in a romantic relationship with his stepmother. We are planning to conduct a cleansing ceremony that will see the two returning from ‘exile’,” said Kei ole Mpaira, the chairperson of Mpaira’sfamily, who is leading the consultations on the matter.
The elders threatened to stage a protest at the British Embassy in Nairobi to block Kanare from visiting his lover in the UK.
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