By Nanjinia Wamuswa

Cycling competitions and pushing a handcart have elevated a 55-year-old woman to celebrity status in Butere District.

Few people know her real name and to many, she is just Mama Mkokoteni. Grace Ambetsa first shot into the limelight in 2002 when she participated in a cycling competition sponsored by Ruth Oniang’o, an aspirant for the Butere parliamentary seat.

Grace surprised many when she beat much younger competitors to emerge the winner of the over 40km race. She won a new bicycle and Sh500.

Grace Ambetsa going about her daily business. Photo: Nanjinia Wamuswa

Grace won her second competition two years later in a race sponsored by the then Bishop of Butere ACK Diocese, Horace Etemesi. She received another new bicycle.

When she won a third race in 2005, she was given yet another bicycle by the organisers.

Since then Grace has not participated in any race despite the fact that there have been several. She says, "My detractors claim that I’m too old for such. But that is not the case. I want to participate in as many competitions as possible."

There are those among her detractors who believed she must be employing black magic or her bike was charmed. Therefore, they hatched a plan to steal it. One day people broke into her house at night with the aim of stealing it but she raised the alarm.

They were not done yet. A week later her husband used the same bike to travel to Sabatia, a nearby market and when he went into a hotel for a cup of tea the bike disappeared. Four years down the line, the bike has not been recovered. But she is not bothered and says she can win a race with any bike.

Grace has been cycling as long as she can remember. As a child growing up in Maraba, East Wanga, her father, Richard Alutsachi, bought her a bicycle because of the way she handled domestic chores.

Apart from cycling, Grace is also adept at pushing handcarts, which she started doing in 1980.

"One day I saw a mkokoteni (pushcart) lying idle and decided to make use of it," she says. Now 29 years later, the handcart has become part and parcel of her life. She even knows how to service it, replacing worn out parts like ball bearings. The dark and heavily built woman would shame any man in matters to do with carts. Because it is rare for a woman to push a handcart, some people view her with suspicion. They see her a social deviant and have told her husband as much.

"But I don’t care at all and I respect my husband more than any other person," she says.

Still, many people enjoy her services. She is in high demand and gives male handcart pushers a run for their money. A number of businessmen prefer dealing with her than her male counterparts in the same trade.

She pockets a minimum of Sh500 a day exclusive of contracts that pay her at the end of the month. Married to Gilbert Ambetsa who is in his early 70s, they have six children and 14 grand children. To manage her job Grace eats well, normally a very big lump of ugali and fish.