Eight years on, Nyeri mother hopes to see son alive

A picture of Paul Maina who has been missing since April 2008. PHOTO:KIBATA KIHU/STANDARD

Margaret Gathigia is a troubled woman. For the past eight years, she has been gazing at the horizon hoping her son Jackson Maina would come back to their home in Giakaibei Village, Mathira Constituency, Nyeri County.

Every few minutes she checks her phone, hoping Maina, who disappeared eight years ago at 28, on a cool April morning, would call.

“I woke up early that day but Maina was already up. He fetched firewood for me and also went to the river where he fetched water and filled a 40-litre drum,” Gathigia said.

At 10am, she left for a women group meeting, leaving Maina at home. That was the last time she saw him.

“His brother James Gikonyo said he met him leaving the homestead a few hours after I left and he casually bade him farewell. He was carrying a small bag on his back, which usually had his Bible,”Gathigia said.

Maina had been at home with his mother for several months, helping her as she recovered after she fell and hurt her leg.

“He loved me very much and when he heard I was unwell, he left his job in Nakuru and came to take care of me, helping with household chores,” she said.

Maina was known to take long nature walks into the Mt Kenya Forest, which borders their village, often disappearing for two or three days.

“I had warned him against taking the long walks into the forest because it is very risky, but he was determined to get to the mountain, which he claimed was the most peaceful place for him,” she said.

When she returned home that day, she didn’t find Maina. But she was not alarmed by his absence.

“He often left for days for the nature walks so it wasn’t until three days later that I noticed he was not around,” Gathigia said.

She then asked her husband to call Maina’s phone number, only to realise that he had actually left his phone at home.

“Maina had no money with him or any grudge with anyone. So I didn’t think he had gone far... He liked keeping to himself a lot,” she said.

Family members spread word about Maina’s disappearance across the country.

“I spent my days listening to the radio announcements, hoping for good news. We put up several advertisements but no information was forthcoming,” she said.

When Maina’s father died in 2011, the family frantically tried to search for him but it was still futile as no word has ever been heard from him.

The mother of six continues to hold onto hope that one day she will find an answer to what happened to her son.

“I don’t know if he ended up in the forest and was killed a wild animal. And if so, I would give anything to have a chance to bury his bones. This waiting and searching has tortured me long enough,” she said.

She holds onto the hope that one day, someone will find the Bible Maina always carried because it had her name. “He never left that Bible and it has my name on it. I hope if anyone finds it, they will contact me and let me know so I can have some idea of where my son might be,” Gathigia said.