Surprise call reunion after 20-year disappearance

Francis Mwangi, who went missing when he was six-years-old, recently reunited with his family after 20 years. [PHOTO: Peter Karagu/Standard]

Since he turned 15, Francis Mwangi dreamt of a reunion with his parents and two younger siblings.

He had not seen them since he was six years old but he constantly thought of them. He wondered if they had changed over the years. What if they did not recognise him? He shuddered

Recently, Mwangi, 26, had his dream come true. His mother, Mary Wairimu, and siblings were right there before his eyes but they were nothing close to his dreams. His mother was older. His siblings, the baby and toddler were now married women. His father died ten years ago.

They hugged and cried. Hugged again and cried some more.

The meeting was at Korogocho chief’s camp. The emotional reunion drew many people. And it was well as they had come to witness the most epic moment for the family.

Mwangi was only six years old when he went missing from the slums. He clearly remembers the day he disappeared. He had been sent by one of his mother’s clients to buy him cigarettes. At the time, his mother, was a chang’aa brewer and seller in the vast Korogocho slums.

“I got lost and could not find my way back home. In fact, I realised I was in Eastleigh market and landed in the hands of a gang involved in crime and hard drugs,” he says.

Four years later, a swoop busted him and he was arrested.

The police officers then took him to Boarstal, a Catholic institution that helps rehabilitate street children and then reconnect them with their families.

One day, a Catholic priest, Fr Lawrence Commetto, visited the institution and Mwangi told him his ordeal. The priest got the boy help.

Luckily, the Consolata Missionaries were planning to establish a children’s home in Kahawa West and the priest had Mwangi admitted. He was enrolled for studies at nearly Mary Immaculate Primary School.

He went ahead to join Good Shepherd Minor Seminary in Maralal and now he is studying for a diploma course in communication at Consolata Institute in Nyeri - all taken care of by the church.

A day after Mwangi disappeared, his mother was arrested for trading in the illicit brew. Her other two children were left at the mercy of her friends who were also chang’aa brewers in the slums. Their father, she says, was a hopeless drunkard.

All this time, Wairimu had hope that one day her son would come back home. “I knew he was not dead. I believed that he was going to walk through the door and say, ‘I am back, mummy,” says a jovial Wairimu holding on to her son tightly.

On tracing his roots, Mwangi approached the Korogocho area chief and gave out his story, telling him that he desperately wanted to reconnect with his family.

The chief started looking for the mother especially among the slums’ notorious chang’aa brewers. Indeed he got feedback in no time.

Mwangi’s mother had left the slum for Mwiki where she had remarried.

One of the women called her and she came to meet her long lost son. The administrators of Familia ya Ufariji at Kahawa West — brother Kenneth Wekesa and sister Teresia are assisting the family to bond for three months up to September before Mwangi resumes his studies.

Bonding is not easy especially after such a long period as Mwangi has found out. Sometimes, he says, his mother is unable to answer some questions he asks her. There are also long moments of silence between them as they find it awkward to hold a conversation.