Songs and dance mark granny's 121st birthday

Ruth Wanjiku’s fourth generation granddaughter helps her to cut a cake to mark her 121st birthday in Ruiru on Saturday. [PHOTO: KAMAU MAICHUHIE/STANDARD]

From a distance in this bright sunny Saturday afternoon, sweet birthday lyrics can be heard emanating from a home in Ruiru town. Perhaps to neighbors and passersby, it could be just any other normal or usual annual birthday celebrations that parents do for their young children.

However, the birthday celebrations this afternoon is no ordinary one. A family has gathered to celebrate the 121st birthday of their mother, grandmother, great grandmother and great great grandmother.

According to close family relatives, Ruth Wanjiku was born in 1894 in Karura, Ruaka in Kiambaa constituency. Though there are no official records to confirm the birth date, the age of her living children are a clear pointer to her advanced age.

Uninitiated woman

 The mother of five girls and one boy, who has since passed on, has been around the block.

Her eldest daughter is 87, having been born in 1928 and the last born is 67.

She causes laughter when she explains that during her prime, no man wanted to marry her because she was suffering from elephantiasis. The condition had prevented her from being circumcised, further compounding her problems because no man would marry an uninitiated woman.

“I was born when the the age group of Mwangi (Rika ria Mwangi) was being circumcised. I married very late. In fact this was only possible after my relatives looked for a desperate man. That is why I did not get children earlier, like my age mates,” she says.