Last Saturday, we laid to rest Vincent Kitavi Mutua, a friend and media colleague I had known and interacted with for about 15 years.
Now that I have reconciled myself to the reality that he is gone, I will attempt, albeit painfully, to write about the man I knew.
To us, his friends and colleagues, the long serving Daily Nation correspondent was simply Kitavi. I can confidently say that I knew him fairly well. However, I must hasten to point out that I did not know the depth of his religious convictions. It was never something we discussed, largely because it never interfered with our interactions.
As a friend, I knew his family background. They belonged to the Kavonokya faith who believe in prayer for healing. But Kitavi, as I knew him, was different. He loved life and the finer things it had to offer. He was a sharp dresser, and more often than not, you would find him in a well-pressed suit, even under smouldering humidity of Kitui Town.
When I started journalism practice in 2011 as a rookie correspondent for The Star newspaper, Kitavi took me under his wing. Our friendship blossomed quickly, and we would spend many hours at his house reading newspapers, watching international news and engaging in endless banter.
If you asked me, I would tell you that Kitavi was everything an imagined Kavonokya adherent was not. I never picked up any radical religious doctrines from him. Not an ounce. Occasionally, I would hear him mention driving family members to Mwingi, and I knew what that meant; a pilgrimage to join other members of their faith in prayer. But that was never an issue.
As a struggling newcomer in town, I would visit his house early in the morning, where we would prepare tea and gulp it down with fried eggs as we read newspapers. Every morning, a newspaper vendor would deliver three newspapers — the Daily Nation, The Standard and The Star — to his house.
Whenever we went out to cover stories, he would task me with taking still photographs using his expensive Canon camera. We would later share the photographs for use in our respective publications. Through him, I got to know numerous news sources and personalities and quickly learned the ropes.
Kitavi was aggressive, bold and unflinching, qualities that were reflected in his political articles. He could also be abrasive. If you rubbed him the wrong way, he wasted no time telling you off. He was a good story teller with admirable flair in written word.
Over time, our friendship moved beyond the professional realm and became personal.
One morning, while we were having breakfast at his house, he told me about a young woman who was harassing him. She claimed to have his child, something he denied when I pressed him for details. He wanted us to devise a plan to put the harassment to a permanent stop.
Being a quick thinker, I cooked up an idea, which he readily embraced.
I picked up my phone and called the woman. Inspector Katana, I introduced myself. I then put her on loudspeaker and demanded to know what the issue was. She calmly but anxiously explained herself. I then summoned her to a police station.
Our thinking was that if she was making up the story, she would chicken out at the mention of a police inspector and disappear.
We were dead wrong.
She agreed to show up at the police station the following day. I quickly changed the venue to a hotel. The next morning, Kitavi drove me to the agreed meeting place but stayed away. I climbed to an upper floor, from where I could see the hotel entrance.
Soon, I spotted her, with an elderly woman in tow. She called my number. I picked up then hung up. She called again, I did not answer. As she contemplated her next move, I switched off my phone and scurried away. I knew my false presentation as a cop could land me in trouble.
When I later gave Kitavi the report, he burst into laughter. I never found out what eventually became of the matter, but I never saw him troubled by it again.
Many months later, whenever Kitavi spotted me, he would loudly call out, "Inspector Katana!" before bursting into laughter.
Some of Kitavi's articles were controversial and often rubbed politicians and government honchos the wrong way. Two of the articles he shared with me for publication, as journalists routinely do, landed me in trouble. One landed me in Kisumu Law Courts over allegations of defamation, while another drew me into political crosshairs with a powerful political figure.
On one occasion, when Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka was holding a series of rallies in Makueni, a former Machakos senator complained about Kitavi's presence, and he was immediately barred from attending one of the rallies. But he remained defiant.
Kitavi had the right networks and knew people in high places. When he first took me to his village home, he showed me a voluminous visitors' book. Its entries had the names of big shots. High-profile politicians had visited him. Senior government officials had also passed through his home. They had all left their signatures and penned down their memories.
The journalist was particularly close to his late mother, who served us delicious fermented cow milk. I also knew that he enjoyed a deeply personal relationship with his father and respected his authority. If the old man summoned Kitavi at 2am, he would jump into his car and drive home.
The news of his hospitalisation came in rather mysteriously. It trickled in like a bad rumour. To compound the mystery, there were reports that he had been bitten by a snake and had delayed seeking treatment because of his faith. To me, that did not make sense.
I had earlier tried calling him several times, without success. His phone would ring endlessly.
Somehow, I managed to get a sit in with one of his close relatives. Kitavi was fighting for his life in the intensive care unit, he told me. My heart sank.
I made it a habit to call the relative every three days to get an update on his condition. Each time, the answer was the same: he was still in ICU.
I eventually gathered a few colleagues and told them we needed to act. My idea was to have him transferred to another medical facility. We involved his wife and agreed on a date for a final meeting to discuss the way forward.
A day before that meeting, at exactly 6.21am, I received a call from one of his brothers-in-law. I panicked.
He wanted to know whether I had the latest information about the patient. Two days earlier, his wife had visited Kitavi, and I relayed what I knew, telling him that he was still in ICU.
After listening calmly, he took a deep breath before delivering the devastating news.
"Sadly, we lost him last night."
I was shocked. My heart raced.
"Sad. Terrible," was all I could say.
I immediately called his wife Grace. On the other end of the line, I could hear a whimper. I knew she already knew. "Pole sana," I said.
Besides the print media, we were working on a podcast to expand our tentacles in communication and Kitavi was instrumental to the initiative
A lot of questions raced through my mind. Kitavi had never informed any of his colleagues that he had been bitten by a snake. Not one of us knew. What had prevented him from telling us? Was it his faith? Was he contained? We may never know.
During his funeral service, I joined hundreds of other mourners at Kisayani Primary School in Mutomo to pay my last respects to a friend and a colleague.
The family had instructed that there would be no viewing of the body, and we respected that decision. After the service, only family members were allowed to accompany the casket to the graveside.
However, I quietly sneaked to the graveside and stood a few steps away from where his aged father sat.
As the white casket was lowered into the grave, I said a silent prayer, asking the Maker to receive Kitavi's soul and grant him eternal peace.
Curiously, one of his sisters noticed me and tapped me on the shoulder. When our eyes met, she extended her hand for a handshake.
"Tunashukuru sana," she said.
"Poleni sana," I responded.
Rest well, Kitavi.
