Nothing can ever separate us again

By Mary Kamande

It was only a dream.

A long dream of hope, desire and certain disappointment.

For eleven years, Daniel Hinga and Joyce Kagure lived with a faint hope that one day they would be reunited with their family.

They played the meeting in their minds, visualising the excitement, capturing that moment only in the lenses deeply hidden in their hearts.

FAMILY TIES: Nkoroi (fourth left), Wangui (holding bag), Kagure with blue scarf holding baby and Hinga (extreme right) are joined by staff of the rescue centre where the family reunited. [PHOTOS: MARY KAMANDE/STANDARD]

Then it happened.

"It does not seem real. I did not know I had a sister or other siblings besides Hinga. I still cannot believe that we have finally found them after such a long time," said Kagure, fondly studying the faces of her elder sister and maternal aunt upon being introduced to them at the Thika Rescue Centre where they reunited. The centre has been Hinga’s home for many years.

Their reunion followed their story published in last week’s Underworld pullout in The Standard in which Hinga and Kagure had sought to find their still missing mother or relatives after the two got lost in Nairobi in 2000.

Following the publication, the siblings’ sister, Sarah Wangui, and her relatives called The Standard’s Nyeri office saying they were related to the duo.

The relatives sought to be linked to the two and we referred them to the manager in charge of the rescue centre, called Julius.

No hugs or kisses

At the rescue centre, there were no hugs or kisses at first, seemingly due to lack of contact for over a decade.

Although the older relatives instantly recognised Hinga and Kagura, the siblings were restrained.

After many questions and scrutiny of faces, the two embraced their sister and aunt, Mercy Nkoroi and were inseparable thereafter.

Wangui, 29, says their parents separated in 1997 and the mother, Mary Karuthu, left her marital home in Kikuyu with her two youngest children.

Since then, Wangui and her family did not know of their siblings’ whereabouts.

"But when we finally found her, she didn’t have the children and did not know where they were," adds Nkoroi, Karuthu’s elder sister.

Lost hope

Wangui says they looked for the children in all possible places and after failing to find them, they gave up.

"We thought they had died or been kidnapped and trafficked to other countries. We had lost hope of ever finding them until I read their story in The Standard," she says.

Wangui says the description and information about their mother was corroborated by all that she knows about her.

"It is true that she hails from Meru and married in Kikuyu. Our paternal relatives are still in Kikuyu and maternal ones in Meru. Mother is also plump," Wangui tells us.

Though they do not recall living in Kikuyu and the events of 1997, Hinga and Kagure say they lived with their mother in Nairobi.

One day, however, she left them with a strange woman who abandoned them on the streets of Nairobi.

Luckily, they were rescued by the police and committed to government rescue centres later.

By then, the two were separated. Kagure was restless and decided to run away from government custody to search for them but she landed in trouble.

She worked as a house girl and allegedly assaulted by an ungrateful woman and a doubting police officer before finding abode in a Thika slum, where she lived to be near her brother who was at the rescue centre. She later had a child.

"Though our centre caters for boys only, we offered her help whenever she needed it. In a way, it became her home as it had for Hinga," says Yator.

Meanwhile, Hinga grew up in Thika Rescue Centre and was due for discharge next year. He had trained to be a carpenter.

"We have been with him since he was little. Though finding his people seemed bleak, we are thankful that it has happened now that he was due to officially leave the centre next year," Yator says.

A happy man

Wangui says: "Had our father been alive today, he would have been a very happy man. He always longed to see them again." Their father died early this year.

Now that the siblings have reunited what remains is for them to adjust to a life with more blood relatives than they had been used to.

Coincidently, they have taken up trades that their father and sister took.

"It is amazing that Hinga took up carpentry and my father was a carpenter. I am a beautician as is my sister Kagure," Wangui tells The Standard.