Leah Wanjiru Mungai: Our position was that we would not leave without our sons

By Lillian Aluanga

At 77, Leah Wanjiru Mungai still has a spring in her step and a smile that lights up a room.

Mungai, a mother of six, is content with life at her modest home in Mwimuto, Wangige, and cheerily invites visitors into her simply furnished house. Atop one of two wooden tables stands a television set and gas cooker.

Floral wraps in yellow, red and purple, drape sofas in the living room. Family photos, a calendar and hangings adorn the walls. Among them is one that reads: "True friends are never forgotten, they live in one’s heart". The words aptly capture Mungai’s experiences in the 1980s and 1990s, when relationships between the family, relatives and friends were severely tested.

News bulletins

"It’s empty," she says pointing to the gas cylinder under the table. Gas is too expensive nowadays. Food and oil prices are up, and it’s getting harder to survive. The Government must do something," says Mungai, who rarely misses news bulletins.

But Mungai also recalls another time when a dark cloud hovered over her home and when news bulletins often bore bad tidings for the family. In those days any visitors to the home aroused suspicion and the word ‘Government’ was only mentioned in hushed tones.

Mungai’s son Kang’ethe, the fourth born in a family of six, had been in trouble with the law for allegedly distributing Mwakenya leaflets. "I did not even know what Mwakenya was, but I knew my son was in trouble because the police came looking for him," says Mungai. That was in 1986 at the height of a crackdown on alleged members of the dissident group.

Repeated searches of the home for Kang’ethe unnerved the family and Mungai’s repeated answer about not knowing her son’s whereabouts fell on deaf ears. At one time she was held at the Muthaiga police station and ordered to produce her son who was later arrested in Gilgil after being on the run for weeks.

"We learnt of his arrest through newspapers. Later he was sentenced to 20 years at the Naivasha prison. It broke my heart," says Mungai.

When a councillor, Njoroge Nguthi, told her of a plan by a group of women whose sons had been arrested for political reasons, to push for their release, Mungai decided to join them.

That was in February 1992. With nothing more than a blanket and the clothes on her back Mungai set off for Uhuru Park’s Freedom Corner.

"I was no longer afraid of the Government. We were old women. We could not fight with guns or clubs but we were going to fight on our knees for our children," says Mungai.

At Freedom Corner, Mungai met Prof Wangari Maathai for the first time. "I was amazed by her strength and determination. Wangari did not have to be at Uhuru Park. None of her children were in prison anyway, but she chose to stay with us and encouraged us to believe that our sons would be released," says Mungai.

For days the women ate nothing. Many were elderly and the toll on their bodies began to show, but they soldiered on. Mungai still remembers the day ‘teargas rained from the skies’.

"We were told to leave the grounds but our position was that we wouldn’t without our sons. That is when the teargas came and the police started chasing us.

"Some women stripped to protest this action because the officers were like their sons and it was culturally wrong for them to beat their mothers," she says.

The women then sought refuge at the All Saints Cathedral Church where they remained holed up for over seven months.

"We spent time talking, singing and praying. Many people came to visit and brought us food and blankets and told us not to give up," she says.

When Kang’ethe’s release was finally announced, Mungai was not at Freedom Corner.

"I had left to attend a neighbour’s funeral and when I got home I found journalists waiting to interview me. They said my son was free as had been announced during the 4pm news bulletin.

I could not believe Kang’ethe was finally coming home after six years," says Mungai.

The journalists offered to give her a ride back to Nairobi where Mungai was reunited with her son.

"I got to the Church and the first person I saw was Wangari. She looked at me, smiled, and said we had won," says Mungai.