13 years have gone by since he left home protesting parents’ decision to postpone circumcision

Kiplagat Kong’a (middle) in a photo he sent to the family eleven years ago. [PHOTOS: ROBERT KIPLAGAT/STANDARD]

By ROBERT KIPLAGAT

BARINGO COUNTY: To a boy whose time to become a man has come, patience is a luxury he cannot afford.  This is the bitter truth that parents of Kiplagat Kong’a of Tunguruwo village in Sacho, Baringo County learnt after they tried to postpone their son’s destiny.

When Kiplagat popularly known by his peers as Savco decided he was big enough to be a man, he confronted his parents to fulfil their cultural obligation by financing the rite of passage. He would not take ‘no’ for an answer. 

According to his mother, Priscah Sote, he dropped out of St Augustine Emsea in Elgeyo/Marakwet County due to lack of school fees in 1999. He was born in 1981.

“He wanted to be circumcised in November 2001 alongside his age mates but since we had no money we urged him to wait till the following year. He was so angry that he stormed out. We thought he would come back after sobering up but he has never done so,” she says. It has been a decade full of uncertainty as the family relives the good times they had with their second-born son in a family of six boys and three girls.

SENT PHOTOGRAPHS

Two months after Kiplagat’s disappearance, the family got concerned and began looking for him. At one time there were reports that he had been spotted at Kabel area in Muchongoi centre.

He even sent his two photographs to the family in 2003 through a friend.

In one of the photographs, he is sandwiched between two women and in the other, he is alone.

 “We reported the incident to the area chief who promised to launch investigations,” says the mother.

While he was away, his father Chelimo passed on and the family was devastated when he failed to turn up for his burial in 2004.

His sister Jane Kong’a, 35, who is the family’s first born says her brother’s disappearance has been a sad reality.

MISSING BROTHER

“He was a very hardworking man. Even after he dropped out of school he had managed to buy three cows and if he was here, he could have made a lot of progress,” his 26, year old brother Jack says.

The family’s last born twins Victor and Faith now in Standard Eight and Form One respectively never saw much of their missing elder brother as they were only one year old when he disappeared.

The family is appealing to the members of the public who might have seen or heard about him to report to authorities.