Elderly woman left home to pick her “pesa ya wazee” never to return

Eunice Anyango put the old woman on a boda boda home but she never arrived. [Photo: Phillip Orwa]

Kisumu, Kenya: The introduction of a cash transfer programme for the elderly has been regarded as a blessing for many. But for the family of Margaret Ong’ayo, 78, the mere mention of the words “pesa ya wazee” (money for the elderly) pierces their hearts sharply because it reminds them of the increasing number of days since their matriarch disappeared.

Margaret left her house in April last year, excited because it was ‘that time of the month’ when all the elderly headed for banks near their homes to collect money disbursed by the Government. But since then, no one has set eyes on her.

Her husband died months after she disappeared and her absence was conspicuous during the funeral arrangements and burial.

On that day in April, Margaret was awoken by her step-daughter-in-law Eunice Anyango who used to take her to Kombewa District headquarters to withdraw the money.

She was smartly dressed in a yellow flowered dress, a black headscarf and a yellow leso wrapped around her waist. She also took her walking stick and wore her black rubber shoes before boarding a boda boda to Kombewa, along with Eunice.

But unlike other days when Eunice would take the old woman back home, on this day she helped the old woman retrieve the money and instructed a boda boda rider to drop her home as Eunice headed for Kisumu to visit her mother in hospital.

Eunice says it was the first time she had let the old woman ride home alone and she crossed her fingers and prayed that she would arrive safely. Apparently, Margaret had a history of getting lost whenever she was unaccompanied. She had got lost twice before on similar trips back home but relatives had found her.

“Her memory had begun to deteriorate. Whenever she reached Bar Korwa, about five kilometres from Kombewa on her way home, she would threaten the boda boda rider carrying her that if he didn’t let her alight, she would jump,” Eunice says. “So they let her have her way.”

Margaret’s son, James Migalo, says the search for his mother has almost hit a dead end because they have walked from one police station to another in the hope of finding any information about her in vain.

Likewise, visits to hospitals like New Nyanza Provincial Hospital in Kisumu as well as Bondo and Siaya district hospitals have yielded nothing.

Migalo says most family members have given up the search.

“If I do not take the initiative to look for her, no one else will,” he says, adding that they relied on his mother for counsel on running the family and now that their father was dead, a wide vacuum has been left in the family.

“How I wish someone would just get hold of her and bring her back home. It is very painful not knowing what happened to my mother,” he says.