Boy goes missing for hate of school

By Maureen Odiwuor

She toils day and night to feed and educate her four children who have been her life’s inspiration since the death of her husband in 2003.

But the disappearance of her son in March 2009 dimmed the glow in her life as she struggles to search for the boy.

It was in March 2009 when Ruth Adhiambo realised that her son had disappeared. Though it was not the first time the boy went missing, she had a bad feeling about his disappearance this time.

When the then 13-year-old Rodgers Ochieng failed to return to their house in Manyatta Estate, Kisumu after boycotting school on that day, his mother was very worried. Ochieng was a Standard Four pupil at Kosawo Primary School.

On that day, Adhiambo had risen up by 4am and prepared dough in readiness to make mandazi (buns), which she sells in the neighbourhood for a living.

"I prepared breakfast and placed their uniforms in a strategic place while they were still asleep," recalls Adhiambo.

disarranged house

She then left for the roadside spot where she conducts her business daily believing that the children would rise up and prepare themselves for school as usual.

She went on with her business until around 11am when she went home after finishing her products. However, she was shocked to find the house quite disarranged.

"I assumed someone might have been searching for something and disorganised the house," she explains.

In the process of rearranging the house, Adhiambo saw Ochieng’s books and uniform lying where she had left them untouched.

It quickly crossed her mind that he might have disappeared again. True to her thoughts, she has never set eyes on him since that day.

"When I checked my purse, I discovered that Sh2,000 I had kept there was also missing," says Adhiambo.

Adhiambo admits that she had an issue with his son over school attendance. She blames some old man she never got the chance to know of recruiting her son into the scrap metal business, which is popular among school going children in Kisumu.

"Every time I complained over his school absenteeism as reported by the teachers, he told me he was fine selling scrap metals and that the man at Kibuye market had promised to teach him how to make tin lamps, a business he preferred to school," says the distraught mother.

retracing last moments

On the fateful day, Adhiambo went to school and enquired from other pupils and her children if anyone knew where Ochieng had gone.

That is when she realised that Ochieng had been left in the house alone. The last one to leave the house was his immediate follower Joan Anyango, who finished preparing for school while Ochieng was still asleep.

"I asked him if he was sick because he did not wake up but he mumbled an answer saying I should rush to school as I was getting late," recalls Joan, who spoke to him last.

Ochieng’s mother says it was not the first time he disappeared from home. She says he had disappeared three months before.

The first time he disappeared, his mother unsuccessfully searched for him in relatives’ homes until one day she received a call from her paternal home informing her that her son had been brought there from a children’s home in Nairobi.

Those who brought him back said he had been arrested in the streets of Nairobi and taken to the children home where he claimed he was an orphan.

"It was in December 2008 when he was brought back. I came with him to Kisumu, but still he was adamant that he did not want to go to school," she says.

Adhiambo recalls that her third born son did not even take a week after resuming school before disappearing for the second time.

When she realised he was not there, she immediately went to her rural home in Ndenga sub location, West Ugenya, Siaya County to check if he went there, but he was not there.

She also made several calls to her relatives in Busia, Nairobi and at her husband’s rural home, but all her efforts were futile.

"I reported the disappearance at Kondele Police Station and announced in local radio stations," she recounts.

sleepless nights

Adhiambo explains with tears in her eyes how she spends sleepless nights and lacks appetite whenever she remembers the disappearance of her son.

It hurts her most to be blind about her son’s whereabouts, how he eats, sleeps or whether he is still alive.

"If he ever comes back, I will give in to his demands so long as he stays here rather than force him into doing what he doesn’t like," she explains.