John Macharia’s mother abandoned him 13 years ago, when he was only two years old - she could not deal with the fact that he had no arms. His father stayed. Photo/NATION
Forty-one year old Peter Gichuhi looks at the spot where an imposing mango tree once stood.
As a child, he enjoyed playing with his brothers under the tree or resting in its cool shade after a hot day of tilling his parents’ farm.
It was under this tree 13 years ago that his wife, Mary Mumbi left their toddler son when she walked out of their lives.
Peter cut down the tree three years ago — it was a remainder of a past that he had long put behind him.
When we arrive at Peter’s home in Murang’a, we find him building a new house for his mother, Margaret Wambui, the woman who has been a priceless grandmother to his two children.
It is Peter’s mother who delivered John Macharia, his second child, when his mother went into labour in the middle of the night.
When she handed the baby to his wife, the couple broke down and cried.
He had no arms, and his back was twisted. The couple would later learn that he had scoliosis — an abnormal curvature of the spine.
“I could see the distress on their faces, and told them to be content and accept John with gratitude because he was a gift from God,” Margaret says.
Not everyone was so accommodating, though. The news of the odd baby with an arched back and missing arms spread quickly through their village and beyond, and people came to satisfy their curiosity.
Some said the baby was a curse and should have been killed at birth, while others advised the couple to throw him away. Peter believes that it is at this point that his wife snapped.
“All the negative attention must have been too much to handle,” Peter says with a shrug.
Mary spoke little after this, and a week later, she left her newborn son with Peter’s mother and went back to her parents home, in a neighbouring homestead.
She returned a month later, this time staying for two years, but Peter says it was as though she was not there.
“She would leave John alone for hours and her obvious disinterest caused many fights between us,” Peter recalls.
Mary finally left when John turned two, and never returned. She also left their older child, Anne Wambui, then five years.
“I worked in Nairobi and would travel home over the weekend. When my wife left, I knew that I couldn’t afford to keep my job since John needed a lot of care and attention,” he says. The first three months were not easy.
“It was very difficult, because as a traditional Kikuyu man, I had no idea what to do with a child, especially when he cried, or what to feed him and when,” he says. He thanks his mother for assisting him when he needed help.
Peter, much to his neighbours’ amusement, would strap John on his back and take him along wherever work beckoned.
“John was a gentle, easy-to-please child who did not prevent me from working. When I went to the shamba, I would lay him under a shade and sing to him. That was comfort enough for him” he recalls, giving his son a fond look.
However, Peter admits that it was not easy looking after two young children, one of whom needed constant care.
“I was the laughingstock of the village. After all, which self-respecting man carries a baby on his back?”
But Peter’s love for his children was steadfast and he did not allow such sentiments to sway him. As he points out, if he did not do it, who else would?
And so as mothers lined up with their infants at the district hospital to get immunised, Peter would join the queue, impervious to the curious stares, since men were an oddity there.
Peter admits that there were times when he wished that his wife was there to help him raise their children, but even then, he knew that reconciliation was out of the question.
I will not remarry
“A reunion was not on my mind. I just switched all my attention to my children, since they are all I had,” he says.
Interestingly, Peter did not even consider getting another wife, nor does he have any intention of remarrying even now. His reason is simple.
“I couldn’t risk another disappointment. If John’s own mother could not look past his disability, I doubt that any other woman would. I’d rather raise him alone.”
Besides his mother and daughter, who help to take care of John, Peter’s church, Malewa Catholic Church, has been supportive and even paid for John’s first surgery in 2004 to straighten his back.
It also paid part of his school fees when he joined Joytown Primary School for the Physically Disabled in 2002, when he turned six.
In 2009 however, Peter withdrew John from Joytown because he felt he would do better near the family. He also wanted him to go to a regular school.
“John is just like any other child. The only difference is that he has no arms. I felt that taking him to regular school would help him to adapt better socially and also encourage him to work harder in school, where he could be treated like the normal child he is,” Peter explains, impulsively wrapping his arms around John, who is seated beside him.
He explains that even as he withdrew his son from Joytown, he feared that the school he had in mind would reject him. He need not have worried, though.
John is now a Standard Six pupil at Runo Academy near his home. He says that he loves it there, especially since the children treat him just like one of them.
“They are my neighbours and have known me for years, therefore they don’t treat me any different, or stare at me,” he says.
His favourite pastime, he adds, is playing football.
The only shortcoming at school is the fact that he does not have a special desk that would make it easier for him to read and write.
John uses his feet and can do almost everything that a person with both hands can.
At home, he helps his father and sister to cook, and can, in fact, make a tasty stew and whip up some ugali.
He can also sort rice, weed, and plant, just like any other 15-year-old in his village. He can brush his teeth and oil his body.
However, he relies on his father to bathe and assist him to use the toilet.
John’s mother, who remarried two years after leaving, died in March 2002, due to asthma complications.
John has difficulty talking about her and no amount of coaxing would get him to open up about her.
All he says is: “There are many children who are abandoned by both parents, I went to school with many of them. I am lucky that I still have my father.”
He is happy, though, to talk about his father, whom he clearly looks up to.
“My father taught me to value myself the way I am, he treats me like a normal person, and because of his encouragement and positive attitude, I do not question why I was born like this,” he adds.
He says his sister Anne, who is not there during the interview, is protective of him and whenever his father is not around, she takes over and assists him.
“She helps me with my homework and when it’s my turn to cook, she cuts up the vegetables for me, because I struggle with that, and also fetches the water that I need.”
Although John has not yet decided what he wants to be in future, he believes that he was created for a purpose and that with time, he will find that purpose.
Right now, he is concentrating on his studies.
“Whatever I end up doing, my aim is to be able to help my father and be there for him, like he has been for me.”
Peter says that it is his faith that kept him going, saying that God gave him the confidence he needed to embrace his responsibilities.
“I told myself that I am not the first nor the last parent to have a child who needs a bit of special attention, or the only single parent in the world — this is what kept me going.”
Peter advises parents, especially fathers, whom he says are usually the first to run away when their children are born with disabilities or chronic conditions, to pray for wisdom and courage to deal with the situation.
“My experience has taught me that God doesn’t make a mistake and will give you the strength to accomplish what needs to be done.”
He points out that even though he has been relying on casual jobs for the past 13 years, he has managed to look after his children and educate them, even though his income is sporadic.
This, to him, is proof that there is nothing impossible.
“John is no longer the helpless child he was. Now I can afford to work the whole day because I know that he is self-sufficient. In fact, many are the days I come home to find that he has prepared food for our small family. What more could I ask for?”
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