Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
My new daughter is 23 years old. She's not a daughter in law but a daughter by default.
She came into our life 12 days ago, cast away and rejected. Her story with us began one evening when my daughter came to me and said, "Dad, my friend is stranded in town can she come and spend the night here?". She then explained that the friend was headed to the next big town after ours and was misdirected to pick a matatu to our town to connect with another to the other town. She was now in our town at six in the evening and with no hope of making it to the next town, a place she had never been to, before darkness.
You see, she is three months pregnant. When she told her single mother about it she went ballistic...ordering her to take the stomach to mwenyewe. The mother is a produce trader who goes for merchandise from the counties neighbouring Nairobi. She woke the girl up early the following morning "to go to her 'husband' as she needed to lock her house".
Thus cast out with only a few clothes in a duffel bag, she called the boyfriend (28) and after explaining her predicament, he promised to send her fare which he did at around 2.00 pm. He then gave her the directions on where to pick a matatu in Nairobi and how to connect with another in our town. Their last communication was when she told him that they had left Nairobi (and I guess the boyfriend realised it wasn't a joke any more!). He switched off his phone and that was the last she has heard from him to date.
We listened to her story the following day and attempted to call the mother but both her lines have been mteja since.
On day three we called her mother's best friend and asked her to try and intercede for her but the friend has since blocked both her number and my wife's. We have also since learnt that the mother's live-in boyfriend instigated her mother's hard stance.
We have also learnt that she has had a strained relationship with the mother since she started living with her again four years ago. Apparently, the mother has never forgiven her for choosing to remain with the father when they broke up with the father when she was 14. The father died four years ago and that is when she rejoined her remaining "family" - the mother, elder sister and a brother. The pregnancy has now complicated an already strained relationship with her mother. Her elder sister was also chased away in a similar fashion on advise of the boyfriend when she too became pregnant.
She says she cannot go to her grandparent's place coz the grandfather is a widower and her uncles do not like them...they reportedly told the mother to go with her when she came for ex-husband's funeral.
So here we are, wondering what to do with her though we have agreed with my wife that we make her as comfortable as possible.
We don't know how else to proceed from where we are.
She came into our life 12 days ago, cast away and rejected. Her story with us began one evening when my daughter came to me and said, "Dad, my friend is stranded in town can she come and spend the night here?". She then explained that the friend was headed to the next big town after ours and was misdirected to pick a matatu to our town to connect with another to the other town. She was now in our town at six in the evening and with no hope of making it to the next town, a place she had never been to, before darkness.
You see, she is three months pregnant. When she told her single mother about it she went ballistic...ordering her to take the stomach to mwenyewe. The mother is a produce trader who goes for merchandise from the counties neighbouring Nairobi. She woke the girl up early the following morning "to go to her 'husband' as she needed to lock her house".
Thus cast out with only a few clothes in a duffel bag, she called the boyfriend (28) and after explaining her predicament, he promised to send her fare which he did at around 2.00 pm. He then gave her the directions on where to pick a matatu in Nairobi and how to connect with another in our town. Their last communication was when she told him that they had left Nairobi (and I guess the boyfriend realised it wasn't a joke any more!). He switched off his phone and that was the last she has heard from him to date.
We listened to her story the following day and attempted to call the mother but both her lines have been mteja since.
On day three we called her mother's best friend and asked her to try and intercede for her but the friend has since blocked both her number and my wife's. We have also since learnt that the mother's live-in boyfriend instigated her mother's hard stance.
We have also learnt that she has had a strained relationship with the mother since she started living with her again four years ago. Apparently, the mother has never forgiven her for choosing to remain with the father when they broke up with the father when she was 14. The father died four years ago and that is when she rejoined her remaining "family" - the mother, elder sister and a brother. The pregnancy has now complicated an already strained relationship with her mother. Her elder sister was also chased away in a similar fashion on advise of the boyfriend when she too became pregnant.
She says she cannot go to her grandparent's place coz the grandfather is a widower and her uncles do not like them...they reportedly told the mother to go with her when she came for ex-husband's funeral.
So here we are, wondering what to do with her though we have agreed with my wife that we make her as comfortable as possible.
We don't know how else to proceed from where we are.
