Jeff at eight months in 1966, Bottom, with brother Freddy at home in Kiambaa in 1966
My father, Fredrick Mbiyu Koinange, with my sisters Ciru and Wangui in 1964
Jeff Koinange is a multi-award winning journalist who has covered Africa for more than two decades. He was CNN’s Lagos Bureau Chief for five years before becoming the Network’s Senior Africa Correspondent in Johannesburg. In his journalism career, he has been to 47 of the 54 African countries. From today till Saturday, the Star is serialising Koinange's autobiography 'Jeff Koinange: Through My African Eyes.' In today's edition, read about his early years.
Father was initially sent to Manyani Prison deep in the Tsavo National Park, previous home to the famous ‘Man Eaters of Tsavo’. It was a hot and desolate place where temperatures would soar to 39° centigrade in the daytime and drop to single digits at night. I later learned that Father was considered one of the ‘ring leaders’ of Mau Mau and he spent three years in Manyani before being transferred to another equally desolate area, Manda Island, in the Lamu archipelago for another four years.
Grandfather, at eighty one years old, was sentenced to nine years in detention. The Colonial British Administration referred to him as the ‘evil genius’ behind the Mau Mau Movement. The family members who escaped detention fought hard to try to get Grandfather and his daughters, released. In a twist, the Colonials appointed an uncle, son of the first wife, Charles Karuga Koinange, as Senior Chief in Southern Kiambu. They tactfully in a classic divide and rule move, replaced one Koinange with another, a strategy the British and subsequent Kenyan administrations would deploy to subdue and quell any perceived unrest.
Grandfather’s eldest son, Peter Mbiyu, was exiled in Britain following the declaration of the State of Emergency. Uncle Peter had attended the Hampton Institute in Virginia in 1927 and Ohio Wesleyan University where he graduated in 1935. He then received a Master’s degree at Columbia University in New York becoming the first Kenyan African to achieve this milestone. It was at London School of Economics where he met a Kenyan named Johnstone Kamau who later changed his name to Jomo Kenyatta.
Uncle Peter Mbiyu and his associates lobbied legislators in the United Kingdom seeking a hearing for his detained kin. He finally got an audience with Fenner Brockway, the outspoken Liberal Party Member of Parliament. Brockway in turn hired the services of one of Britain’s leading lawyers , Dingle Foot, who would go on to argue Grandfather’s case all the way to the High Court. I would later meet Dingle Foot’s grandson, Chris Foot, Chairman of the Kenya Film Commission and a prominent farmer in Kenya’s Rift Valley. It would take another seven years, but in the end, at the age of ninety and suffering from pneumonia, Senior Chief Koinange-wa-Mbiyu was released and sent home to die. Grandfather arrived in Kiambaa in January 1960 and would remain bedridden until his death six months later on July 28th .
Grandfather never lived to see his dream of an independent Kenya although he had instigated the liberation struggle. He still is one of the most misunderstood and maligned personalities of the struggle for the independence of Kenya. As one critic put it, Koinange-wa-Mbiyu was, “A mystery, wrapped in a riddle, inside an enigma.”
Nobel Laureate, Ralph Bunche, as a postdoctoral student in 1934, wrote of grandfather, “He is Kikuyu Karinga - a pure and independent Kikuyu - proud of his people’s past, well thought of by his subjects and a man of noble qualities”. The notorious Koinange Street in Nairobi is named after Grandfather.
Right before the declaration of the State of Emergency, Father met and fell in love with Hilda Wambui Ngoima, the first-born child of a wealthy and progressive farmer, Mwaura-wa-Ngoima from Githiga Village in Githunguri. Father had proposed and paid the customary dowry to the ‘house of Ngoima’. But before he could marry Hilda, he was arrested and detained. While he was serving out his seven-year sentence, Hilda grew restless and eloped with another man whom she later married. Mwaura-wa- Ngoima was devastated when he heard the news. Hilda had been his favorite daughter and a union with the Koinange family would have been beneficial all around. Family legend says he never forgave his daughter for what she did and never quite accepted her husband into the family.
Mother was training to be a teacher when her sister, Hilda, ditched Father. We are told she began writing letters to her sister’s former fiancée. Father apparently found it odd at first receiving her letters but wrote back and told her about life in detention in Manyani. The casual letters turned into a love affair, all on paper and Mother still has most of that correspondence. She visited him several times while in detention which only heightened their affection. By the time Frederick Mbiyu was released from detention seven years later, he and my mother were quickly engaged and later married in a lavish ceremony on December 12th, 1959.
None of us have any recollection of my Father but those who knew Frederick Mbiyu Koinange universally state, “Fred was a great man,” or “Fred was the classic gentleman.” My eldest sister, Hilda Wanjiru (Ciru) is the first born, followed by my other sister, Phyllis Wangui, then my brother, Freddie Koinange while I am the last, born on January 7th, 1966.
It was never in dispute that my Father was quite the ‘ladies’ man. The best story about Father’s dalliances with the ladies also happens to be the most hilarious. It is one I have heard from several sources. Uncle G.K. Ngoima tells it best. Father’s best man was away on business and as expected Father was at his house. Father’s best friend returned home early that night and luckily his house had a long driveway and his wife heard the car. She quickly told Father to hide inside the closet. Her husband entered the house and went straight to take a shower. This was the signal for Father to run but he could not find his clothes. He jumped out the window, in his underwear and dashed to his car and drove home. It was raining heavily that night and in those days, the dirt roads turned into muddy lakes. He got home at about 2 a.m. to find Mother in a foul mood. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her husband coming out of the car in his underwear.
But before she could ask, he quickly told her, “Honey, it’s been raining heavily and I had to push the car all by myself in the mud and did not want to ruin my nice suit so I took it off.”
Every time I hear this story, I find it hilarious but I never got to know whether Mother found out what happened to his so-called ‘nice suit’. Apparently Father just walked into the house and went straight to the shower. The story was never brought up again.
Mother was determined to maintain a standard with the average income she earned as Headmistress of the local Kiambaa Primary School. The school was about two hundred yards away from our house. Growing up in the countryside under these conditions was tough. If we were out of order, there would be a belt or a stick on Mother’s hand waiting to whip us back in line. She was a no-nonsense disciplinarian. As a headmistress, discipline was her first, middle and last word. She made sure we grew up courteous and well behaved. In retrospect we have much to be grateful for. At the time though, it felt like cruel and unusual punishment.
We lived in a pretty little brick bungalow in Kiambaa. At the time it was the only stone structure in the entire village and Mother made sure it was also the neatest and best kept home. Our house was modest. It had a living room and two bedrooms. The kitchen was a wooden building outside the main house. Another wooden structure housed a bathroom and out-house. Years later, it was modified with indoor plumbing, two extra bedrooms and a full kitchen.
The one feature I remember vividly about our house was an old Mugumo Tree that stood outside the main house. I often wondered why it was not cut down. It just seemed so old and out of place. One day I suggested to my grandmother that we cut it down and she stared at me coldly and in reprimand retorted, “No one knows who planted this tree. It’s been here before I was born. Do you know what it signifies?” she asked. I was curious to know. She continued, “This Mugumo signifies leadership. In our culture it’s symbolic and it means a leader could emerge. You never take these things for granted.” I did not pay much attention at the time but one thing is for sure, I never looked at the Mugumo tree the same way again and I never again suggested we cut it down.
Mother loved her record player on which she played 33-inch and 45-inch singles. She was the envy of the village, as few families owned such a luxury item. When she played it she pumped up the volume forcing the whole village to listen. I still recall many of the songs. They were not traditional songs but American Country and Western pop that would have made folks from Texas to Tennessee proud of Mother. We listened to songs by the likes of Kenny Rogers, Jim Reeves, Don Williams and Skeeter Davis. Mother’s all-time favorite was Charley Pride, a black man from Sledge, Mississippi who “sang like a white man”, according to her. But that was not the only attraction. Charley probably touched a chord that no one else ever could in her.
He sang about love, life, marriage, death and more love. She would make us replay song after song until we all memorized the words and sang along. To this day, the words and songs of Charley Pride are deeply etched in our memories.
I can proudly say there is not a single Charlie Pride song I do not know the words to. Charley probably has no idea that whole generations of Africans like me have been brought up on his music. It just goes to show that no matter where you are it is what you sing about or write about that cuts across race, colour, creed background or religion.
Two other musical genres contributed to directly influencing how I speak. The first was the group ‘Boney M,’ a quartet made up of three women and one man who were originally from Aruba in the Caribbean. Their hits included such sing-along songs like, Ma Baker, Daddy Cool, and By The Rivers of Babylon. Each time Bobby Farrell sang, it was simply hypnotic and mesmerizing. I would imitate Bobby Farrell every time I heard him sing. Boney M performed in Kenya on January 10th, 1979 and Mother was able to get us tickets to the sold-out concert. We were in the ‘cheap seats,’ somewhere in the balcony upstairs but I did not need to be up close to listen to Bobby Farrell.
Boney M proved a big hit on their Kenyan tour but for me, attending the concert was monumental.
Another equally influencing voice was a song in spoken word called the Desiderata performed by ‘Les Crane.’ At eight years old, I was impressed by the way this man recited his words. I must have played that 45-single a million times trying to memorize the words and mimic the voice. It is often thought that the writer was ‘Anonymous’ and that the words were written sometime in the 17th Century. I now know that American writer Max Ehrmann penned this poem in 1927.
Mother drove a cream Volkswagen Beetle, one of the few vehicles in Kiambaa at the time. She was an amazing driver, with all the skills of a professional rally driver especially when it rained. Mother would navigate that Beetle through the mud without so much as a swerve with the four of us holding our breath and praying we did not flip over or get stuck. Folks in Kiambaa nicknamed her ‘Kidae’, a local word meaning the ‘daring one’.
She steered us through good and bad times in much the same way. There was a pecking order when it came to sitting in the car. Ciru always sat in front. My other two siblings would each sit in the back and I being the last born, was always squashed in the middle. I hated this because I had no control over the doors or windows. My role was just to sit. I always longed for a window-seat or better yet, a front row seat. This deprivation motivated my desire to be always at the front.
There was a lone church in Kiambaa, which we attended on occasion, mostly Christmas and Easter and the occasional wedding. The church was less than two hundred meters from our house but Mother preferred to drive us to Sunday school at a Baptist Church in Nairobi. Perhaps she did not like to mix with the village people or maybe she wanted to introduce us to a different church community outside of the village. The Baptist Church was located on Ngong Road oddly opposite the City Mortuary. Mother would attend the grown-up service while the rest of us would head into the Sunday school and sing songs of praise and read the Bible.
Then the highlight of our week would follow. A short drive downtown to Sno-Cream, an ice cream parlor on Koinange Street for a delightful helping of vanilla cones topped with chocolate or colored sprinkles. Once a month, for reasons I would understand only much later on, Mother would top up the Sunday treat. A short distance from Sno-Cream was the Kenchic Fast Food joint across the street from the equally famous Jevanjee Gardens where we would order chips and sausages.
The orders would be served wrapped in a newspaper while still steaming hot and we gobbled them up and washed them down with the ice cream cones. Looking back, this Sunday treat was not only a great outing but also an equally tempting incentive for us to look forward to going to church all the way in Nairobi.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-176985/jeff-koinange-through-my-african-eyes#sthash.uQhW0qDT.dpuf
After Nine Years, Fatherhood Finally
Madiba cracks a joke to Shaila and Jeff at the West Cliff Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2001.
Jeff Koinange's son Mbiyu meets Madiba in March 2008
Jeff with Shaila
Mbiyu
In the second part of our serialization of Jeff Koinange's autobiography 'Jeff Koinange: Through My African Eyes', read about his marriage and how they had several unsuccessful IVF treatments, and had almost given up on the idea of ever having children.
It is 8 a.m. in Johannesburg’s Park Lane Clinic on the last day of July 2007. My wife, Shaila, is lying in the operating theatre. The anesthetist is busy monitoring her blood pressure while the gynecologist is marking out a thin line across her belly soon to be slit with an extra sharp scalpel. Shaila and I have been married for nine years and like most childless couples, have been through countless methods trying to conceive. We had practically given up until Jimmy Monclus Maleketa, a half-Spanish, half Congolese friend we met in Lagos often mistaken for our son suggested we try invitro-fertilization at a renownedfertility clinic in Barcelona, Spain. Shaila and I had been through several unsuccessful IVF treatments from Johannesburg to Lagos, and had practically given up on the idea of ever having children.
We were in our forties and even though modern medicine enabled women in their fifties and sixties to conceive, we felt that the fertility god’s had ‘passed-us’ over. Jimmy persisted and we agreed to go to Barcelona if anything just to get him off our backs. Deep down we felt it would lead to another dead-end and those who have gone through IVF can relate. It involves weeks of mixed emotions and unreasonable hope and if unsuccessful, can lead to depression and anger at everything from the doctors to the ‘gods’.
But something amazing happened in Barcelona. Two weeks after inserting Shaila’s fertilized eggs back into her womb, the pregnancy test results came back positive. Shaila was pregnant. The next nine months were the most challenging in our lives but the culmination was this morning, in this theatre room, with doctors and nurses surrounding my wife and about to usher in the miracle of miracles.
I was in the theatre, dressed in ‘scrubs’ and clasping a video camera and two stills cameras. I also had a back-up cell phone camera just in case the other two let me down. Years as a journalist had prepared me for this moment. Simply put, there are no second chances at times like this. The moment the baby is out of the mother’s womb that is it. There is NO take two. In a way I felt a bit like the world famous photojournalist, Mohamed ‘Mo’ Amin. Mo was famously referred to in the industry as ‘six-camera Mo’ because wherever he went, he always carried several cameras strung around his neck and a couple in his hands and he would use all of them to take pictures then sell them to different news agencies around the world... all of them rated as ‘Exclusives’.
As the video camera rolled from my one hand, the stills camera clicked away on my other. I did not know what kind of pictures I would get in the end, but I was not taking any chances putting any of them down. All the while I was talking to Shaila, trying to assure her that all was well and that the doctors were doing a great job. She hardly seemed to respond and I was later to understand why. Apparently when I was being ‘scrubbed-down’ Shaila had received her spinal tap or anesthesia , which temporarily paralyzed her from the chest down. But she had reacted to the anesthesia and her blood level had dropped putting the baby’s life at risk.
For eight excruciating minutes, oxygen flow to the baby had been cut off. By the time the gynecologist had pulled baby Jamal Mbiyu Koinange out, he was blue. I of course kept filming, not knowing what was going on but wondering why the little guy was not screaming and yelling like babies are supposed to do at birth. We named him Jamal after his mother’s heritage and Mbiyu after my father.
The pediatrician put Jamal on the adjacent table while nurse’s inserted tubes to clear his nose and airway. Still no sound just a tiny muffle. The doctors gave him oxygen and wrapped him in a warm blanket. “He’ll be fine,” Doctor Mirjana Lucic the Pediatrician, told us, “He’s just been deprived of oxygen but he’ll be ok.”
Jamal was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit and immediately placed on a ventilator. All kinds of tubes were placed in his nose and mouth and a perforation made in his head. The doctors wanted to make sure he had not incurred any brain damage due to the loss of oxygen. Here was my son at last, a beautiful but pitiful sight; all three-point- six kilograms of him surrounded by premature babies some weighing less than two kilograms. The nurses even joked that he had been misplaced because he looked so big and healthy.
The first to arrive to see Jamal were our closest friends in Johannesburg, Jimmy and Freda Shiganga. Jimmy and I attended Saint Mary’s School in Nairobi. When I was in Form Two Jimmy was the Head-Boy. He was a brilliant student and athlete. Jimmy worked for the French Cement giant, Lafarge. We connected in Nigeria and again in South Africa. Freda was every bit the fun-loving Irish woman who had travelled the length of breadth of Africa with Jimmy before finally making an honest man of him.
Her first words when she saw Jamal in his incubator were “I need to be this child’s Godmother and I’ll start by nursing him back to health.” These kind words were what Shaila and I needed to hear at the time because we had a difficult time coming to terms with what had just happened to our new-born. The doctors tried to reassure her that this kind of occurrence was common and that Jamal was getting the best care possible.
The post-natal unit at Park Lane, they insisted, was one of the best in South Africa. This provided little consolation to us — a couple who had waited almost a decade for this moment.
It took two agonizing weeks in the Intensive Care Unit before Jamal fully recovered. It is a blessing that we chose this hospital. They had the kind of doctors and nurses one wishes could be cloned and sent around Africa to save the lives of children who make it through the gestation period only to perish on the delivery table.
In a way, Jamal’s distressing arrival was just another stage in what was already proving to be a traumatic year. Bad luck they say comes in threes. This was the third and hopefully the last one.
The first bit of bad luck happened five months earlier in February when I landed back in Johannesburg after an overnight ten-hour flight from London. As customary, Shaila picked me up from the airport and I had some television equipment that I wanted to drop off at the office before heading home. We drove down the R24 and onto the M1 North, which was the usual route I would take from the airport to the office. I turned off the ‘Empire Road’ exit and headed the two blocks towards Owl Street. It was a Saturday and traffic was light, a good sign, I thought, because this meant I would quickly go into the office, deposit the equipment and head straight home for some much-needed rest.
As I turned into the street and parked the car in front of the building housing the Bureau suddenly from the rear-view I noticed a car had pulled-up right behind blocking me in. I did not think much of it and told Shaila to stay in the car while I ran inside. As I opened the driver’s-side door, I felt something cold and metallic on my temple. I knew this sensation from before in war-torn countries where child soldiers enjoyed intimidating foreign journalists by pointing guns to their heads. This time it was happening in ‘civilized’ Johannesburg and in broad daylight.
“This is an armed robbery. Give us everything you’ve got and no one will be hurt,” said a young man who looked like he was barely in his early twenties. I noticed that another young man had made his way to Shaila’s side of the car and had a gun pointed at her belly. I was enraged; she was four months pregnant at the time and quite fragile.
Shaila tried to scream but the gunman with the cold steel cocked the gun to her head told her not to even dare utter a sound. Three other youth in their twenties came out of the car and started unloading all the luggage and ‘transferring’ it to their car. My pockets were turned inside out and everything taken — passport, wallet, cell phones, office keys, house keys, everything they could take. Shaila’s cell phone was also taken as well as her handbag with all her documents.
Tomorrow, read about Koinange's school days and the road to becoming an airline steward and world famous broadcaster.
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Very interesting and mind suspending. He coms from a long history of achievers. I now understand his ascension to stardom. How does Marranne Briner feature into all this?
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