Joy galore as woman meets relatives in Nairobi after 15 years – PHOTOS
Her legs could not carry her. Her eyes let pour. Words could not come out of her mouth as quickly as she wanted them. It was impossible for Sabrina Adam alias Mary Njeri to keep calm.
And it was understandable. This is a woman who had lived for 15 years without knowing where her relatives were. In 2002, while aged eight years, she wandered away from her kin and has been living with an ever-burning longing to find them.
Everything changed on Sunday.
A week after she was featured in the Sunday Nation, asking for help in tracing her relations, the 23-year-old got to interact again with her relatives at Mbari ya Njiku village in Dagoretti North constituency.
FOUND LOST
Tears flowed as Sabrina’s relatives entered the compound of 75-year-old Nelly Wanjiku, a woman who took her in, in 2002 when she was found near the Shell petrol station in Dagoretti, lost and being dragged somewhere by a man with a mental condition.
Her aunts, cousins, grandmothers and other relatives — who travelled from their home in Makina, Kibera with Nation journalists to Sabrina’s second home in Dagoretti — were overwhelmed with emotion at the reunion. Tears flowed. Hugs were exchanged. God was praised.
Sabrina, 23, now has two names (Sabrina Adam and Mary Njeri) because after Ms Wanjiku adopted her, she changed her name. On her official documents, she is Mary Njeri but at birth, her father Adam, a Nubian, named her Sabrina.
Ms Wanjiku on Sunday said that given her Kikuyu upbringing, she found it hard to use the name “Sabrina”. She flashed back to a discussion she had with her friend about changing the girl’s name.
OFF MY MOUTH
“We said we can’t understand ‘Sabina Adam’. I discussed with my friend on which name to give her. Then suddenly it came off my mouth, ‘Let us call her Njeri.’ And Njeri she became,” said Ms Wanjiku.
When she was interviewed earlier this month, Sabrina said she had lost her way after walking out of their home in Mikindani, Mombasa County. But it has emerged that she had travelled to Nairobi’s Kibera and was living with her relatives when she disappeared.
The family in Nairobi has close ties with the one in Mariakani — where Sabrina was born — and relatives often travel between the two abodes. Sabrina had stayed in Kibera for barely six months when she went missing.
According to Ms Zalika Khalfan, a sister of Sabrina’s grandfather, she had gone for Islam classes when she wandered away.
“On that day she got lost, it was a weekend and she had gone for madrassa with her elder sister. When they got out for a break, at around 10 am, that is when she disappeared. She was not seen at lunch time. We looked for her everywhere. A report was made to the chief’s camp, to the police station, and it did not end there. We used to send people everywhere to see if she could be found,” said the 65-year-old.
FIT OF FURY
They would later realise that Sabrina was angry that her grandmother had given a necklace to her sister but overlooked her, and that she walked away from the madrassa in a fit of fury.
From then, Ms Khalfan said, the family has always been searching, and she noted that she took keen interest in newspaper advertisements about lost children.
“We kept praying that God keeps her safe,” she said.
Ms Khalfan was the first in the family to see Sabrinas’s story in the April 26 edition of the Sunday Nation, and she recalled reading in disbelief before she informed other family members.
Many broke down.
Sabrina, after calming down following yesterday’s meeting, was all praises for God.
“I’m happy today. God has made me reach here. I’d not planned this day but God has made me reach it. I kept praying, kept weeping because of my condition. Because I stayed without seeing my people. But today, God has enabled me to see them. I thank God for showing me my people,” she said, thanking Ms Wanjiku for having offered to raise her as her own.
TOO POOR
Sabrina lived with Ms Wanjiku for 11 years before she left to live with her husband. She could not go past Standard Eight in her education after sitting KCPE in 2011 as her adoptive mother was too poor to pay secondary school fees.
Sabrina with her husband — who live a few miles from where she was brought up near Dagoretti Market — now have two children, aged three years, and eight months. But because the husband is an orphan, her life as a wife has been difficult, and she often does odd jobs to make ends meet.
Mr Shafi Ali, Sabrina’s cousin who is also the family’s spokesman, said there was a divine message in the reunion. He also welcomed Ms Wanjiku to be part of the family.
Ms Wanjiku, after regaining composure and wiping her cheeks dry, said she was elated.
“I’m very happy because that she has got her people. I took her in when she was a very young girl. When I came with her, I said that with my 10 children and now I had the 11th, the 10 wouldn’t eat while she went hungry. If I lacked food to give them, all would go hungry. I’m very, very, very happy because I’ve been wondering where to take my daughter,” she said.
