How I Grew Up With My Siblings

My sister-in-law Sheila Mareka once told me that she wishes she had more siblings in her family when she was growing up. So it seems I am lucky to have lived with four brothers at home here in Kiserian back in the '90s when I was a boy. We shared stories, argued, laughed and criticized one another - the stuff that makes legends.

Joe Kagigite, my eldest brother, was a handsome young man in the early 2000s. One Saturday afternoon in 2001 when going home from school, I passed by Mum's shop together with my classmate Damariot Lempee. Since Mum was away, we found Joe manning the shop. And he was, you might say, in a particularly good form that afternoon. He greeted us warmly as he served other customers, something that impressed Damariot so much that as we walked home he said to me that Joe was very handsome.

On top of being handsome, Joe was also an engaging brother when we lived together at home in the '90s. The first night he was away from home when he joined Kijabe Boys' High School in early 1996, I shed tears of sorrow. His absence saddened me.

Bob Njinju, my second eldest brother, was a tough boy in the '90s, as tough as old boots. During his upper primary school years, he sometimes marshalled boys for an entertaining march before they raised the Kenyan flag on the school parade ground. His toughness must be the reason he was selected to join the Kenya Air Force in 2002 when he was fresh from high school. The Kenya Air Force began training him to be an engineer, a marvellous opportunity.

Interestingly, Bob left the Kenya Air Force sometime in 2006 and ventured into private business. As life would have it, his business fared badly, leaving him as broke as a church mouse. His landlord locked him out of his room in Nairobi, forcing him to retreat back to our home in Kiserian.

When Bob came to stay at home in 2007, I would observe him get up every morning to go hustle in Nairobi, sometimes borrowing bus fare from Mum. (In Kenyan parlance, to hustle is to find ways of earning money.) I later on came to envy that toughness of getting up every morning, a toughness that made his business recover. Sooner rather than later, he was financially stable to relocate again to Nairobi.

Paddy, my immediate elder brother who I have mentioned in the caption of the photo above, was a very bright boy when we were growing up. With two Bachelor's degrees, an MBA and a certificate from Harvard University, he is now the most academically accomplished sibling in my family. He is also musically gifted. As a boy, he could play on the piano such advanced musical pieces as Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor.

In the late '90s when he was in his early teens, Paddy loved composing songs for my hometown Catholic church choir. Two of his songs were recorded in the cassettes the choir produced. And oh my, weren't his songs just plain awesome! I sometimes find myself crooning them as I go about my business.

Symo, my youngest sibling (I am second last) was a clever little devil when we were growing up. At one time in the '90s, he got at loggerheads with Dad for reading a certain novel Dad didn't want him to see. Dad would keep hiding that novel but somehow, Symo would find it and devour it with the zeal of a villager on his first trip to the city.

In the early 2000s when he was in his pre-teen years, Symo would challenge my eldest brother Joe Kagigite to writing compositions. Young as Symo was, he would correct Joe's compositions with the authority of a professor. Little wonder that he turned out to be the only one in my family who scored an 'A' in English in the mighty KCSE exams.

Among my siblings, Symo is the one who criticised me the least when we were growing up. Yes, my senior brothers Joe, Bob and Paddy did criticize me a great deal, as all older siblings do. And as it happens in virtually all families, I got into trouble with them on several occasions for wearing their clothes and shoes without their permission.

There is one sibling in my family who is never mentioned: that's the late Stephen Ndonga. Actually, he was the last born in my family but died in 1996 when he was still an infant. He was the first baby I remember seeing, Symo having been born when I was too young to recall things.

On the evening of the day baby Stephen Ndonga was buried, Mum was unhappy with the way my senior brothers had conducted themselves that day. I remember her telling them in Kikuyu, "Don't do that again if another death ever happens in our family."

Fortunately, we have never had another death in our family since the demise of baby Stephen Ndonga in 1996. As I write this story, Mum and Dad are still alive and kicking; so are my brothers Joe, Bob, Paddy and Symo. For that, I am deeply grateful to God.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on how I grew up with my siblings, you might also enjoy another one on "Choosing Gratitude" which I wrote sometime back. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.