Rambo granny Jean-Louis is one person you can’t mess with

The compact, hawk-eyed woman leans back, meticulously inspects her rifle, puts her finger on the trigger, breathes in, then breathes out. She’s about to fire but doesn’t; she’s only demonstrating how it’s done.

“When shooting, breathe in and then out, slowly take the last breath and then release the trigger,” she said. “I am called a sharpshooter because you focus on where you’re aiming and get the target.”

The black sweatband and the no-nonsense look in her narrowed eyes give the impression that she has just stepped out of a Rambo movie.

Mastered

But Jennifer Jean-Louis is neither an actress nor a police officer although she has mastered both rifle and pistol to win scores of trophies in competitions and has shot her way to the top of the list of Kenya’s most respected sharpshooters.

When she was growing up in Nakuru, Mrs Jean-Louis loved plaiting and playing with hair. She even went to London to earn a diploma in hairdressing. But before leaving for London, she had begun doing judo at the Nakuru police club and earned the highest belt within her first year there. When she returned home, she defied the social expectations of mid-1970s Kenya for a young woman to become a judo instructor. Today, approaching her sixties, she is a recognised expert in martial arts as well as a sharpshooter. And, instead of retiring, she maintains a rigorous workout schedule that keeps her 5-foot-2-inch, 75-kg body as fit as a fiddle.

She also possesses a playful sense of humour as Lifestyle discovered this week. Asked her age, she replied with a giggle: “I am 58, but say I’m 54. Don’t tell anyone that I’m 58.”

The woman, whose menagerie includes a pigeon called Kuku, a crow called Mr Crow and a cat called Mendi, wakes up every morning at 2 a.m. to meditate; at 8.30 she is off to the gym to lift weights and run on the treadmill for two straight hours.

“I thought it was crazy, but it is powerful,” she said of her exercise regime. “I like sports, and I want to be busy. I can’t sit and be idle. I just can’t.”

She’s the holder of a second Dan black belt, the second highest level in judo, according to Japanese martial art ranking. She is also at home with karate, aikido and tae-kwon-do.

She would certainly be the wrong target for street muggers: “I would fight,” said the first woman to referee and judge at an international judo competition in Africa. She is the current director of judo referees in East Africa and has officiated at the All-Africa Games and taken part in an international referee course in Berlin in 2002.

In addition to her focus on fitness and physical achievements, Jennifer Jean-Louis regards her spiritual life as very important.

“Always put God first,” says the frequent worshipper at the 1 p.m. mass at the Consolata Shrine in Westlands. “Everything you do, do in his remembrance.”

Strict vegetarian

The strict vegetarian loves chips, cakes and chocolate, and when she’s not working out or taking aim, she’s sewing, cooking, painting, making flowers or doing batik on glass.

The daughter of Lawrence Fernandez, a policeman of English and Mexican descent whose career spanned colonial and independent Kenya, and Cynthia Consait of the Seychelles, married Sam Jean-Louis in 1971.

“There is something wrong with us, isn’t it? Being married for all these years,” she said. “I remember we got married in London under the snow in 1971. It was good.”

“I never thought that one day I would grow up, get married and live on,” she said. “I always thought I would grow up, get a baby and die. I didn’t think that life was more than that. I would see people die at the early age of 40. People did not live for long.”

Medical doctor

The couple has a 35-year-old son named Clint who is a medical doctor in Spain. Both father and son were also shooters at one time, but it is the wife and mother who still keeps at it.

And what does the husband think when his wife wakes up in the dead of night to meditate and perform yoga?

“I have no problem with that,” he replied. “It’s good. I’m happy for her. When she started judo and shooting I supported it and still love her.”

Lifestyle encountered the sharpshooter a fortnight ago when she was in charge of the 20-person security detail assigned to Dadi Gulzar, one of the spiritual leaders of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, who visited the country to give talks on yoga at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

It was the third time she had handled security for an international visitor; previously she had been in charge of a 40-person detail when Dadi Janki, another spiritual leader, visited Kenya.

She has rubbed shoulders with celebrities and government figures, some of whom she describes with great admiration and respect. One of the people she considers a mentor is now an assistant minister.

“He was quite friendly. He was a person that you could talk to. He was calm, humble and talked gently. Everyone was keen on him, and he was the best shooter,” she said. “He is religious, too. I once saw him buying religious books, and even when we meet today, he always quotes a verse in the Bible for me.”

She relishes the time when she was a regular at the GSU training school firing range where she would practise in addition to doing judo with the recruits. Some of the people she used to practise with at the range have since joined the presidential escort.

“Shooting is an expensive sport in Kenya. To become a shooter, you have to join a club, and the bullets are very expensive,” said Mrs Jean-Louis, who also served as a presiding officer at a polling station during last year’s General Election.

Police officer

The third-born in a family of 11 children speaks English with a Seychellois lilt; her siblings live and work in England. Although her father was a police officer, she never came anywhere near his service pistol, nor did she have much contact with his fellow officers.

“I never imagined that one day I would become a sharpshooter or engage in martial arts. All that I can remember is that I loved playing with my hair and plaiting it,” she said with a hint of nostalgia.

She says her mother, who died three years ago, was one of her biggest supporters at a time when local newspapers were calling her “Jenny, the tough woman.’’

“She was very proud of me. She saved newspaper cuttings and showed them to her friends. She always told people ‘that is my daughter in the newspaper,’” she said.

Her father, who died in 1971, never saw his daughter on the firing range. In a given competition, she would usually beat the 60 to 70 men participating and say if her father were around today, she would make sure that she told him: “I did it, Dad!”

Some good advice from her parents remains engraved on her mind. “They told me to always learn something new, and with a lot of interest, because it would keep me young for the rest of my life.”

She recalls the excitement of taking the path she has been on since 1965 when she discovered judo at the Nakuru police club. She was green, but within a year, she had earned the highest belt.

So how did she get involved in shooting?

It was in 1979 when she overheard a conversation between two of her students, Annie, a German, and Michelle, a Frenchwoman, who were discussing their experiences at the shooting range.

Shooting range

“I got interested and actually asked them what the shooting range was all about. I didn’t expect that I would fall in love with the shooting at the range,” she says.

 On her first day at the Mathari police depot shooting range near Muthaiga roundabout, she was shy about handling a rifle. She lay down on her stomach, clutched the rifle, shut her left eye, focused with her right through the scope and aimed. The memory of that moment is still as fresh as is the premonition she had about handling guns and becoming a judoka. “I got all the 50 targets correct on my first time. Believe me, I was excited,” she said, acknowledging that she is now highly skilled in using both a pistol and a rifle. But the pistol is her strong point, as was confirmed by her successes in championships where she outperformed her judo students, Annie and Michelle.

In addition to the legendary Patrick Shaw, a colonial police official whose career spanned the transition to independence and who was one of her shooting companions, she also has fond memories of Surinder Roopra and Ahmid Walimohamed, the men who taught her how to use a rifle.

Roopra in particular taught her the breathing technique that is so important in shooting.

So, does she still use her sharpshooting skills?

“I like the excitement. I always want to be a sharpshooter. I use the skills in the competitions,” said the woman who has won more than 100 trophies in national shooting championships since 1985.

Five years later she made history by becoming the first woman in Kenya to win the standard pistol competition; in 1995 she won the national championship for the second time.

Among her galaxy of trophies and medals, one of her favourites is the trophy for the second national pistol championship. Her exploits at the range opened doors to meet the high and the mighty. She vividly remembers her encounter with former President Moi at State House in 1987 and describes him as a very welcoming man who liked offering advice.

Public relations

When she was handling public relations for the Lions Club in 1985, she was humbled to meet the late Mother Teresa.

“The best time in my life was to meet Mother Teresa,” she said. “It was very beautiful.

I felt the aura in her. It was very powerful. She could pick up your thoughts. She never took her eyes off me. She was really a saint.”

The former chairperson of the Kenya Pistol Club also taught air weapons at Nairobi School. She says she is surprised that some of her former students there, whom she often meets in church, look older than she does.

“The secret in life is to be active all the time and watch what you eat. I always feel I want to do something. I feel I have to stretch; the workout in the gym is what keeps me fit.”