A toast to my step-father

As we celebrate Father’s Day this Sunday, John Gacheru Gaiti expresses great appreciation for the man he sees as instrumental in making him who he is.

Not that there are no great fathers out there, but the one he speaks of so proudly is a step-father – that parent figure that has been immortalised in folklore for being harsh and dismissive.

But John, a 34-year-old counsellor and trainer at Amani Centre, provides a refreshing departure from the ‘cruel step-parent’ stereotype. He credits his mother, Anne Njambi, whom he lost in a road accident last month, with finding a good father for her children.

He says rather dispassionately: “I do not who know my biological father is. I was raised by my step-father… Apparently (Mother) dropped out of school when she got pregnant with my sister, and after that, it was successive pregnancies. My brother and sister have different fathers and we didn’t get to know any of them.”

The turning point in the children’s lives came when their mother went to study spinning and weaving at a kibbutz village in Israel for two years. It was difficult growing up with their grandmother and having to share the meagre resources with uncles and cousins who were also living there.

Their mother’s return heralded a new era for them. Not only did she find a good job, says John, but by 1983, she was managing a spinners and weavers enterprise in Nanyuki, living in her own house and driving a car.

Third wife

But it was her decision, in the same year, to become the third wife of trade unionist Elijah Gaiti that changed her children’s lives. “I think she decided that although she had the money and the other trappings of success, she needed a father for us,” John says.

It was his first encounter with a father. “He brought a sense of stability,” he recalls. “I credit him for not being partisan. He never discriminated against us or expressed dissatisfaction that we were not his biological children. He was loving, he was kind… he created an environment that made it possible for us to get back our self-esteem.”

John says looking back, he thinks his mother made a good choice in agreeing to get married because her husband brought something that her success and money alone could not offer the children. “He gave us a sense of pride and a sense of direction,” he emphasises.

So close was Gaiti to the children that he factored them into his many trips across the country, especially to the various Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) shows that he appears to have been hooked to.

“My father used to buy tickets – the ones for the main arena, where even the national leaders would sit – for the whole year,” John says, waxing nostalgic. “The Nairobi Show was really something, and we looked forward to it.”

John describes his step-father, who is now 80 years old, as a peaceful man who believed in negotiation, which he attributes to his trade union background.

“Can you imagine that when he had to punish us, he would first ask you what you thought would be a suitable punishment? If you denied doing wrong, he wouldn’t punish you.”

But if you admitted to the ‘crime’, negotiating a suitable punishment followed. If it was serious enough, the offending boy (never girls) would be thrashed with a stick that he himself fetched.

Apart from these incidents of discipline, peace reigned at home. “I never once saw my parents fighting. That is surprising for me because as a counsellor I listen to clients talk about their childhood and family situations, and often there are stories about growing up in an environment where there was abuse, especially physical violence. That didn’t happen in our family. If it happened away from us, I don’t know, but I never saw my mother with an injury or a scar that she had to explain away.”

The old man also showed remarkable love for his step-son when he was a high school student.

“I was naughty to the extent that I ran away from boarding school without my parents’ knowledge. I became a DJ in a bar but they thought I was in school all along,” John says. “It was a turbulent period; I guess it was adolescent rebellion. I was suspended and eventually expelled from school. But Dad did not give up asking me to reconsider the direction I was taking my life.”

Back to school

When John eventually said he wanted to go back to school, his father went to the same school and begged the head teacher to take his son back. “He showed a relentless interest in my well-being… He had an ability to sacrifice anything, including his pride. I’m the one who was wrong, but there he was, stooping to literally beg the head teacher to take me back,” he recalls.

The senior Gaiti’s interest in the young man’s life did not stop at ensuring he got an education. John finished school and started doing a hotel management course, which he abandoned to become a pastor – a choice his father thought would condemn him to a life of poverty.

“The old man called in a lawyer and actually had me sign a document saying I had chosen this path on my own, not because he had failed to pay the college fees for me. That document is still in the files to this day,” John says with a smile.

“I guess he was afraid of getting the blame if I messed up, especially because he was a step-father,” he adds. By then, his mother had had two more sons with her husband. “Luckily, I decided to work hard, went to South Africa, became a missionary, came back and trained in counselling.” John was later to study for a master’s degree in psychotherapy in England.

He also testifies of his step-father’s warmth. “It would have been difficult to explain to anybody that we were his step-children because he adopted us and we adopted him. I think his loving relationship with Mum also facilitated our blending in.”

John says none of his 15 siblings – 12 from his father’s first and second wives – was ever sent away from school for lack of fees, “which does not mean there were no hard times. He simply worked very hard to ensure we all got an education.”

The old man is John’s role model. “I would like to be like my father when I get my own family. I learned good daddy lessons from him,” he says. “The only thing I won’t try is polygamy.”

John is married to Peris ‘Princess’ Njoki with whom he is looking forward to starting a family.

Road accident

Gaiti displayed more paternal responsibility when he was involved in a serious road accident nine years ago and was in a coma for two days. As soon as he was discharged from hospital, he called all his children together and sub-divided his property.

“Few people want to do that while they are alive, but he confronted it because he wanted to put things in order.”

John especially admires the old man’s business acumen. Because of the wise investments he has made over the years, he is not a burden to anybody in his old age. And he has also helped his children invest their money so that today, they are reaping huge dividends.

John talks glowingly of his father’s “coalition management”: “Our family is the envy of those who know us because we have lived harmoniously.

We’ve never had what you would call inter-family clashes or huge disagreements. A stranger would never guess we are step-siblings. I credit Dad with the ability to handle the ‘coalition’ and wish him a very happy Father’s Day!”

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