Go well, brother Bob, the tall relative who paved my path in journalism

He stood over six feet tall and often wore a smiling face when he extended a handshake, whose firmness contrasted his soft palm.

Bob Okoth, after all, the departed former Taifa Leo and Baraza editor, was soft at the core – he was genuinely caring and patient.

I recall our first encounter that eventful evening in September 1994 when I arrived at his office clutching a typed manuscript of what, two days later, would become my debut in journalism.

Next weekend, Bob shall return from where he came, somewhere in Rusinga, the island that also produced another great Kenyan by the name of Tom Mboya.

Bob's greatness lay in his humility as well as his embrace of all Kenyans. I had been sent to see him by another friend, Baddy Muhsin, but the moment I met Bob and stated my mission, I could see he would have received me as warmly had I simply knocked on his door.

Which is what I should have done, for I had spent a few months of that year knocking on the doors of editors of the English dailies in town, but they were firmly shut.

In that sense, Bob was my godfather in journalism, the tall relative who opened the door and ushered me through.

I would write for Taifa Leo for a year and half, and looking back, I should have kept writing, given my increased awareness of the politics of language. But after translating a few of my stories from Kiswahili to English and writing a few original ones, the door that had been locked creaked open and I was accepted to write for English dailies.

Soon, prejudiced folks who thought those who wrote in Kiswahili had not been properly schooled wondered aloud how it was possible to write competently in the two languages.

Bob and I left our former employer at different stages, my departure prompted by a restlessness that persists; his instigated by newsroom pettiness.

But we remained in touch, occasionally updating each other, even meeting for an occasional cup of tea. We had a long lunch last year, hopping from one eatery to another, having a main course here, a desert there.

A trip to the plains of Maasailand, where we have made a home was impending. I recall Bob's joy when he learnt that the girl I took home had also apprenticed under his watch at Taifa Leo. In that sense, Bob was family.

The young man of the house says he wants to be a journalist and engineer, all at the same time. I worry for him, wondering if there will be the Bob Okoths of our time, decent human beings who put merit above all else.

 

It did not matter to him how a Coastal man could have sent a Nairobian youth with roots in Central Province to a man from Nyanza.

Yet, perhaps because of Bob, I should have abundant faith in humans' ability to restore hope in others, to transcend pettiness and extend a helping hand to those in need.

For if there is any enduring lesson from the life of Bob Okoth, it is that those he touched with his compassion and generosity of spirit know they have the power to build a different Kenya, of which Bob so poignantly represented. We owe it to him to resurrect that dream.

"Nothing can harm a good man, in life or in death," I once told Bob. He only nodded and smiled.

Now that he is gone, I am optimistic it is to a better place.


 

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