Husband left in a huff 15 years ago, never to be seen again

Riftvalley,Kenya: For 15 years now, Esther Chebet, 51, has been staring at her gate, hoping that her husband of 18 years would one day reappear and assist her with the burden of raising their five children.

Her numerous visits to various police stations and morgues across Baringo and Uasin Gishu counties bore no fruit. Every time she hears that someone has been found abandoned in the bush either dead or alive, she makes frantic efforts to ascertain the identity of the person.

“His disappearance is the reason I am suffering. You, see when your man gets lost, the community blames you. It is even worse what your mother-in-law thinks about you,” she told Wednesday Life during an interview at her home in Siginwo village, about four kilometres from Tenges trading centre in Baringo South, Baringo County.

It all started in January 2003 when the family received good news that their first-born son, who had sat for high school, one of the best schools in the county.

Chebet says that differences emerged during a family meeting when her husband suggested that their son would not proceed to secondary school but would join him in subsistence farming so as to raise money to pay school fees for his younger siblings.

“It was just dramatic to hear of a father who was ready to sacrifice the future of his own first-born child in the name of savings. That was impossible by all means,” said Chebet as she held her mobile phone perhaps hoping the next call would beckon her to his hideout.

That morning, she recalled, Jonathan stormed out of their matrimonial home angry that his suggestions were not being respected.

“I remember it was daybreak.... He was still furious. He said that he would leave us “to suffer forever” and left without looking back. It is so devastating,” she said.

“He just ran away from responsibility,” she said.

More puzzling, according to Chebet, is that Jonathan, just a week before he walked away from his family, had received an unspecified amount of money as a golden handshake from his employer — the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) — after he applied for an early retirement.

“He had a lot of money which he never wanted me or any other person to be privy to. He would tell me the money would go into a family business that he did not specify,” she recalled in bitterness. He worked at KFS from 1985-1997.

Chebet said since they married, her husband lived a secretive life. “Since we met and had children, he took only two photographs with us and when he left, I realised he went with them. Even issues with his money and mobile phone were shrouded in mystery,” she said.

For now, the mother of five depends on well-wishers and does odd jobs to raise the Sh300,000 needed annually for her three children in college and another one poised to