Fond memories of life and times of Nyaatha

They say when you are about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. On the October 31, 1930, Sister Irene Stefani, from yet another mission of mercy to those around her, breathed her last in a little wooden house measuring eight by ten metres that she had called home.

Perhaps images of her childhood were what she saw before her fast closing eyes. Perhaps her lasting memory was that of her favourite verse in the Bible. Maybe it was a summary of the destruction left behind by the bubonic plague, which eventually took her life.

But if the testimonies of those she served and if tales passed on from generation to generation about her are to be believed, then perhaps, the lingering moments in her last days was of the tens she had attended to compassionately in the course of her missionary work.

“I never saw her. But my mother always told me tales about her kindness and about her mercy,” Kinuthia wa Gicheru,71, said of the beatified missionary.

The script handed down to many of his age and faith is similar. Acts of kindness and mercy were synonymous to Sister Irene Stefani, fondly known to the residents of Gikondi village, where she served as a teacher and a nurse, as Nyaatha - Kikuyu for merciful. For others though, the elaborate beatification process reminds them of much more than the physical loss of a loved servant of the church.

“We have lost so much more of what Sister Irene stood for,” Scholastica Wangare, 80, said. She has been a daughter of the church since she was 12 years old. She knows no other life outside the confines of the convent. So the teachings, she says, she learnt from the life of Nyaatha define her everyday life.

Teachings of life

“She taught us to be merciful. Which we strive to be. She taught us to be caring and we pray that we are... but somehow, we as humanity, have moved away from these basic teachings of life,” says Wangare.

Her movement is laboured, but she too, joined the hundreds of pilgrims who attended last evening’s vigil at Gakindo Catholic Church.
“Kenya needs to live like her. Why are we not showing mercy and kindness to each other? The world today, seems to be full of hate, pain and injustice,” she said. As she walked, aided, up the slope leading to the church, she was surrounded by a mosaic of activities. The distance from the main gate of the church compound is about 100 metres on a narrow path on an incline. On either side of her were vendors of an array of products. Juices, tea, bread and a sprinkling of church officials dressed in flowing, flawless white robes that defied the red dust of Gikondi to miraculously remain without stain.
Although for many of the faithful, the beatification of Sister Nyaatha is a call to internal reflection, for others, the event has proved to be the last scratch that led to the opening up of old, seemingly healing wounds.

A week before Sister Nyaatha died, she had attended to Buruugu Ngari, middle-aged man in the same village who had also gone down with the plague.

“She got infected when she went to attend to him,” Stephen Ngare, a grandson to the deceased said.
From this death, several other of Ngari’s neighbours also died. Residents believe between three and eight people might have died from the outbreak.

Steven, like his three other brothers, remains unsure of where the remains of his father lie. The piece of land that he was buried was sold. So the grave that pilgrims may wish to see of one of the last patients attended to by the beatified sister is a ceremonial mound of dirt at whose head lies a wooden cross.

As the world descends on Gikondi to witness the beatification of the nun who died in 1930, 15 years after she arrived in Gikondi, attempts were made to exhume Ngari’s remains and take them elsewhere by a section of the family members.

“There are some among us who think there might be some material benefits from this whole thing,” Stephen says. “They don’t know that fighting over the dead brings nothing but curses.”

In her death, Sister Nyaatha found absolution and recognition. For a few days, this sleepy village will know fame and perhaps some bit of fortune. And a homestead will seek the strength to carry on a family name that had been forgotten, but brought back to life through the remembrance of the deeds of Sister Nyaatha.

Today, the skies have held. And the grey clouds have chosen another location to open up their bowels in torrents. Nuns from the world over-stream into the church in pairs. They sit on the hard church benches timidly. Rosary in the left hand and a muffled prayer escaping pursed lips. Wooden crucifixes dangle from their necks. Their different coloured head-scarves dominate the view, interrupted only by intrusive camera tripods.

For this one day, the church allows its solemnity and sombreness eternally guarded by the high ceilings and stained windows, watched over by the figure of a crucified Jesus, to be broken.

Maybe, just maybe when death stares you down to submission, it is the future that flashes in front of your eyes. And maybe, this is what Sister Irene, the merciful one, saw on her death bed.