The Class Four girl Mwalimu Robert Ouko fell in love with

 Robert Ouko with his wife

 

Christabel dropped out of university to marry Ouko The relationship was so deep that I was willing to pay any price to defend my territory – The late Mrs Ouko

It is a measure of the respect Robert Ouko commanded in diplomatic circles that when he died, the influential American weekly, Time magazine, eulogised him, noting that, “A kind man meets an unkind end.”

If fate was fair, his widow, Christabel, whose quiet strength touched Kenyans in the wake of her husband’s brutal murder, should have passed on quietly in her sleep. But she left in a car crash at the relatively young age of 76, ending one of the most painful political chapters in Kenyan history.

Mama Christabel Ouko dropped out of university to marry Bob, the suave diplomat and politician who dazzled the world with his eloquence and spirited defence of the Kanu government.

Mrs Ouko told this writer that she fell in love with Ouko when she was a Standard Four pupil preparing to sit the Common Entrance Examination and him, a junior primary school teacher at Ogada Primary School in Nyahera, Kisumu Municipality, where her brother, John Eston Okara (now deceased), was a headteacher in the early 1950s.

“The relationship was so deep that I was willing to pay any price to defend my territory,” she said.

She passed with flying colours and joined Ng’iya Girls High School for intermediate school (Standard Five to Standard Eight). She then proceeded to Butere Girls High School for her O-levels, Alliance Girls High School and later the University of Nairobi – until Dr Ouko came calling.

 Robert Ouko's home

Mrs Ouko joined the civil service as a tax officer with the East African Community in Arusha and later, became an immigration officer before resigning to join Dr Ouko who was appointed head of the East African Community.

She said that although she dropped out of university, what Dr Ouko taught her in life made up for the knowledge she could have acquired with a degree.

Sadly, her husband was brutally murdered, leaving her with young children whose grief Kenyans who watched the televised funeral will never forget. The children are now all grown and married, except the last-born who is an engineer. She has nine grandchildren.

 Christabel Ouko

In her confirmation of their love and that of books, she initiated Dr Robert Ouko memorial library in Koru that today serves as a learning centre for Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology.

“I want Kenyans to give him a memorial befitting his aspirations as an avid reader and scholar,” Mrs Ouko said then.

William Seda, her brother-in-law, says Christabel was a strong woman who maintained her late husband’s home and kept the environment serene.

“I can’t imagine that this home will now be without the two. But we leave it all to God because their children are still there. All we need is to pray for them and wish them well. Her son, Ken, has built a beautiful home adjacent to his father’s. We hope he will now take over the mantle to run the gated home that glitters atop the hills in Koru,” Seda said.

Describing her as a pillar of the extended Ouko family, Seda says she was loved, respected and cherished for standing strong and taking care of her family after her husband’s death.

He adds that Christabel was a woman of great compassion who dedicated most of her life to helping the poor. She was a woman who, like her late husband, cherished education.

“This is the reason she put up a library with the aid of Kenya National Library Service in front of her home in honour of her husband’s love for books. She also put up a school christened Dr Robert Ouko Primary School in tribute to the late scholar Dr Ouko.

“It is evident from their expansive farm in Koru that she loved farming. A visit to the home reveals a thriving dairy farm and sugarcane plantation. We will greatly miss her,” he said.

 William Seda, Robert Ouko's brother

Nearly 30 years after his brother’s death, the shock and pain of losing him is still etched on his face.

He describes Kenya’s fallen Foreign Affairs minister as a resolute and determined man, someone who wanted to do something good for his people and the country and wouldn’t let anything get in the way.

A man who loved farming and always wanted to live in harmony with everyone, a philanthropist and devout Christian.

And now, death has struck again, and his Christabel is gone.