99-year-old Kakamega man returns home after 60 years with nothing, finds wife, sons dead

Residents of Eshisari village in Kakamega were left in disbelief when a man who vanished six decades ago made an emotional return, only to find his wife and two sons had died and been buried in his absence.

Boniface Muhandia walked back into the village he left in 1965, armed with nothing more than a walking stick and a small suitcase carrying a few clothes.

Now 99, only a handful of villagers and relatives could even recall the man who had once called Eshisari home.

Driven by hope and the need to provide, Muhandia had departed for Uganda in search of work to support his young family of four.

In the late 1970s, his wife, Chelemendia Adhiambo, joined him briefly and gave birth to two more children, a boy and a girl, before returning to their matrimonial home in Mumias East with all six children.

Tragically, his two sons passed away in the late 1990s, and his wife died just two years ago, all without him knowing.

“I left my family knowing it was my responsibility to provide for them. As a young and energetic mason, I set out for Uganda, with my first stop in Busoka, where I began working in construction,” he recalled.

“Later on, I moved to Kampala for the same job, where I worked for a long time. People loved me for my good work, and that is why I was able to live in Uganda for a long time,” he added.

Muhandia kept in touch through handwritten letters sent via post. But at some point, that connection faded.

“I used to write letters, but I lost contact with my family.”

Despite the heartache, the elderly mason expressed gratitude for returning to familiar soil, even if the house he built before leaving had crumbled with time.

“I decided to return home because many thought that I was dead, but I am extremely happy that they received me with joy and happiness, and above all, I am healthy,” he said.

Yet, the years had taken their toll, Muhandia struggled to recall the last time he saw his wife or children, or even who among them was still alive.

John Atako, 89, his younger brother, had stepped in to care for the family Muhandia left behind.

“He left a long time ago when we were youths. He travelled to Uganda and went silent, and it forced me to take up his responsibility of taking care of his family, especially after his wife came back from Uganda with an additional two children,” said Atako.

Atako added that Muhandia had forgotten most parts of his home and needed to be shown familiar landmarks to jog his memory.

“He had disowned his home, and we had to take him around and show him some of the familiar landmarks,” he said.

Peter Wabuti, 86, another younger brother, revealed that Muhandia had been brought home by a kind-hearted woman who had taken him in after finding him on the streets of Entebbe.

“He was brought back home by a good Samaritan who was a woman, and upon inquiry, the woman told us that she had been living with him for four years after she found him on the streets of Entebbe,” said Wabuti.

“The good Samaritan said my brother pleaded with her to take him to his family, and upon interrogating him, she was able to get crucial information that enabled her to locate our brother’s home.”

With his return, the family is now grappling with whether traditional rituals should be performed—after all, they had long presumed him dead.