A drunk driver killed all my kids

Just take a right turn on the track ahead,” the man we ask for directions to the Kibugi home tells us. “You will see smoke on your way down the trail. That’s their gate, right where the smoke is. That’s Mama Njeri’s house?”

And sure enough, we see a smouldering fire near the gate as we approach the home. The smoke swirling gently from the flameless heap of ashes and twigs prepares us for the stillness in the compound.

A huge pile of utensils, including  big cooking pans, has been left out to dry. Meanwhile, some people are loading onto a pickup truck the chairs and tents used during the 10-day vigil for the Kibugis’ departed.

It is the day after the burial of Hannah Wariara Kibugi’s three children and grandchild, and the mourners have left. Hannah is distraught about the emptiness in the home.

“It is abnormally quiet and still,” she says, “All my four babies are gone.”

It is around 4:30pm on a Friday when we visit for the  interview.

“We would now be waiting for the kids to be dropped off by the school bus. And then the noise would begin," she says. “Njoki would be finishing with the cooking. They always found food ready when they arrived home from school.

“Now the house is empty and quiet. The bedrooms are empty. Their clothes are just there, still hanging in the closets,” says a distressed Wariara.

Hannah and her husband, Peter Kibugi, lost all their three children and a granddaughter in a horrific road accident on May 15, as the world marked International Day of Families.

Their two daughters, Josephine Njoki, 25, and Grace Njeri, 11 as well as their nine-year-old son, Mike Mutua, and granddaughter Hannah Wariaria (Njoki’s daughter) were buried on Thursday, May 26. As their four coffins lay side by side at the Lang'ata Cemetery in Nairobi, the grief was palpable, as friends and family gathered to pay their last respects.