His name is Samuel.
But everyone calls him Sam. Even his subordinates call him by that name. Sam is the CEO of Royal Githima Mission Hospital, a church sponsored institution that was established in 1951 and which was officially opened by the then Princess Elizabeth in 1952, shortly before she was crowned queen after the death of her father, King George.
The hospital has been one of the best run facilities in the country, thanks to the church’s tradition of appointing highly qualified executives to run the institution. That speaks volumes about Sam’s competence and qualifications. He did not land the position by a fluke or through patronage. He got it by pure merit. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine & Surgery from the University of Nairobi and Masters in internal medicine from the same university. He also has an MBA-Healthcare Management from Strathmore University.
He did his internship right here at this hospital. The hospital also hired him on permanent terms when he completed his internship. It was while he was working here that he married Margaret, his teenage sweetheart. Sam met Margaret when he was a student at St. Thomas Moore Nguviu High School in Embu. She was a student at Kyeni Girls High School in the same county. They met at a Christian Union event: Sam was the Christian Union chairman in his school while Margaret was his equivalent in Kyeni Girls.
For the next one year, their friendship solidified as they met in the various Christian Union and academic events that the two schools participated in. Being Christians, they could not engage in the ‘evil’ practice of writing letters to each other, but it was obvious that they liked each other. Sam told Margaret he loved her during one symposium that was held at Kangaru School. It was the final interschool event that form fours would attend during their High School stay. Like many high school friendships of that era, they probably would never have seen each other after completing their KCSE. It was the era before mobile phones. But somehow they remained in touch.
They both attended a Kenya Christian Students Fellowship (KCSF) camp at Meru School that December, having completed their KCSE but before their results were announced. It was in that camp that Sam first kissed Margaret, never mind that it was a Christian event where such behavior was strictly prohibited. Their teenage hormones ran wild, and they came just short of getting into sexual sin. Sam had just landed a position as a peer teacher in a school in Kirinyaga County, and he informed Margaret that he would get her a position there, which he did. What he did not tell her was how he got her the position. He was sleeping with the school principal, a married woman, who had been encouraging him to get a girlfriend to reduce their chances of getting caught. Since schools were closed, Margaret and Sam would be expected to report in January, but before then Margaret went for an interview at the school. Her appointment had to look proper.
That is how Margaret found herself teaching at a girl’s school in Kerugoya. It wasn’t long before she and Sam became lovers, and he introduced her to the world of contraceptives. Each of them had rented a house in Kerugoya town, but more often than not they spent the night in each other’s arms in Sam’s houses. Within a few months, Margaret moved out of her house and permanently moved in with Sam. Margaret became Sam’s de facto wife at the age of nineteen. They taught at the school for one and a half years, and never once did Margaret suspect that Sam was fooling around with their boss. Sam and the boss were conducting their carnal activities at her staff house during the day. Her family did not live in the staff house but in their family home in Kutus, so the staff house was the perfect place to fool around in.
They both went to the University of Nairobi; Sam went to the College of Health Sciences while Margaret went to the College of Education. They were in different campuses, but they visited each other over the weekends. They both joined Christian Unions in their respective campuses and even made it to leadership positions. But while Margaret was feeling guilty about being a Christian leader while having a sinful relationship with Sam, Sam was having no such feelings. In any case, he befriended a student nurse and started having sexual relations with her.
Neither Margaret nor Sam’s Christian Union friends found out about the affair. The nurse, Jane, was not a Christian, or at least not a born again Christian, but she respected the fact that Sam was a Christian leader and knew that their relationship would cause him embarrassment if it came out in public. But she loved him and did not want to leave him, so she agreed to keep the relationship secret. She knew about Margaret, but she did not know that Margaret was Sam’s girlfriend. She knew Margaret was his sister, and a radical Christian who could not be told that her brother was dating a non-Christian. Sam introduced Jane to Margaret as his friend. Everyone at the medical school knew Margaret as Sam’s sister.
In addition to the two, Sam had casual flings with several other girls, and a couple of older women, in the cause of his stay at the medical school. Two of the girls he slept with causally got pregnant, and he denied the pregnancies. The girls went away without drama. Margaret graduated first, because she was taking a four year course (Jane was too, but she was a year behind them). She went back to Kerugoya, the same school where she had taught as a peer teacher (and where she had taught during teaching practice) and the principal there hired her on B.O.M terms. The principal had come to like Margaret even while she slept with her boyfriend, not only because Margaret has a sweet personality, but also because is a bright and very intelligent teacher. While Margaret was away from the city, Jane became pregnant with Sam’s child, and Sam quietly acknowledged paternity.
When Sam completed his studies, he did his internship at Royal Githima in Nyeri town. Jane had been hired at Mbagathi Hospital and so remained in Nairobi. As it happened, Margaret had been hired by TSC and was posted to a school in the outskirts of Nyeri town. So when Sam completed his internship and was hired by the hospital, they decided to get married. Jane saw the wedding photos on Facebook, and that is when she realised that Margaret all along had been Sam’s girlfriend. She cried for a week, and then moved on with her life. She did not want to cause drama, and so she simply blocked Sam on her phone (mobile phones had become a thing by then). Later that year she moved from Mbagathi where she had been working to Kiambu Level Five Hospital. She wanted to cut of every link she had with Sam,
Sam worked at Royal Githima for two years before he went to Kenyatta National Hospital where he worked for the next eight years. It was while he was working at Kenyatta that he did his two masters degrees. But he also found time to entertain two women, and even fathered three children with them: one woman, Clara, had two and the other, Rhoda, had one. The two women were aware that he was married, but they did not know about the existence of each other. During this time he also fathered three children with Margaret, even though they were now living apart. He would visit her at the school staff house in Nyeri whenever he was off duty or when he took leave from work. During this time, he and Margaret bought two acres of land in Nyeri and built a home. Sam left Kenyatta National Hospital and joined Kiambu Level Five Hospital as the medical superintendent. He was surprised to find Jane there, and even though she treated him coldly at first, Sam charmed her back to his life, took responsibility over his son, and even fathered another son with her.
Sam left Kiambu Level Five less than two years ago and returned to Nyeri as the CEO of Royal Githima Mission Hospital. In the less than two years that he has been here, he has already impregnated a woman who his not Margaret. The woman is Rosalid, his secretary. Admittedly, she is a beautiful lass. But then again, Sam has a superior taste in women. All the women he has slept with, including Margaret and Jane, are fine like old wine. But there is a difference between Rosalid and the other women he has been with in the past: she is not willing to remain in the shadows of Margaret. She wants to be recognized as a second wife.
Sam doesn’t want to acknowledge her though. The obvious reason is that he will get in trouble with Margaret. He may have been cheating over the years, but he really wouldn’t want to lose Margaret as a wife. She has been his anchor socially and economically. She is the one who manages his investments. He cannot afford to hurt her. Secondly, he might lose his job. He got his job on the strength of not just his academic qualifications, but also his Christian faith. Somehow, even with all the extra marital sex he has had, he has somehow maintained a pious public profile. He is a Man of God. If a scandal erupts, he knows that the Anglican elders in the Hospital Board will not hesitate to fire him. That would not ruin him-he can still get a job on the strength of his qualifications-but it is unlikely that he will get a job as well paying as the current one. The church is paying him almost double what the government was paying him. Third, and not least, he is afraid that a scandal involving him might awake the “demons” in the other women he has fathered children with, creating a crisis.
If he acknowledges Rosalid as his mistress-or second wife as she loves to call herself-he is in trouble. If he doesn’t, she has threated to expose him, so he is still in trouble. It is a lose-lose situation for him, and he doesn’t know how to get out of it.
(To be continued on Saturday)
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