A new mother has revealed how after she moved to Kenya to marry a Maasai warrior she went on to have a baby with his teenage son – who remains in Africa, while she is back in Britain.
Rebekah O’Brien, 26, fell for butcher Rempesa Ole Kirkoya, 40 when he and his Maasai warrior troupe came and performed in the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich in 2012.
Rebekah, a gym receptionist from Kent, was so entranced with his culture and the connection that she felt that she uprooted her life to move 7,000 miles to be with him – even though he was already married to his wife Joyce.
But three years on and her fate has been less than straightforward. She and Rempesa are no longer together and instead she is romantically involved with his eldest son, a teenager still at school who is unable to help her support their week-old son Kito.
Rebekah’s love affair with Kenya – and two of its citizens – began in October 2012 when she was on a filming course and volunteered as a steward at the Norwich theatre.
Rempesa and his Osiligi warrior troupe came to put on a performance of their songs and dances and she was so fascinated by them that when one of the women she met invited her to visit Kenya.
Then, as she waited for her friend by a shop, she ran into Rempesa, then 37, and even though he couldn’t speak a word of English and she knew no Swahili, they managed to converse with hand movements and facial expressions.
Rebekah recalled: ‘When my friend came out, she gave me a knowing look, and now, looking back, that was the moment I started falling for him.
She decided to go to Kenya for a nine week trip in January 2013. She flew out to stay in a tin hut in Kisames, an hour’s drive from Nairobi, where there was no running water or electricity.
It was there that Rebekah and Rempesa, the village butcher, started a relationship.
‘On that first trip I saw him a number of times, sometimes with his wife, and she would even translate for me so we could chat,’ she said.
In short, in February 2015, she fell pregnant and went back to the UK to have her baby where it could be cared for by the NHS and have British citizenship.
She gave birth to her daughter Arya who died just six weeks later. Rebekah then had to break the bad news to Rempesa over Skype.
Although heartbroken, wanted Kenyan village life again and contemplated returning.
When she came, she herself falling for the warrior’s 19-year-old son Lawrence who is still at school making up for a few missed years through truancy.
He opened his feelings for her and their relationship became physical.
Rebekah then fell pregnant and it seems the pressure of the pregnancy turned the relationship sour and Rebekah returned to the UK to have their son who was born early June 2016.
She is hoping to see Lawrence go to the UK to visit his child and has already sent him Sh60, 0oo despite the fact he is unable to pay child support because he is still in school.
‘I suppose it didn’t help that I was basically his stepmum before we got together.’ ‘I want Lawrence to be in his life, but I fear he sees me more as his mother than his girlfriend, ” Rebekah told Mirror.
Many Britons and Europeans have been married to Kenyans as they find the environment and the culture welcoming as compared to their countries.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3625926/Mother-moved-Kenya-marrying-Maasai-warrior-baby-SON.html#ixzz4Ar8oaXYz
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