When I speak to Ann Mathu she is on her mushroom farm in Murang’a, Kenya. A very different life from when she was sleeping on the floor in a shack in the Nairobi slums.
“It’s not something I thought I would do. I am not very good. Maybe I should move to South Africa, you guys grow great mushrooms there. I also think the guy sold me bad seeds…”
Ann is the Vice Chairperson of NACADA (National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse) in Kenya but considers herself a recovering alcoholic and recovery coach first.
Seeing her now, it is impossible to imagine what she has undergone to become the leader she is today. “I have a scar, it's not visible, but I needed eight stitches. He hit me with a glass and the glass broke cutting me very deeply. Part of the of the eyelid had fallen off.”
Ann’s father passed away when she was thirteen. She had just lost the person closest to her. The very person who introduced her to alcohol.
“In the 1960s my father was appointed senior administration officer in Thika, a settler’s town surrounded by coffee farms owned by Europeans, Indian and Arab businessmen. My dad was a member of several clubs and would give me alcohol. Everybody thought it was fun. I could see other children getting a sip from their parents. But believe me, all the kids who started drinking at that age are all dead.
My father passed in a car accident in 1977. I wasn’t allowed to mourn him. I felt empty and worthless. I started sneaking alcohol and cigarettes into school. It made me feel close to him.”
Kenya went through several events in the seventies that changed the dynamics of village life, leading Ann further into a spiral of alcoholism, costing her life-changing opportunities.
“I failed high school, but my aunt, a lecturer at Kenya Polytechnical, got me enrolled towards a diploma. I participated in the Miss Kenya beauty contest and finished second. I had a contract with a boutique in Nairobi and a modeling scholarship for France. I met a new boyfriend with more money. I was a model. I couldn’t have a boyfriend without a car. When I got pregnant by him, I couldn’t attend my scholarship, and he left me for another woman. He returned to name the child after his mother, pay the hospital bills and left. I was alone with a child and started drinking more.”
It wouldn’t be true to say that Ann’s life was one hardship after another. People have been there for her. She found a government job, but her drinking habit led to her reassignment. Met another man, who lied about his marital status and got her pregnant. Of all people it was the man’s wife who befriended her and helped her through her pregnancy.
Now Ann has two children, no prospects at hand, and a still worsening drinking problem. “It was too much for me. I started drinking again when my baby was only four months old, going to work drunk and fell out with management again.”
In the confusion of tribal clashes in Molo, Ann received funding to return to Thika where her daughter had been born. Ann was beginning to feel desperate. While the funding paid for her house, the little money she had, once spent on her children, went into alcohol. Misery loves company and she met a doctor at the bar she frequented. Also an alcoholic, he took her in with her children. A similar spiral to Ann’s own started all over again. During the five years they stayed together: “We would drink all the time. He got transferred from Thika District Hospital to Nyeri Provincial Hospital nearby. Then to Kerugoya District Hospital.”
“Things started getting bad. We fought more. He said he was going to kill me, took a knife and stabbed me four times. On my left shoulder and knee. He tried to stab me in the neck. I protected myself with my hand. He cut through the cartilage; my middle finger was falling off. Once he also threw me down the stairs. I have a scar on my left hip and had to wear a back strap for weeks. But he was a pediatrician, kind and quiet, nobody wanted to believe he could do this.”
He eventually collapsed of alcohol poisoning, but not after Ann was pregnant a third time.
A lot happened to Ann afterwards. Her in-laws blamed her for their son’s death. She couldn’t attend the funeral for fear of deadly reprisal. An old high school friend reached out and brought her to Germany, where Ann scammed an old man into marrying her for his money, only for him to die of alcohol complications leaving Ann with a wedding that wasn’t valid under German law and no inheritance.
While Ann is a survivor of many things, she takes responsibility for her life. The choices she made. The men, including the doctor, friends and colleagues she knowingly manipulated when she was in need. She is unapologetic for her choices, what is done is done, but she does not play the part of the hapless victim either.
Fast forward to Ann living in a shack in the Thika slums, alone, her children with her mother. Ann now drinks Chang’aa, a very potent bootleg spirit made from grain, adulterated with jet fuel, embalming fluid or battery acid. Drinkers have suffered blindness or death due to methanol poisoning. Chang’aa literally means “kill me quick”.
“From a beauty queen to living in the slums where I had sold even my bed. I even traded the lock on my door for a glass of chang’aa.”
When the guilt became too heavy, she tried becoming a born-again Christian.
“The ushers carried me out. Threw me on the other side of the road and told me to take my drunkenness away from the church.
I thought, OK, so now I've been rejected by my children. By my family. Even by God.
I went to my room, took prescription medication, and drowned it with Chang’aa. I woke up in the hospital.
Family visited me. One of my cousins said:
Cherie, why are you trying to kill yourself? Even Satan rejected you. You are the worst human being in the world. You would have ruined his people in hell.
Another one said: You told us she was going to die, but this one died a long time ago.
The moment I was discharged from the hospital I attempted suicide again.
I attempted suicide three times. Eventually my mother spoke to a friend whose son had been through rehab, who came to find me in my slum.
He bought alcohol for me. For all my friends, listened and didn’t judge us because he had been exactly where we were now. He said: Cherie, you still have the model looks and the model walk. You are still very beautiful. You’re still eloquent and a great storyteller. You could make a great public speaker.
He bought me new clothes. He bought me underwear. He bought me everything.
We got into a night bus to the farthest end of the country. Where I completed the 90-day program.
My mom used to visit me monthly. I made amends with her and the significant others who could travel. I went to the village and stayed with my children for two weeks.
I worked as a volunteer at the center for six months. They hired me and transferred me to Nairobi where I worked for two years and went public about my life.
That’s when NACADA reached out. I started working there from in 2007 and left in 2010. It wasn’t the right place for me at the time, staying could have affected my sobriety.
I was called for a meeting on substance use and impressed a communications company who hired me to advocate across the country. I was paid, able to finish building the family house and put my children through school.
NACADA called back last year and appointed me to its Board of Directors. The people I used to work for now call me Madam.
NACADA is a big part of my work, and an excellent platform for me to focus on helping people live through substance use. Especially other women. I help them like I was helped. I find them in the drinking dens and provide for them. As women we carry a lot of burdens, and we are not expected to struggle with alcohol and substances. It is important for me to empower women to find their path like I did. Even when it is hard.”
When asked how many people Ann has helped over the last sixteen years she can’t say. She remembers a young woman who gave up alcohol after seeing her speak on TV. There are likely many more.
Ann’s life could have ended almost twenty years ago, on a cardboard mattress in a Thika slum.
I was lucky to meet Ann’s daughter. The very same who would have nothing to do with her mother in another life.
Are you proud of your mother, I asked.
“Yes. Very proud.” She said. “Very proud.”
Ann Mathu was a panelist in the African Union High Level Session on Addressing Substance Use and Related Mental Health Disorders Among Youth, Women and Children in Lusaka, Zambia November 8-10 2023. AU and UNODC organized the High-Level Session jointly, UNODC ROSAF playing a key role in providing technical support. The Summit agreed on a roadmap for strategic interventions including development of an African model drug law, prevention curriculum for schools, youth and gender specialized treatment facilities as well as the scaling up of harm reduction programs among others. The Lusaka Statement is envisaged to accelerate multi-faceted interventions for drug use in Africa and a stride forward after the Cairo Declaration of 2022.
