“I will talk to him,” Charles said.
What followed was one of the most difficult conversations of Charles’s life. At twenty-three years of age, Charles was a successful employee with a wife and two daughters and was the owner of a car. His father, in contrast, could not hold down a job, took no responsibility for his own sons, and spent more time drunk than sober. He was violent and abusive. But he was still the father, and Charles, the son. It was almost unthinkable for a son to tell his father what to do, but Charles had had enough. The tables had turned.
Charles talked to his father as if he were the parent and his father the misbehaving child. “I’m taking Esther, Miriam, and Jane away from here,” he said. “You are not providing a safe place for them to live. From now on I will only send you 10 percent of my earnings, and you had better spend most of it on the boys. And one more thing. If I hear that you have beaten Mother one more time, I will personally take you to the clan for judgment.”
The last words hung in the air. Charles knew there was no going back on a statement like that. Each clan in Kenya had its own justice system. It was no secret that Daudi Mulli was a violent man. If he went before the clan elders, they would condemn him to be beaten to death. Charles watched his father as the information sank in. He saw his father open his mouth several times as if to argue and then shut it again.
“There is nothing more to say,” Charles said as he stood up. “You know what you must do, and you know the consequences.”
Charles moved Esther and the two girls safely into a small house in Eldoret. He loved having them right there beside him, and he delighted in watching the two little girls grow and develop.
Other changes took place too. In early 1973 Charles was offered a large pay increase by Strabag. But the offer had one catch: the family would have to move to Yemen in the Middle East so that Charles could help oversee a large construction project there. As Charles thought about the new possibilities, he found his heart pulling him in a different direction. Maybe it is time for a change, he told himself. What if, instead of going to Yemen, we stay in Eldoret and I start my own company?
The more Charles thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Several opportunities came to mind, and Charles settled on running a matatu business. A matatu was a shared taxi that followed a set route. Many workers at Strabag lived in a small settlement about five miles outside town and took a matatu to work and back each day. Sometimes they were late because the matatu was overcrowded or did not show up at the right time.
Charles imagined himself ultimately running a large transportation company with buses as well as a fleet of matatus. But he had to start somewhere. He would be the driver, and he would sell the family car to buy a pickup truck he could convert into a matatu by building seats in the truck bed with a canvas canopy over them. Bit by bit he would add more drivers and more vehicles. He even had a name for his company—Mullyways Enterprises. Charles decided to spell Mully with a y instead of an i to help him keep his business separate from his family.
Charles was excited about getting started, but when he told Esther he was quitting his job for this new opportunity, she did not share his enthusiasm. In fact, she could hardly believe it. “You are what!” she exclaimed. “You are going to give up a perfectly good job with a foreign company to drive a matatu?”
“Not just a matatu,” Charles replied. “God has blessed me—blessed us—so much. Look at what we have. I want us to be at the top of society. I’ll work hard. There’s no limit to how far we can go. The possibilities are endless!”
Esther grimaced. Charles could see that she didn’t understand his passion. “Think of it. Without all of the overtime at Strabag, I’ll be able to go to church with you and the children on Sundays and get more involved in everything,” he told her.
“Yes, there’s that,” Esther said flatly.
Despite his wife’s lack of enthusiasm, Charles followed his dream. He quit his job, sold the Ford Cortina, bought a Peugeot pickup truck, and converted it into a matatu. He then had “Mullyways” painted on the side of the vehicle in bright-red letters. On April 12, 1973, everything was ready to go.
Within weeks Charles had a steady roster of passengers for his matatu and was driving 450 miles a day to the outlying areas and back into the city. The passengers loved the Christian music that blasted from the speakers as they rode along. They also appreciated the way Charles remembered their names and many personal details about them.
Now that he was self-employed, Charles could dress the way he wanted. There was an American shop in town that sold cowboy boots, hats, and jeans. Charles outfitted himself like an American cowboy. He loved his new Western boots. As he drove around town, everyone recognized him by the distinctive brown leather cowboy hat he always wore.
When he worked for Strabag, Charles had spent much of his time in the office or out in the countryside helping to supervise the construction of new roads. But now that he spent most of his time driving to and from Eldoret and around the city, he became aware of just how many homeless children roamed the streets.
As he observed these homeless children, Charles saw in them the same loneliness and hopelessness he had felt as a child. He longed to do something to help them. Soon he started buying loaves of fresh bread and filling bottles with water to take in the matatu with him. When he had a gap in his schedule, he would find a group of street children and share the bread and clean water with them. At first the children were suspicious of Charles and would snatch the bread from his hands and refuse to look him in the eye. But it was not long before street kids were trailing Charles wherever he went, waving at him and calling greetings.
Charles continued to meet more street children. They loved his cowboy hat and the greeting he made up for them. “Ooaye,” he would call as he opened his hands wide and walked slowly toward them. Once Charles had won the children’s confidence, he would gather them around and tell them simple Bible stories. Soon, it seemed, everyone in Eldoret knew about the matatu cowboy with the special greeting, loaves of bread, and stories for the street children.
It wasn’t long before Charles had made enough money from his new enterprise to buy another matatu and employ one of his passengers to be the driver. He also set Esther up with a small shop where she sold drinks, fruit, snacks, and clothes. Like Mullyways, the shop flourished. In fact, over the next four years, everything Charles and Esther did flourished. By 1977 Charles had four matatus and had negotiated to become the sole distributor of gasoline, oil, and lubricants to all of western Kenya. Now Strabag was buying its supplies from him.
Charles and Esther bought eight acres of prime real estate in Eldoret and had a large house built on the land. It was the first stone house built in the city and soon became the hub of social events for the wealthy upper class. Charles was the wealthiest of them all. It seemed hard to believe that he had been a servant at the D’Souzas’ home just ten years before. Charles loved to grow things, and soon the rest of the eight acres were filled with fruits and vegetables that had never been grown in Eldoret before. Charles experimented with passion fruit, different varieties of bananas, and mango and orange trees.
By the time the Mullis were ready to move into the new house, Charles and Esther had four daughters. Charles loved watching their personalities develop. Miriam was quiet and loved to read, Jane and Grace were outgoing and constantly asked questions, while little Ndondo tended to her dolls all day long. Charles was delighted to be able to provide a stable home and a bright future for his wife and children. The oldest two girls attended Race Course Primary School and were on target to go to Uasin Gishu High School and then to university. Charles wanted each of his children to have the opportunities he had been denied.
The only discord in the family came from Daudi Mulli, who was up to his old ways again, but ten times worse. Over the years Charles had bought his father cows, goats, and hens, as well as items for the house. Daudi had sold them all to buy alcohol, but worse still, he had begun to trade off his son’s name. Charles had bought some property in Ndalani, and his father pretended to be his agent. He sold Charles’s land, not once, but three times, to unsuspecting buyers and then spent the money. Charles was furious. It took hundreds of hours to unravel the legal mess his father had created.
Of course, there were still the beatings. Charles thought that his father had reformed, but one day in June 1978, he received word that his mother and Aunt Muthikwa were on their way by train to Eldoret. As he waited on the station platform for them to arrive, he grew tense. Why had his mother and aunt come together without his father?
When the train hissed to a stop at the station and his mother climbed down from the carriage, aided by her sister-in-law, Charles had his answer. His father had beaten his mother to a pulp once more. It was too much. Something inside Charles snapped. He was sure that his father would never change. He helped his mother and aunt to the car and drove them to his home in silence. There was nothing to say.
That night Charles sat down at his desk and began to write. “I would like to request a hearing for my father, Daudi Mulli. He has been beating my mother and his children for many years and refuses to stop.” When he had outlined all the accusations against his father, Charles addressed the letter to the chief of the Aombe clan of the Kamba tribe. He was done. Let the tribe deal with his father as they saw fit.
A month later Charles stood in an open field with his mother, Aunt Muthikwa, and many other aunts, uncles, and cousins. Sitting to their left was the chief of the Aombe clan, dressed in a brown patterned cloth and woven orange hat. Beside him were ten or twelve young men wearing short leather kilts made from animal skins and carrying an assortment of clubs, swords, and sticks.
“Charles Mulli, step forward,” the chief said.
Charles did as he was instructed.
“You are the oldest son of Daudi Mulli. What do you accuse him of?” the chief asked.
Charles felt his stomach turn. At that moment he had the power of life and death over his father. It was a terrible responsibility—more terrible than Charles had imagined it would be. He looked back at his mother and thought of all the times she had been beaten within an inch of her life by Daudi and the times Daudi had promised to change but hadn’t. Enough was enough, Charles assured himself. Let the clan decide my father’s fate.
Loudly and clearly Charles began addressing the chief. “This is my father, and for as long as I can remember he has beaten my mother. We have asked him to stop for many years. We have begged him, we have bribed him, we have threatened him, but the beatings go on. I have given him many possessions, but he sells them all to buy alcohol. And when he drinks, he becomes violent.”
“With just your mother, or with all of you?” queried the chief.
“With all of us. But it is my mother’s safety that concerns me today. I do not know how many more beatings she can survive. She is getting older.”
The chief nodded and then asked Charles, “You understand how this works? We will listen to testimony and ask your father what he has to say for himself. If we find him guilty, he will be tied down with ropes and beaten until he is crippled or dead.”
Charles nodded as his eyes met his father’s. They were filled with fear and hatred.
“You will provide a bull to be slaughtered as payment for our services. The clan will cook the bull and feast when this is over. Do you agree?”
“I agree,” Charles replied.
“All right then. We will proceed. You say your father has beaten your mother for many years. Is your mother here?”
“Yes,” Charles said.
