Captain Richard Gethin and remarkable Goan lady

 

Omongina, a remarkable Goan lady"

This is the original version Mervyn Maciel typed for Captain Richard Gethin

Even though her name was Mascarenhas, the Abagusii named her "Omongina" when she arrived in Kenya in 1912   and settled in the village of Riana where her husband Thomas Joseph also from Goa India, operated a duka he had established in 1902.

Unfortunately, Omongina’s joy of settling down with her new husband was short-lived, for he died 10 years later (1922) at Riana after contracting Blackwater fever, a complication of Malaria that killed many people around Lake Victoria. They had just gotten a baby.

Widowed at the age of 29 in a remote part of Africa, with one year old baby, life wasn’t rosy for Omongina the young Goan girl.   Capt Richard Gethin (Snr), who met her at Riana wrote:

" I was passing, a Goan woman came out of one of the shops and was very interested to know where I was going. She struck me as being very poor, as she was barefooted and badly dressed, but she very kindly asked me to come in and have a cup of tea, which I did. " 

However, despite her situation, Omongina was still determined   to continue with what her husband had started in the village of Riana.

While at Riana she discovered an opportunity that she wanted to capitalise on. Many people were starting to embrace Western style of dressing, and she thought dressmaking would be a lucrative venture.  However, she didn’t have enough capital to start the business.

Consequently, she sold her four gold bangles to an Indian trader at Kisii, raised enough money and bought a ticket to India. While in India she sold her assets, obtained the proceeds of her husband's insurance policy then made her way back to Riana Gusiiland via Mombasa.

 "I bought and carried with me plenty of Indian cloth. With the help of my 'Singer' hand-sewing machine (bought for my wedding in 1910), I started dressmaking for the Kisii and Luo women," she wrote.

 "Until then, they did not wear any Western clothing. Men wore loin cloth or goatskin flaps in front and rear. Kisii women wore goat skins from the hip downwards. Luo women wore a sort of skirt made of papyrus or other reeds grown along the lakeshore. The Catholic Mission at Asumbi and Nyabururu helped me tremendously by sending all the women to have them "dressed" by me”.

As news of her dress making spread, so did the business boom. she expanded the business by selling the most sought-after items like sugar, salt, soap, kerosene oil, beads, cigarettes, matches and hoes.

She sold some of her wares at Homa Bay and Kisumu where she travelled by boat. It must have been tough for her to travel around with her baby.

In 1924, she bought a plot at Homa Bay and erected a rental structure at a cost of 4000/-. She rented it for 80/- a month. A year later, she bought another plot, this time at Sare-Sakwa-Awendo for the same price, and again rented it out at 80/- per month.

Wanting to give her son Alex the best of education, she moved to Kisumu in 1927 and got Alex admitted to Indian Primary school which later became Government India School, and today, Kisumu Boys High School.

Initially she rented a house but later on bought a plot on De Boer Street in the Kisumu CBD, where she put up permanent buildings consisting of two shops and four living rooms. She and Alex moved into the two rooms and rented the remaining two.

She later bought another plot for Shs. 5,500 on Station Road, in the present Kisumu CBD.

The most remarkable venture of this young, widowed lady was the purchase of a 160-acre farm at Kibigori, which she bought from a soldier-settler.

" I sold a lot of wood fuel, extra cattle, some coffee and maize. Within two years, I recovered the purchase price I had paid for the farm. However, with the depression at its height, and the prices of produce at rock bottom (a 200 lbs bag of maize for Shs 2/25), I started losing money; what I had gained in the first four years, I lost in the subsequent five years, and eventually sold the farm in 1940 at a profit."

At the time of her death at Victoria Hospital Kisumu in 1963 at the age of 69, Omongina was the richest woman in Nyanza, a total contrast of the young, widowed lady struggling in Kisii.This could be attributed to a good business head, a forward vision of events and her shrewdness.

 

Mervyn and Elsie Maciel chatting with Captain Gethin in Kisii a long, long time ago

https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/mrsmascarenhas.htm

This is  a much longer version that Mervyn Maciel wrote!