During COVID-19, just after lockdown, a good friend who is a nurse by profession decided to swindle us.
This lady had a three-year-old daughter whom she told us that she was very sick and she didn’t have funds to pay the hospital bill. The daughter was sick but the bills is where we draw the line.
This lady came to our WhatsApp inboxes with a photo of her daughter on the hospital bed and informed us that she had stomach infection, Pneumonia plus she needed surgery for draining water from her lungs or something close to that. The baby had new complications daily. This lady is a nurse so it was so easy for her to fabricate lies.
We formed a WhatsApp group for the fundraising and we went out of our way to ensure she had the amount she required. You remember how people were struggling during this period? Imagine people spared as little as 50 to make sure the girl got better. We were so many in this WhatsApp group.
This lady, let me call her Cynthia, would send videos and photos of the progress and we would top up money whenever the need arises. She would do videos too just to remove any suspicion from people who were asking numerous questions.
We went our way during this period for Cynthia. We supported Cynthia from June until the travel ban was lifted in August. Cynthia was the only one residing in Malindi among us so we didn’t have anyone to send to check on her or the girl. She kept updating her every move though.
Chege kept saying that once they lifted the ban, we would travel to the Coast for a week. I told the group that I would visit Cynthia’s child in the hospital when I get to the coast. I had even mentioned to Chege that we would shop some toys for Cynthia’s child because she requested for toys and dolls via video call.
The travel ban was lifted and we travelled after around a week. Cynthia was aware that I would visit her daughter but the moment I updated her that we were on our way, Cynthia went offline. She would switch off her phone for hours and when it was on, she would have tens of excuses ranging from having a faulty phone to a nagging baby. Cynthia took me in circles until we left for Nairobi. We suspected a foul play and I told people in the WhatsApp group that I was sure Cynthia was lying about her baby.
There was one member who knew Cynthia’s baby daddy from Facebook and he inboxed him his number and asked about the wellbeing of the baby. Eeeiii, Cynthia’s baby daddy told us that he was the one who paid the hospital bill without assistance. He told us the baby was insured by Britam and NHIF so he didn’t have struggle in paying the bills. He told us he never asked for any assistance from Cynthia and Cynthia never contributed a dime.
We felt bad. We felt betrayed considering how tough it was during COVID-19. We never understood why Cynthia would lie about her baby to get money from us. Cynthia went offline due to the embarrassment considering she had duped countless people, some were not even in the WhatsApp group. She had to delete her Facebook profile too.
We calculated the total money we sent as a group the entire time and it was 380,000. The most painful part was that I once took Chege’s phone and sent Cynthia 3,000 because she said her NHIF had arrears.
Photo: Taken by Chege’s phone before I stole airtime.
Before you start with you should have gone home, Chege had the essential services certificate. I got it by default too. That means I was in Mumias even during lockdown.