By Kristine Pearson | CEO Lifeline Energy
At 93, great-great-great grandmother Kisingingye (which means pure) never imagined that she would see at night again. Kisingingye, a Maasai, said that for the first time in many years she feels ‘useful’ at night and doesn’t just have to sit. After receiving Lifeline Energy’s solar-powered and wind-up light, she can finally see what is going on and take note of any perils like scorpions or snakes. The light has gifted her with a new sense of freedom.
Kisingingye added that she lends the light to the secondary school children to study, but that they must use the light in her house.
A widow for some years now, Kisingingye also outlived her late husband’s second wife. She lives in her own small house in a manyatta - a community with six or seven mud houses - with one of her sons and five of his six wives. It’s a small compound about two miles off the paved road between Suswa and Narok in the Rift Valley with several cows, a large herd of sheep, a few goats and a dozen chickens in the middle.
Having given birth to nine children, Kisingingye has roughly 200 grandchildren, 90 great grandchildren, but said she wasn’t quite sure how many great-great grandchildren she had now. Maasai tend to have large families and polygamy is normal. Both her own grandchildren and the grandchildren from the other wife respectfully call her ‘gogo’, which means grandmother in Maasai.
Kisingingye was one of several women over 80 that received lights during Kristine Pearson's trip this month.
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