A Kenyan man who has been living in the United States for 20 years has returned to Kenya broke financially and emotionally.
The Kenyan man, Isaac Gichengo, returned after the American wife he had married divorced him and left him homeless and penniless.
Gichengo opened up on the tribulations he had gone through in an interview with the Kenya Diaspora Media.
During his stay in the US, Gichengo shared that he had been living in the State of Pennsylvania. He had moved to the US at the tender age of around 17 years full of hope and ambition.
“My two brothers and uncle were there and invited me to go to college and behold I was accepted. They gave me tough love’ struggled there for four years to the point I was homeless for three months and still going to school,” he said.
“I used to sleep in an old car duirng the winter and thought of returning home.” To survive, Gichengo used to do odd jobs. In 1996, he got married. His marriage appeared to have come loaded with good news as he shortly after got a bank job as a salesman.
His performance at work was exemplary. He hit his targets and was quickly promoted to the position of assistant manager from customer service.
“In less than six months, I became a manager; I started going to school for banking because I was a physicist. I was promoted again and became a regional manager and used to manage 13 branches with over 50 employees,” said Gichengo.
Gichengo shared that his boss would later approached him to manage the cash management department.
As his career soared, after 14 years, Citibank, the third biggest bank in USA approached him with a lucrative offer to establish government banking for them.
“I was managing USD 40 billion before I left last year, I was the vice president for Citibank public firms so I was managing money for the government in Pennsylvania, New York, Washington DC and California,” he said.
Gichengo attributed his downfall to his marriage. He says that he had gotten married out of desperation to obtain legal papers to stay in the US.
“In 1998, we had our first son, an engineer who is now 26 years old, and in 2004, we had the second one, who is now 20 years old. When we met, it was not love at first sight, and we later had children,” he said.
After two years, he took a loan and acquired land and a house. He would later sell these and move his family to an even bigger house.
“There were also bonuses and she would time them; I also had a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool. She spent Sh. 16 million to remodel the kitchen and a similar amount for landscaping. She was trying to prove to her parents that she was financially capable yet she wasn’t,” he said
However, he blamed his wife’s spending habits.
“My biggest mistake was opening a joint account where my employers used to send my salary. The kids used to wear the most expensive labels in the market, such as Tommy Hilfiger and Nike. I used to complain, then I later stopped complaining,” he said.
“In 2007 I paid for her accounting degree; I was working two jobs, in the bank and driving limousines.”
In 2004, Gichengo said that they invited his mum to help raise their two boys. Later, his in-laws came and built a house right opposite theirs. This became a big problem.
“They took over our house, and I protested that these were our children and we would raise them they way we wanted but was the odd man out and the best thing my mum did was just observe,” he said.
Eight years ago, their problems escalated. “We started quarrelling often. She would demean me in front of my mother. She would cook her breakfast and would not even offer me any and when my mum made me eggs, my wife would ask why and yet I am not a kid,” he says.
“I kept quiet to protect my mum. In 2019 she started mistreating my mom. My mom would sleep crying. She couldn’t take it anymore and opted to return to Kenya.”
As Gichengo worked to resettle her mother in Kenya, his wife allegedly used their oldest son to track his transactions online, and he found his accounts at Equity and Citibank.
Gichengo narrated that he was at home with his wife in 2022 when the police knocked and served him with divorce papers.
“I packed, not knowing where I was going and in two weeks I was served with alimony and child support papers; we had a hearing in less than a month and I had to pay her Sh. 1.6 million (USD 10,000) a month,” he said.
Gichengo says that his paycheck thinned to around Sh 48,000 (USD300). Within the same week, he was served with another order that his bank account was being frozen.
Shaffie Weru: I used to earn Sh. 1.1 million per month from my radio job
“I checked our joint account, and she had already moved Sh. 6.4 million (USD 40,000) money to her personal account, and there was only Sh. 241,000 (USD1500) left,” he said, adding that his assets were frozen because his wife claimed he would ship everything back to Kenya.
“They froze my retirement and my pension. I didn’t know where to go. With the little money I had, I decided to just go back to Kenya before things worsen. I only took two suitcases and came back,” he said.
“At work, I was told that you can only work remotely in another country for so long. Depression hit me, I didn’t plan myself well, and my lawyer started colluding with my estranged wife. Two months later, my employer eliminated my department.”
Gichengo who is now looking for a job says that owes his wife Sh. 6.8 million (USD 42,000) in alimony arrears and is facing contempt of court charges, with a risk of jail term and his passports being confiscated should he land in the US.
