RIGHT OF REPLY - My Sister Caro's Side of the story

Dear Readers,
My name is Caro, Mwalimu Andrew’s younger sister. The
purpose of writing this piece is to set the record straight. My brother Mwalimu
Andrew has a personal column in the Sunday
Nation newspaper titled Staffroom
Diary. In it he has negatively mentioned my name thrice. The first time was
when Andrew, or more commonly Dre, publicly warned me to stay away from Cate,
his former girlfriend (August 14, 2011). The other two times was when he accused
me of telling the whole village, Mwisho wa Lami, that he had won and
lost a vehicle
in a Safaricom competition (September 16, and 23, 2011). These lies have made
me the subject of ridicule at the village. My parents also think that I am the
cause of sibling rivalry between Dre and I. Even his student, Anastacia has
started the ‘Save Dre from Caro’ campaign on Facebook, on account of these
allegations. However, I will prove that
all of these allegations are false, just like Dre’s friend Wesonga did. Dre had
wrongly accused Wesonga of making his life difficult at Kenyatta University
(KU).
Cate and I had been friends even
before Dre came along. We still are. For him to publicly warn me from being her
friend due to their fall out, will not work. He has often stated that
he broke-up
with Cate because she accused him of impregnating her. The truth is that Cate
found someone better than Dre. Also, he is too scared to get anyone pregnant
because he fears responsibility. His salary is too small and he is too selfish.
Besides, dad would not allow Dre to bring in his family to our home.
As for stating that I told everyone that he
had won and lost the Safaricom vehicle, at the time I had better things to do.
This was in September when the Joint Admissions Board chose me to join
KU this year.
While Andrew went around telling everyone about his Safaricom ‘success’, I was
out in the market selling vegetables to raise pocket money to go with to KU.
The capital to my business venture had been provided by my other brother, Pius.
My parents had only managed to raise the fees. Dre was too cash strapped to
even spare a shilling. His promise had been that when he picked up his
Safaricom car, he would transport me to KU. Besides saving my parents’ fare,
the pickup would have enough room for all the food I would carry. Dre has often
told me about the ‘drought’ in university
I am sure that even, you, the reader, would not
have realized this had I not told you. You only see the characters from Dre’s
life through his eyes. Despite his lies, I still look up to him. Even when he
continually makes these false allegations against me. Like the time
when he accused
me of telling everyone that he had won an educational scholarship to the
University of Netherlands. That is, however, a story for another day. Dre has
his shortcomings but he is still my brother. He is a good teacher as he has
made Kiswahili and CRE understandable subjects at Mwisho wa Lami Primary. I
speak here as his former student, although he ensured that he harassed me every
opportunity he got. Which goes to show that he would rather keep his job, than
be called nepotistic.
To all the concerned villagers at
Mwisho wa Lami and to my parents, that is my truth and I am sticking to it.
Dre, I know that you are the torchbearer of ‘Whispers’. Thus, you create
stories, but unlike him, you sometimes do not base them on facts. Rectify this.
While you are it, talk to Pius on backing you up to start the
Staffroom Diary FM radio station. As for Anastacia, your loyalty to my
brother is
admirable. In fact, you and I should get together so that I can tell
you about The Netherlands story