Rosary in hand, Margaret Jow 81, limps across the Bomb Blast Memorial Park to the wall of remembrance.
She arrived in Nairobi yesterday at 6am and has been camping outside the park, waiting for it to open so she can fulfil a ritual she has performed annually for two decades.
Margaret hails from Siaya, Kisumu county.
Her daughter, Doreen Jow had only been at her new school for five days before she met her death. She was 25.
“She had told me that City Hall, where she worked, had offered her a scholarship to study at Ufundi house. She was going to become a secretary,” she says.
In the August 1998 attacks on embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, more than 224 people died, including 12 US citizens.
Al Qaeda-linked terrorist claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Margaret spends about ten minutes in front of the wall praying.
“No one knows when death is coming and I come here to pray for my daughter and my other children,” she says.
In an interview with the Star, she said she received some money to transfer her daughter's body and to cater for the funeral.
“We have not been compensated but that is not something I am after because if my daughter had died of an illness, I would not have asked God to compensate me. It was God's plan,” she said.
Ali Mwadama, a survivor and acting chair of the 7th August Bomb Blast Victims Association, said the only money received was from the Charles Njonjo-led National Disaster Committee, which was not government compensation.
Mwadama says the money was realised through the contribution of ordinary Kenyans.
Doreen left behind a child who was in Standard 2. The boy has since completed his university education and recently started working.
Boniface Mutua was passing by Cooperative Bank when he heard an explosion. He did not take it too seriously.
However, the 70-year-old would wake up at Kenyatta National Hospital with no memory of what happened or how he had got there.
Mutua says he was a former litigator and would earn a salary of Sh40,000 at the time.
"The amnesia still affects me, sometimes I forget everything and can therefore not work," he said.
Mutua showed The Star pain medication that he carries with him because his whole body is constantly in pain.
“I have back pains and sometimes I cannot even get out of the house. Sometimes its headaches, my whole body is in pain,” he said.
Mutua lives in Mlolongo area by himself because his family is 'afraid' of his epileptic seizures.
He shows bruises he recently sustained after an attack that left him with burn marks on his knuckles and fingers, some of which have no prints.
“I received Sh60,000 many years ago but never got any more assistance. My three children were educated by the American government but they never went to the university,” he said.
He adds they received letter promising further compensation but have never seen the money to date.
“I need constant medical attention and I have no money to go to the hospital. I am pleading with the government to intervene for us,” he said.
The US Agency for International Development did provide a total of nearly Sh4.5 billion to the families of 173 Kenyan citizens killed or injured in the explosion that occurred on August 7, 1998.
That assistance mainly came in the form of coverage for medical expenses, rebuilding the Cooperative House, compensating owners of Ufundi House, paying school fees paid for children of survivors in secondary schools and fees to those who provided counselling services.
The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale said Kenya and the US will continue to enhance counterterrorism surveillance through intelligence sharing and capacity building.
Hale worked at the embassy during the time of the attack.
“They failed then as terrorists continue to fail today. Their evil did not and will not separate the friendship and partnership that define US-Kenya relations," he said.
“Over the past 21 years, our security cooperation has grown and deepened. The United States and Kenya trust each other – with our lives when needed,” he said.
A memorial will be held today at the park to remember the fallen victims.
(edited by O. Owino)
