Dorcas Gachagua: Girl from Kiandutu slums poised to be Kenya's Second Lady

Ms Gachagua, a retired banker turned pastor, says she grew up mostly in Thika's Kiandutu slums after her family relocated from Ndunyu Chege, Muranga, where she was born.

Her father died when she was young, leaving her mother to raise her seven siblings while working menial jobs to put food on the table.

"A widow with 8 kids you have no where to go, it is like you are ostracized, even the family didnt want her to go back there," Ms Gachagua told KTN News in an interview. 

According to Ms Gachagua, her early adolescent years were the most difficult because she and her siblings shuttled between coffee farms and did various menial jobs, including becoming maids to supplement their mother's meager wages.

"My mum worked in her business, trading maize and beans while my siblings and I worked in coffee farms, and sold water to supplement her wages," she said. 

Ms Rigathi recalls her family being forced to sleep in a chicken coop after their extended family disowned them, believing they were after a share of their grandfather's estate.

"We were made to stay in a chicken coop outside my grandmother's house, because the rest of the family thought we'd claim our grandfather's inheritance,'' she added. 

Ms Gachagua attended Mugumo-ini Primary School and then St Francis Girls. Following that, she was accepted into Kenyatta University's 1985/1986 intake.

At Kenyatta University, she pursued a bachelor of education degree, majoring in History and CRE. 

Thereafter, she joined the Agriculture Department of  Cooperative bank in 1990, where she cut her teeth as a banker. 

She explains that developing a plan for coffee and tea farmers to be able to access credit without having to put up collateral was part of her job.

Up until 2006, Ms. Rigathi worked as a banker before retiring to join the family business as a director.

Meeting Gachagua 

Ms. Rigathi claims that she first met her future husband in the early 1980s while visiting Moi at his Kabarnet Gardens home.

Ms Rigathi described the trip as a suicide mission in a series of interviews.

According to her, she was in bed contemplating suicide on that particular day when one of her girlfriends woke her up and informed her of the trip to Moi's home. 

She claims she only agreed because she realized it would most likely be her last trip. She intended to create a scene on the presidential dais in the hopes of being shot dead.

"When the president stood, I just got up and ran and I expected them to shoot me... I dont know how it happened, but it is God's way of doing thing," she narrated. 

"He stood up and started coming towards me and I went and bumped into him... I was asking myself, is this how people die? 

Gachagua who was leading the delegation from Nyeri to Moi's home was the one ticking off names and would interpret his future wife's desperate act as one of courage. 

Her suicidal plot was thwarted by Gachagua who offered her words of comfort when she confessed what she was about to do.

After narrating her ordeal to the late Mzee Moi, she was invited to State House alongside her mum and her siblings. 

On the day she and her family visited Mzee Moi, Gachagua was also at the State House, flanked by his parents who were pursing a different matter. 

The second meeting kicked off a love story that culminated in their marriage in 1989. 

The couple has two boys, Kevin and Keith Gachagua who are 31, and 30 years old respectively. 

Kelvin, a computer software engineer works in a bank while his younger brother, Keith is a medical doctor. 

Before the wheels of fate ushered her and her husband onto the national pedestal, Ms Gachagua who has been working as director in the family business was keen on hanging her corporate boots to become a full time pastor.