{"id":364671,"date":"2017-10-24T12:20:01","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T12:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=364671"},"modified":"2017-10-24T12:20:01","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T12:20:01","slug":"woman-identifies-childhood-friend-as-homeless-lunatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/10\/woman-identifies-childhood-friend-as-homeless-lunatic\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman identifies childhood friend as homeless ‘lunatic’"},"content":{"rendered":"
A chance meeting between two childhood friends helped one begin a journey back from drug addiction after many years living on the street.<\/p>\n
It was early October and Wanja Mwaura, 32, was on her way to the market in Lower Kabaete, not far from Nairobi, when she heard someone shout out her name.<\/p>\n
She looked up and was surprised to see a tall man with bulging eyes, an emaciated frame, dirtied black overalls and an equally stained thick woollen hat, sitting on the side of the road. She did not recognise him.<\/p>\n
But when Patrick “Hinga” Wanjiru, 34, introduced himself, Wanja says she found herself in shock. Standing before her was a friend she had known since she was seven years old.<\/p>\n
“Patrick, or Hinga as we called him, and I had met at primary school in 1992,” says Wanja, who is a nurse from Kiambu County, just outside the Kenyan capital.<\/p>\n
“Hinga used to be a great soccer player all throughout school. We nicknamed him ‘Pele’.”<\/p>\n