Beatrice Achieng Odhiambo
Premium memorialLovingly known as “Mama Achieng”
18 May 1948 — 9 January 2022 · aged 73
Kibuye Market fish trader who fed Kisumu and put seven children through school
Kisumu, Kenya Born in Nyakach, Kisumu County Resting at Family home, Nyalenda, KisumuAbout Beatrice
Mama Achieng would have told you the secret of her business was the first hour: be at Dunga Beach before the sun lifts off the lake, greet the fishermen by name, and never haggle a man out of his breakfast. Beatrice Achieng Odhiambo was born in 1948 at Nyakach, one of nine children, and left school after Standard Six when the money ran out. By sixteen she was selling omena from a basin on the roadside in Kisumu.
By the 1980s she had a proper stall at Kibuye Market, a loan from Kenya Commercial Bank, and the first chest freezer in the fish section, which the neighbours at first mistook for a coffin and later queued to rent. She married Zablon Odhiambo, a Kenya Railways clerk and a diehard Gor Mahia supporter, in 1970. When he died in 1998 she raised their seven children, and four of her late sister's, on tilapia money and sheer arithmetic. She kept her savings in an old Blue Band tin and her ledgers in her head, and every term she paid school fees before she paid for anything else, including her own shoes.
Her children became a teacher, a nurse, two engineers, an advocate and two traders. All of them will tell you she never let them skip Sunday service at ACK St. Peter's in Nyalenda, or leave the table without finishing the fish, bones included. She chaired the Kibuye women's chama for twenty-two years with a firm hand and a loud laugh. If a trader fell sick, the group sold her fish for her until she was well.
'Erokamano' was the last word she said to every customer, whether they had bought a kilo or only asked the price. Mama Achieng died peacefully at her Nyalenda home in January 2022, aged seventy-three, with her children singing around her. The Kisumu lakeshore is a little quieter without her.
“Pay the school fees first. The rest of life can queue.”
- Faith
- Christian
- Place of birth
- Nyakach, Kisumu County
- Resting place
- Family home, Nyalenda, Kisumu
- Passed away
- 9 January 2022, Kisumu
Celebration of Life
Friday, 21 January 2022 at 10:00 UTC
Add to calendarMemorial fund
Mama Achieng school fees fund
Keeps the Kibuye women's chama fund going, so that no child of the market loses a term of school.
$1,586.50 raised of $4,500
35%20 recent contributions
- AN
Anonymous gave $19 · 4y ago
- AN
Anonymous gave $28.50 · 4y ago
- SP
Sunil Patel gave $190 · 4y ago
- AN
Anonymous gave $9.50 · 4y ago
- PK
Prof. Maria Kozłowska gave $95 · 4y ago
“With love from the diaspora.”
Life journey
Primary school, Standard Six
Nyakach Primary School1956 – 1962 · Nyakach
Left when fees ran out, and promised she would never let her own children do the same.
Fish trader
Kibuye Market1964 – 2019 · Kisumu
From a roadside basin of omena to the best-known tilapia stall in the market.
Married Zablon Odhiambo
1970 · Kisumu
A Kenya Railways clerk and lifelong Gor Mahia fan.
First freezer in the fish section
Kenya Commercial Bank1984 · Kisumu
Bought with her first bank loan; rented to her neighbours at cost.
Chairperson, Kibuye Women's Chama
Kibuye Market Traders1991 – 2013 · Kisumu
Led a savings group that paid school fees for over one hundred children.
Women's Fellowship leader
ACK St. Peter's Church1978 – 2020 · Nyalenda, Kisumu
Led the Sunday choir's alto section for four decades.
Tap an organisation to find others who studied or worked there.
Family & connections
Beatrice is survived by
- Dorcas Akinyi Odhiambo· Daughter
- Samuel Otieno Odhiambo· Son
- Eng. Vincent Ouma Odhiambo· Son
- Pauline Atieno Odhiambo· Daughter
- Zablon Odhiambo Jr.· Son
- 17 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
5 people have shared a memory of Beatrice.
Knew Beatrice? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- HA
Member of the Kibuye Women's Chama
When my husband died, the chama gave me four months of school fees without being asked. It was Mama Achieng who knocked on my door with the envelope. She said, 'Do not thank me, thank the lake.' I thank them both.
- RA
Childhood friend in Nyakach, now in Minnesota
We walked eight kilometres to school together, sharing one pair of sandals between us on the stony bits. Beatrice never forgot that. When I visited in 2015 she gave me a bag of smoked fish for the whole of Minnesota. Nyasaye ogwedhi, my sister.
- DO
Daughter
I once asked Mama how she did the sums for seven children on a fish stall. She laughed and said, 'You do not do sums with love, you do sacrifices.' I still keep her Blue Band tin on my shelf, with the last coins inside.
- RO
Vicar of ACK St. Peter's, Nyalenda
Mama Achieng's alto was sharp enough to cut a net. We would wait for her to start the hymn and the rest of us would follow. She also never let a hungry stranger leave church without a plate. That was her sermon, and it was better than mine.
- PO
Fellow trader at Kibuye Market
Mama Achieng sold me my first kilo of tilapia on credit in 1996, when I had nothing. She said, 'Pay me when you are a man with a shop.' I now own that shop. I paid her on the very day, and she cried and gave me a free fish.
