A 25-year-old Lebanese, Alexander Badran has stunned many as he embarks on a journey to trace his Kenyan grandparents despite living in Lebanon for the last 23 years.
Badran was born of a Kenyan mother from Ukambani Jacinta Mueni Kitinga but his father Ahmad Yousef Badran was a Lebanese and still alive.
His mother has since passed on after committing suicide in 2008.
He told Nation in a recent interview that he was born in Mombasa Hospital and has a Kenyan birth certificate but is not a Kenyan by citizenship which he is yearning for.
For the first two years of his life, he lived in Kenya before moving to Lebanon.
Badran says he has in the past tried to trace his kin via social media but has been unsuccessful. He has walked to the Kenyan consulate in Beirut but he has been asked to travel to Kenya to apply for citizenship.
“My name is Alexander Badran. I am Kenyan or Lebanese, actually both. I am 25 years old. I was born in Kenya on March 11, 1995 at the Mombasa Hospital. I have decided to come to you through the Nation because I am trying to find my mother’s relatives, siblings or any of her relatives. I have tried on my own the past couple of years through social media, browsing through names that relate to my mother’s and those I heard my father mention. I have not been lucky,” he said.
Bedran adds that he has not enjoyed a good friendship with his father because “he lied too much” making it hard to believe anything that he says.
He says that it is hard to believe all he has told him about his Kenyan mother but still takes a leap of faith hoping to trace her kin.
“My mother’s name was Jacinta Mueni Kitinga. She was born sometime between 1972 and 1974. She was initially protestant though I don’t know the exact denomination. She had a brother named Alfred who was either a priest or a cleric in a church. Her mother, my grandmother, was called Rachel. Her father was David or Daniel; I am not sure. My mother was living in Mombasa when she met my father. They later relocated to Lebanon,” he narrates.
“My father’s name is Ahmad Yousef Badran. He is Lebanese. He was born in November 1952 or 1953. My relationship with my father wasn’t perfect. I viewed him as a strange man because he often lied to people. I cannot confirm if whatever he told me about my mother was accurate.”
He adds that when her mother moved to Lebanon, she was denied the opportunity to learn Arabic or even go outside. It would later degenerate to a full-blow fight then depression which made her commit suicide.
“In August 2007, or perhaps 2008, she committed suicide through electrocution. The neighbours saw her intentionally hold onto an electric wire until she died. That same day my father had threatened to send my mother to a mental asylum, saying she would be locked up. Weeks before her death, she asked for a divorce but my father laughed it off and beat her whenever she mentioned it.”
Badran described his father as a “wicked” man which is what has been pushing him to apply for Kenyan citizenship.
He now hopes that his Kenyan birth certificate will help him in his quest to go back to his maternal motherland.
“The only Kenyan document I have is a birth certificate. My mother gave it to me years back and told me to guard it jealously. She said it could one day help me. I hope it does,” he pleaded.
