By Prudence Minayo
Sergeant Phoebe Makau made history as the first female warship engineer in Kenya. Apart from ensuring navy ships function properly, she also trains new recruits who join the electrical engineering department of the navy. Growing up, she wanted to be a journalist but the lack of funds meant that she couldn’t pursue this dream. Hence, when the opportunity to join the army presented itself, she took it and ran with it. Today, her job has taken her to different parts of the world.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
Running away from home
In June 2001, she ran away from home to chase the dream of joining the Kenya Defense Forces. Leaving her home in Koola, Machakos county, she did not even know if she would pass the recruitment. Having had relatives who served and still serve in the military, further fuelled her desire to join the forces. However, no girl from her village had ever been successful in joining the military. As she presented her papers for the recruitment, her heart was filled with trepidation not knowing what the outcome would be. As luck would have it, her excellent score in Mathematics made her stand out and she was recruited to join the navy.
Informing her Parents
As she was recruited to train for the navy, her family members did not know where she was. Mobile phones were a rarity hence neither she nor her family owned one. She finally wrote to her family when she got some money. Attached to the letter, were pictures of herself at the Recruits Training School in Eldoret and Sh2,000. Her family made it to her pass-out parade.
Electrical Engineering
Sergeant Phoebe chose to join the electrical engineering department of the navy. She went on to train at the Railway Training School before undertaking a two-year training at the Kenya Navy School.
At the beginning of her career, she worked at the Kenya Navy Base Engineering Services where she was put in charge of water power.
She was moved to routine patrol boats where she was in charge of electrical functions of boats and routine boat maintenance. The engineer worked in the navy commander’s boat and in 2010 moved to Manda Bay in Lamu for one year. At Manda Bay, they used generators to power the camp because there was no power.
In 2010, she became a sergeant and went to the Kenya Navy Base Dockyard, where she did level three ship maintenance.
MV Jasiri
In 2012, she was chosen among the crew that went to pick MV Jasiri, a warship worth an upward of Sh4 billion at the time, from Astirello Gondan Shipyard in Spain. They stayed in Spain for three months being trained on the handling of the ship. Then, came the turbulent 21-day journey back to the country. One of the most memorable and scary point of the journey was the stretch across a path where three oceans converged. She was the second in command, after the captain. To pass through the stretch, it took the warship three days of battling the winds and waters.
“It is a small stretch but we spent three days rolling, pitching, yawning through the treacherous waters as we worked our way through. Despite the sea sickness and vomiting, we did all we could to get the ship through,” she recalled.
As a part of the crew at MV Jasiri, she has played a role in some dangerous operations. She had a role in the destruction of two ships ferrying drugs, the MV Al Noor and Baby Irish. The first female warship engineer in the country was also part of the team that sneaked KDF Special Forces on the first ever sea to shore assault in Kismayu beach on September 2012. As the crew of the ship, their job was to get as close as possible to the beach without being noticed by the Al-Shabaab. By the time the militants were aware, they had already been surrounded.
Among her most memorable moments on MV Jasiri was when they hosted former President Uhuru Kenyatta on a journey from Mtongwe Navy Base to Lamu in December 2015. The 10-hour long journey was surreal to her and the president asked them a lot of questions pertaining to their job.
Personal Life
Makau, a staunch Christian, is married to Benedict Mwanza who is also a soldier. In a past interview, she said it was not easy raising their son, since all of them were away from home most of the time. According to her, the house help is very important since she spends a lot of time with the child when he is not in school. Hence, it is important to reimburse her well.
