Welcome to my great grandmother's 117th birthday. Right now she's
taking pictures of people who have come to see her and celebrate this
big day with her. There's more than 90 years difference between me and
her. She's 117 and I'm just 23. I'm returning to my ancestral home in
Kenya to celebrate remarkable birthday of one of the oldest people
in the world. My great grandmother, Elizabeth. I'm here to discover the
secrets of her long life as she throws a party and reunites five
generations of my family. This is where I was born. It's about
ten miles from Nairobi, the capital p Kenya. This fertile land has been
home to my family for at least six generations. Today there are
hundreds of us, like me, spread around the world. I'm returning from
my home it London -- in London to visit a woman very close to my
heart, who has never left Kenya but has cultivated a global family.
We're just heading up to my great grandma's house. The road is bumpy.
It's like a make shift road. This is a shrine where most of my family are
buried, my great granddad, my grad dad, his children and five wives. My
great grandma is the fifth wife out of six. We're heading up to my great
grandma's home. She lives by the side of where any great granddad
used to live. I'm really excited to see her. There she is.
Hi! Hello. Hello. How are you? I'm fine. Good to see you. Good to see
you. It's a long time. Long time, many years. This is my great
grandmother Elizabeth. She's going to be 117. This is my great aunt,
Irene. She's here to help me with the translation because I can
understand everything my great grandmother tells me, but to speak
the language is really difficult. Great grandma Elizabeth has lived on
this last for 90 years. She grew up tending cattle on her father's farm.
Then she moved here as a young bride and raised seven children. She built
this house with profits from the farm. My great-grandmother is proud
of her government identity card. It doesn't show the exact month or day
that she was born. But it does have the year of birth as 1900. The
tribal tradition of age groups gives the same name to all children born
in the same year. My great grandmother belongs to this age
group which means we know she was born some time between 1899 and
1900ment -- 1900. Do you remember when you
got married? Force? So... She was brought by
force. She was married by force because she was too young. At that
time she didn't want to get married to an old person, because she was
the fifth wife. Great grandmother Elizabeth was the
fifth of six wives of the senior chief. He worked with the British
during colonial rule and is well known in Kenya for playing a part in
the country's independence. Was it difficult for you to be the fifth
wife? Leonard is Elizabeth's sixth child
and he's my great-uncle. He lives next door to my great grandmother.
He was a child during the 1950s, when his father was detained during
the Maupay uprising -- Mau Mau uprising, that was a revolt against
European land. Archive: They were being checked and all members of the
same tribe who have suffered most under the Mau Mau. A state of
emergency was declared, but though it led to the end of British rule,
it was a tough time for my great grandparents. And for my uncle
Leonard. In 1952, my father was taken into detention. Kenya had been
declared emergency and he was detained for the next seven years,
he was in detention. We used to be children of a chief. We became
beggars. We were being helped by those people who we would have
called poor. During now the Mau Mau it was not only affected our family.
It affected other families. One of my auntie, who had I think there
were nine children, my mother took them. Already she had taken two
other children who belonged to our sister, who had died. My mother's
sister. We were, my mother was raising about 20 children. Wow.
Yeah. We had a lot of - it was chaotic, you know? Like we are
fighting for food. This shrine is the resting place of
my great grandfather. He lies alongside his five wives and there's
a space reserved for my great grandmother Elizabeth. As theirs was
a polygamist marriage, visiting the shrine puts into perspective how
large the chief's family really was. My great grandfather is resting
here. But his legacy is living on in hundreds of descendants. What do you
think about polygamy today? Would you advise me to go down that route?
You wouldn't like me to? No? You were the last one to practice
polygamy, does that mean that our family will now be smaller and
smaller and how do you feel about that?
So you wouldn't want me to just have one or two kids, you want me to have
five, six... Regardless of how many children I may have in the future,
there's no doubt that the family is growing. My great grandmother gave
birth to seven children. And there are tens of grand children's. --
grandchildren. My father was one of them. I'm his second child of three,
making me one of many, many great grandchildren to Elizabeth.
That picture there, I think it's you and there's kids around you
I can see that photographs play a big parts in my great grandmother's
life. To celebrate her birthday, she's throwing a party. We're going
to attempt something very special. A family photograph, a living family
tree. With five generations of my family and my great grandmother at
the centre. But with so many people involved, it could take a while.
The first of January is a big day for my great grandmother Elizabeth
Koinange. She's invited family and friends to celebrate her 117th
birthday. We've travelled from far and wide and for me, it's a chance
to reunite with my Kenyan family. So the family, your children, your
children's children, we're all spread out across the world. Like
me, I'm in London. Do you like that we're all over the world now?
Have you always celebrated on January 1, since you can remember?
Right now everyone's preparing the food. There's going to be loads of
meat, vegetables. So now I think it's time for me to get changed, as
all the guests are slowly arriving. I'm going to wear something that's a
bit more comfortable. By throwing this party, my great
grandmother is continuing the tradition started by her late
husband, of gathering friends and family together on the first day of
the year. So right now, the party's in full
swing. Most people have eaten. There's still some people getting
served over here. We still have some late arrivals coming in, as you can
expect. We have my great-uncle right now giving a speech and saying once
everyone's eaten, all the family get together and take a group picture of
our family tree. Ment -- family tree. Next time for the guest of
honour to take the microphone. Time for cake and one of Elizabeth's
granddaughter's does the honours. Happy birthday... To you. Happy
birthday. APPLAUSE
Great grandma puts her longevity down to a diet of boiled yam and
milky tea. But for today she's happy to indulge. Everyone has been given
some cake. The first people to be given some cake was everyone named
after my great granddad. So what my auntie said is all the Koinanges
come and get some cake. She's really happy. I think she's had a lot of
cake. Hopefully when I'm holder than 100 years old, I will be fed cake by
all the people who come after me. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. I'm
quite jealous, to be honest. We're just going to wait... This cake is
good. We're going to wait for my great grandmother to go to where
we're taking a family picture. Once we've sat down we will start moving
towards that area. Organising so many people is a tough task.
Everybody's keen to catch up. While great grandmother patiently waits,
it's a chance to meet relatives I didn't know I had. Do you know how
we're related? I belong to the grandmother older than her. This is
my cousin... Cousin? His son is your dad? Yeah. Hi. Hi. Thank you very
much. I'm your aunt. Yeah. People are so excited to see each other
that they're socialising and they're slowly, slowly, slowly moving
towards this way. Hopefully we get the picture by the
end of the day. ? First to join our living family true, great
grandmother Elizabeth, surrounded by her six surviving children, who have
a combined age of more than 400. Next to join, my aunts and uncles.
Now the third generation has been called. So that means the people who
call my great grandmother great grandmother, so I'm part of them and
I'm going to join them. My mother has been holding this party for
about 20 years. She enjoys it. She would like to do it every quarter of
a year. She's happy to see her family coming together. She has
become like the pillar for the family unit.
APPLAUSE Many of us enjoy tracing our family
tree. But for most families, gathering so many generations
together like this isn't possible. It's no surprise that people have
travelled from far and wide because great grandmother Elizabeth's
enthusiasm for life is infectious. I finally got my selfie. Hers is a
life well lived. A life focussed on providing her descendants with
advantages that she didn't get to enjoy. Faith, love and food are the
fundamentals of my great grandmother's life. Although she
rarely leaves her small house, the world comes to her through her
children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, like me. One of the
things which I like about her, and I think this is God given, is her
memory. Because she doesn't get old. If you come here and you talk say
hello to her and you talk to her, next time you come, she remember you
very well. She can't forget. Bye. Bye-bye. Improvements in
medicine mean we can all expect a longer life. But it's how you live
it that really matters. And for this, my great grandmother Elizabeth
is my inspiration. For most parts of the country
there's a fair amount of cloud this afternoon, producing some