Help me to find my grandfather

Hello lovely people!



My name is Luna, I'm 22 years old and i live in Belgium.
I don't know how to start my story so i'll begin at the verry beginning.


First of all, to make sure that there is no confusion: I am looking for my grandfather!

This is the only photo that I have of him.

So here is where my story begins.

When my dad was 12 years old, his dad (my grandfather) had to leave to Kenia.
They never saw eachother again, so I never met my grandfather and God knows what happend to him.
So my grandfather doesn't know about my existence to be completely clear.
Before my grandfather left to kenia, he bought 3 flighttickets, one for
himself, one for my dad and one for the sister of my dad.

A few weeks before they would leave, my grandmother found the tickets and she teared them apart, they were already seperated at that moment.
My grandfather only had money left for one more ticket, so he left completely alone.
My dad and my grandfather wrote letters to eachother, I now have those letters in my possesion.
All of the sudden, the contact between them stopped, just out of the blue.

When I was younger and me and my dad talked about these things,
he always told me that he thought that my grandmother had something to do with the broken contact and since i read the letters myself, i also believe that.
You can assume from the letters that it could take 6 months for example till my dad received a letter, but my grandfather wrote him al least every month.
The last letter that he received is from 1992.
He writes here that he's verry happy out there with a women namen Alexandra Kabugua (I will talk about this later) and that he can't wait to see him again.
That he's hoping so much for my dad to go to Kenia.

So a few weeks ago I was taking a bath and I was thinking about my grandfather and how for Gods sake it is possible that no one ever went there to find him.
So I got this idea to go to Kenia and to search for him, dead or alive.
Cause there is a 50% chance that he is dead, but there is also a 50% chance that he is still alive.

Call it intuition but I think that he is still alive and I truly believe that I will find him.

If I'm wrong, I still want to know what happend to him. How he died, if he had a beautifull life out there and what he did in his life.
I had some money left on my bankaccount so an hour after my bath I booked a flight to nairobi to go find out what happend with him.
I'm going completely alone and I must admit that I'm a little scared, but it just feel like this is something that I have to do.

So after booking my flight I started researching on everything and
everyone that  could be a possible link to my grandfather.

First of all I started to analyze all the letters (all the letters came from Nairobi) that I have and wrote everything down that could be of any use to find him.
Second of all I started researching on my grandfather himself but without any luck, it felt like he was completely vanished from the earth.

In the last letter that my dad received he was talking about Alexandra
Kabugua, the women that I named before.
Her nickname in the letter was Sascha.
So I started looking for that name on Google.

And believe it or not, call it luck or coincedence (cause that is how it felt), there she was! On Facebook!
I didn't know where my head was at that moment and for me that was the first sign that I couldn't stop this anymore and that I have to go as far as  can!
So I sended her a message with my whole story in it.
A week later she still didn't react so i kept on researching on her name.

I found an artical in the Kenyan gazette, saying that she died on 9th of april 2013.

Nicol Githira Kabugua, of P.O. Box 1027–10100, Nyeri in Kenya, the executor named in the the deceased’s last will, through Messrs. Omwenga Arasa & Co., advocates of Nairobi, for a grant of probate of written willl of Alexandral Lvovna Kabugua alias Alexandra Luovna Kabugua, late of Nyeri, who died at Nairobi Hospital in Kenya, on 9th April, 2013.


My heart broke when I read it.
It felt like I lost someone important that I never met before and never will meet..

So I went looking all over her facebook for people that knew her well.
I found this women called Rosemary that posted a reaction to all the photo's of Alexandra.
So I went looking on her Facebook and found a photo of her and Alexandra, I didn't have to think twice and texted her immediately.
Unfortunatly without any luck..
I also found Alexandra's daughter so I texted her, but also without any luck..

I found a group on Facebook called backpackers in Africa. I'm not the kind of girl that uses social media to achieve something but I thought that I have to put my principles aside because this is for a greater good!
So I posted my story in that group to ask if there are people who can give me tips and tricks to find him.
People reacted and told me all kinds of things that I could do.
Then a few days ago, someone sended me a prive message on 
Facebook.

He told me that he is in Nairobi right now and that he wants to help me.
So I sended him all the info that I have of my grandfather and all the post office boxes that he wrote on the letters.

This guy went to the main post office in Nairobi and he asked them if
the post office boxes still exist.

This is a picture he took when he was waiting at the main post office in Nairobi.

There is an adress on these post office boxes but they were not allowed to gave it to him. They told him that he had to go to Safaricom to get permission to reveal the adress.
He did that and the day after he went back to the main post office in Nairobi.

They told him that Alexandra Kabugua was e verry powerfull women in Kenia and that she was working with the United Nations and that they are not allowed to give him any information and that he had to go to the department of the United Nations in Nairobi to find out about the family record.

He told me that he needed money for that because it's verry stressfull
to go there and that those people are verry well protected.
So yesterday I sended an email with my story to the United Nations in Nairobi but so far without any luck.

This is pretty much where I am at right now.
I'm going to Nairobi the 15th of august untill 30 september.

I'll need money to find out everything that I need to find out.
And I'll need money to help people out there, to make sure they have food on the table at the end of the day.
I just want to do whatever i can out there, anything that matters for someone out there and just put a smile on their face.

And I realize that I can't help everyone, but what is normal for us, can be life changing for them.
It would be selfish to go there and find my grandfather without helping everywhere I can for people who really need it.

You have no idea what it would mean to me if you people would support me!


The first time that I saw my dad crying was when I was 16 years old, 
because we started talking about his father.
The second time was a few days ago when I called him and told him everthing that i know right now.
It's painfull for me, but it's more painfull for him..
If i can find him, it will change my life and his life forever.


This whole adventure will be lifechanging for me, but most important for my dad..

I'm going to end my story now.

To anyone who read this, I'm already thankfull that you didn't quit
reading!

I will update everything that's new and when I'm in Nairobi, I'll make a
videodiary everyday so you can stay posted on what's happening out there,
so you can all see what I will do with the money out there, how many people that i can help out there..
So you can see how my life and the
lives of others are changing,
by your support!!!

Thank you so much for paying attention,
and I hope this story can change something inside you like it's changing me every minute.



Lots of love, Luna