A faulty sound system is repaired by Cecilia Wangare in her store Outering Shosh Sounds System. In the past few hours, Wangari has become accustomed to her new sensation status on the Internet, which is interesting since she has sparked a craze for what she's been doing for three decades: install and repair sound systems in cars.
Wangari is not your grandmother. In addition to listening to modern music, she speaks slang.
Although her national identity card states that she is 78, Wangari says her real age is 80 years old. And she knows what every vehicle, no matter how big, just needs to take a look.
Subscribe to the standard SMS service and receive factual news and real-time verification. Text the word "NEWS" to 22840
Shosho Cecilia Wangare at her store Outering Shosh Sounds System. (Jenipher Wachie, Standard)
Buy coins
She says that she opens her shop at 8am every day and closes when the work day is over. Sometimes she has to go to the central business district to buy coins.
During the interview with The Standard, Wangari was able to repair a radio in the car of a customer in a few minutes.
Shosho Cecilia Wangare and a young man at his store Outering Shosh Sounds System. She teaches him how to repair sound systems. (Jenipher Wachie, Standard)
His clientele is not limited to Nairobi. This week, for example, one of his employees went to install an entertainment system at a Kisumu club. His grandson says that the returns are quite decent: "At the end of the day, you get something."
Wangari says that repairing sound systems in vehicles is more than a way to make a living. She describes it as fun and fulfilling. She has trained and employed many young people over the years.
However, it was not easy for her to settle in her current job. Wangari remembers the 1960s, remembering how his family protected his father's operations as General Mau Mau.
"My father worked for Kenya Railways and when he retired in 1950, he opened a bar in Ngara with a few partners, in the building next to Equity Bank Ngara," she said.
His father then moved the family to Othaya, Nyeri County, before joining the Mau Mau. After independence, Wangari returned to Nairobi, this time as a peddler.
"I sold vegetables at Parklands and Kibera, I tried so many businesses, I can not even count, I also operated a supermarket."
Wangari's husband died during the Mau Mau War and she never remarried, choosing instead to focus on business and raise her daughter.