For eight agonizing years, Grace Kemunto and her husband David Makori have been prisoners of their own legs. In a harrowing saga that defies medical explanation and highlights the cracks in Kenya’s social safety net, this family of six has walked thousands of kilometers across the Rift Valley, driven by an inexplicable and relentless compulsion to keep moving.

The family’s bizarre odyssey came to a temporary halt this week at the Kericho Police Station, where officers were left baffled by their condition. Ragged, malnourished, and carrying their bewildered children, the couple described a life of perpetual motion, sleeping in bushes and surviving on the goodwill of strangers. Their plight is not just a story of homelessness; it is a chilling manifestation of what experts suspect to be a severe, untreated case of dromomania—an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander.

A Medical Mystery in Nyamira

The family’s journey began in Nyamira County in 2018, when what started as a restlessness evolved into a pathological need to travel. “We just feel the heat in our feet,” Makori told stunned police officers. “If we stop, the pain becomes unbearable. We have to walk.” This biological imperative has forced them to pull their children out of school, denying them a future in favor of a destination that does not exist.

Psychiatrists warn that such cases are often misdiagnosed as vagrancy. Dr. A.M. Suleiman, a Nairobi-based neuropsychologist, explains that dromomania can be triggered by senile dementia or severe trauma, but its manifestation in an entire family unit suggests a shared psychotic disorder or a unique environmental trigger. The tragedy lies in the years of neglect; local administrators in Nyamira reportedly dismissed them as "cursed" rather than sick.

• The Human Toll: The children, aged between 3 and 12, have known no other life but the road. They are visibly stunted and traumatized, their development arrested by the constant instability.
• Systemic Failure: Despite passing through at least five counties—Kisii, Narok, Bomet, Nakuru, and Kericho—no social services department intervened until their arrival at the police station this week.
• The urgent Appeal: The family is not asking for money; they are asking for a cure. “We want to stop,” Kemunto pleaded. “But our bodies won’t let us.”

The Road to Nowhere

The phenomenon of "uncontrollable walking" has historical precedents but is exceedingly rare in modern clinical files. By criminalizing their existence or treating them as mere beggars, society has failed to address the root medical cause. The police in Kericho have now handed them over to the Child Protection Unit, but a long-term solution remains elusive without specialized psychiatric intervention.

As the sun sets over the tea plantations of Kericho, the Makori family sits uneasily, their legs twitching with the phantom urge to move. Their story is a grim indictment of a healthcare system ill-equipped to handle complex mental health conditions. Unless the Ministry of Health intervenes with a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan, their respite will be short-lived, and the road will call to them once again.