Life Stories: Celebrating Life at 117

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