1988-2024
The Multitalented Star
For some of us, life is a rhythm. A routine. An experience where we wake up every morning, stretch, and draw the blinds to behold, like we have always done, nature’s beauty. To open the window and feel the fresh morning air on our faces, to let the first streaks of sunlight steal into the room, illuminating our most intimate spaces. To enjoy the relaxing feel of a morning shower, a moment at the family table, and a productive day at work.
For some of us, there is no reason why we shouldn’t go through life like it’s our right, like we deserve to be here, enjoying all the good things life offers. There’s really no reason why we shouldn’t be staying in that exclusive neighborhood, why we shouldn’t get that car we’ve been dreaming of, why we shouldn’t go on that vacation simply because we didn’t plan for it. No reason really why we should apologize for living life without a care in the world. And why should we?
Yet perhaps for some of us, all it would take is a simple visit to the hospital’s emergency room, a stop at the palliative care, or an encounter with a terminally ill person battling cancer to really appreciate life. For some of us, it would take the sight of people lying helplessly on hospital beds, breathing through tubes, sleeping through the sound of humming machines, and groaning in pain to really appreciate how lucky we are to be healthy, experiencing the normal rhythms of life. To wake up each morning and go to bed each night in one piece. To really acknowledge how undeserving we are.
Because, really, how would you explain why another person, a mother, a child, a spouse, a sibling to someone whose body is no less flesh and blood and water and air than yours has to go through brutal rigors of chemotherapy, lose their hair, their flesh, their beauty, their smile and still end up dead and not you? Like, what makes any of us more special than they? Is there a compelling reason why you and I don’t have cancer? Is there something special about your children that they’re not going for chemo sessions? Does that make you and I the chosen ones? Are we any more human? Are our hearts purer? Are our prayers more profound than those who have witnessed the ugliness of cancer? Why then do we have healthier bodies that creates the impression that we’re more deserving than others?
In truth, nothing. We’re no better than those whose lives had been snuffed short by the monster, who had to travel far and wide to buy health, who had been rendered poor by the burden of expensive healthcare. We’re no more special than those who have to leave their children orphaned, their families destitute, their dreams unfulfilled. Given a chance, they too would want to wake up with the sun, to inhale the fresh morning air, to gaze at their bodies in the mirror as they shower, kiss their children, and feel their morning breath. To get stuck in traffic, to queue at the checkout.
Things we look forward to and sometimes get outrightly pissed at.
Given a chance, they’d prefer that over the constant confrontation with their mortality. Because as sure as the sun rises, we all share the same story: the story of man and the tragedy that unites us all. The reality that one day, if the chips fall off (and they sure as heck will fall), our bodies might remind us that we, too, are carrying cancer. It could be a subtle pain that you could suppress with a single pill, a headache that won’t go away, a cough, or a strange change in your appetite.
Or, if you’re Winfred Bwire Ndubi, it could be a subtle pimple that develops on your breast when you’re 14. Yes,14. At the onset of teenage hood. When you’re just transitioning from a child to a woman, your body developing in all the right places. When you’re just starting to discover yourself, to embrace this new body. The pimples are there, alright, elements of puberty. Proof that you’re a normal, healthy teenager. Except you wonder if teens also grow pimples on their boobs. It seemed most unlikely.
So you ask your mum if it’s a girl thing to have a pimple on your boobs, especially bigger pimples. Your mum asks to see it, and you watch her face as she prods the pimple with a look of concern and curiosity. She says it needs a professional opinion. So you go to the hospital, where they run tests before finally giving the pimple a name.
Breast cyst.
You are 14, and you don’t know what a bloody cyst is and what it’s doing on your young breasts. So you ask, no, rather your mum asks. You’re told it’s nothing to worry about. That sometimes, it happens to women and girls and eventually it disappears after they have had children.
You leave the hospital and go your merry way. You clear middle school, and because you’re smart, hardworking, and incredibly gifted, you soar through high school and senior school, where you continue to perfect your art in drama, design, crafts, and music. You join university, the prestigious Makerere, where you leave with a bachelor’s degree in industrial and fine arts and a much bigger cyst in your breast.
Speaking of breasts, they had grown bigger, fuller, a confirmation of womanhood. Of having slithered through the fog of teenagehood and the dottings of your parents (you’re an only child). You now have the height of a model accessorized with the dark, flawless complexion of your Wanga heritage. Your eyes, small and beautiful and intelligent, add a touch to your femininity. You have developed a trim but curvaceous figure and wear a smile like a permanent accessory.
You’re in your early 20s, educated, youthful, talented, and impatient to savor all that the world has in store. As a child, you’ve always had a thing for drama, theatre arts, music, and design with a natural business acumen. Because you know exactly what you want out of life, you go for it, utilizing one talent at a time. The same year you graduate, you venture into the hospitality business and put up cozy apartments for bookings, your interior design skills playing out naturally and catapulting you to instant success. It helps because you’re operating from the tourist hub of the Kenyan coast with white sandy beaches and palm trees and the vast blue ocean blowing its cool breeze of good fortune.
That same year, you create a music band where you’re the chief vocalist, and together with another talented trio, you traverse Kenya and the entire East Africa, singing your hearts out. Then you explore your next love for baking, turning dough into a delicious work of art. You open a cake business working with wedding planners and serving high-end clients. With the immense success drawn from this new business, you unveil yet another dream. You start designing spaces and homes for clients, adding color and style, and upgrading them to each client’s unique taste. It flourishes because clients love your diligence, attention to detail, and ability to meet deadlines.
But your potential remains unbelievably immense, so you keep tapping at each one, prospering wherever you go. Your next target is the screens. You audition for roles in local shows and get cast in productions like Kilimani Dynasty, Penzi, Kisasi, Tehanami, and others. But it is the popular soap opera Sultana, where you play the leading female protagonist, “Dida,” that pushes you further into people’s TV screens and hearts, plunging you into instant fame.
With the role, you stop being Winnie Bwire Ndubi and become known as Dida. Amidst the fame, you find love and adopt two adorable boys; your titles keep shifting from entrepreneur to musician, baker, actress, and now wife and mother. Your life suddenly grows busier, happier, and more fulfilled.
All this while, the cyst in your breast had remained largely forgotten. Naturally, because, according to the doctor’s words, it had been harmless and was supposed to go away once you had children. Except you’re now 33 and hadn’t had children, only adopted. One day, you start noticing this funny swelling in your hand. So you tell your partner who had come to love your breast with the strange cyst on it. He tells you that as long as your cyst remains harmless with nothing oozing out of it, then it’s probably nothing. You had no reason to think your body was carrying cancer. Because according to everyone, a puffy cyst oozing pus is the first symptom of breast cancer. Except the swelling in your hand gives rise to unexplained fatigue and exhaustion which you assume is because of too much work.
However, when the underarm pain persists, accompanied by unusual sensations during menstruation, it becomes apparent that it’s time to see the doctor again. They perform scans which turn out inconclusive and do nothing to alleviate the pain. More tests, and CT scans and a biopsy, and they finally confirm your diagnosis.
You’ve had cancer all along.
You go through the initial emotions of shock, denial, and fear. But because you have so much to live for and so much to give, you begin the long, brutal journey of chemotherapy. Your family joins in the struggle, emptying their accounts and hearts and minds to help you reclaim your health, your life. Meanwhile, you continue to work and act, using your character on the screens to hide and sometimes express your inner turmoil. An outlet of sorts.
Because sickness as bad as cancer has a way of tearing at the seams of love and marriage, your mother ends up being your sole caregiver. From there, things started spiraling downwards.
On August 15, 2024, Winnie took to social media to appeal for financial help from her fans and followers in order to continue with her cancer treatment. In the video, she said she needed KSHS 5 million ($50,000) to cover the costs of her treatment in Istanbul, Turkey.
“I’m so frustrated at how expensive health care is. Every time I have made ten steps forward, I feel like I’m being dragged back and ask for strength. Thank you for praying with me,” said Winnie during the live video. “I have not made any posters. I just wanted to make an appeal. This journey has been turbulent. I’m so over it. I don’t mean that I’m giving up. I’m just done carrying this alone. I need your help, guys.”
Unfortunately, the situation worsened over time. Winnie’s mother, Stella Ndubi, reported that things got so bad at a certain point that the pain did not go away. That’s when she went for further check-ups, and it was confirmed that the cancer had spread to her brain, lymph, liver, and stomach.
“She deteriorated in the third month. We didn’t have much time in Turkey because things were not looking good. At that time, while we were waiting for treatment, she told me she had a conversation with God. She had told God, ‘If I am going to die, let it be now because I’m going through so much pain. But if I’m going to survive, I’m ready to hold on. Otherwise, if I am going to go through this pain and still die, then let it be now.” Her mother, a breast cancer survivor herself, added that she encouraged Winnie to hang in there because she believed they’d pull through.
Unfortunately, Winnie succumbed to the disease two days later, on September 5, 2024, barely a month after she made the online appeal.
“It is with heavy hearts and humble acceptance of God’s will that we announce that Winfred Bwire Ndubi lost her battle with cancer on September 5, 2024, while undergoing treatment in Turkey,” the family posted in a statement. “We thank you all for your overwhelming support, prayers, and generous giving during her treatment. God bless you all,” the statement further read. Her body was flown back to Kenya on September 8 2024.
Winnie’s death sent shock waves across the country, leaving her family, fans, and the entertainment industry reeling.
Born on March 24, 1988, Winfred Bwire Ndubi was the only child of Edmund Ndubi Kwena and Stella Anyonje Ndubi (née Auka). As a child, she was remarkably smart and had a peaceful demeanor. A hygiene freak who hated clutter, these qualities would later contribute to her success in the Airbnb and interior design business.
Her passion for acting was evident when she was in kindergarten and actively participated in class drama projects.
However, Winnie faced challenges growing up. She was bullied a lot at school because of her extremely dark complexion. Some children called her Sudanese or “cheusi”, (Swahili synonym for black). It took the intervention of her mother, who was raised alongside five boys, to teach Winnie resilience and how to fight back against bullies.
“Having been raised among 5 boys myself, my brothers taught me how to be a tomboy. They taught me how to fight, and I also taught her how to fight. We bought her a black dolly from Germany to let her know that being African is something she should be proud of, and out of that, she became confident in her skin,” her mother later said in a tribute during Winnie’s funeral service.
Beyond her exceptional talent as an actress, Winnie also had a thing for business at a young age. She made gift cards and thank-you cards to earn pocket money in school. Part of her interior design work included making furniture. Winnie also sewed her own clothes as well as for clients.
Winnie Bwire Ndubi, aka Dida, was flown to Mombasa from Turkey on September 8, where a memorial service was held in her honor at her local church in Nyali. She was later flown to her family home in Mumias, Kakamega County, Western Kenya, on September 20, 2024. On September 21, 2024, she was buried in a highly emotional ceremony that attracted hundreds of mourners who gathered to bid their final goodbyes to the talented actress.
During the ceremony, tributes poured from friends and colleagues as well as her parents, who were devastated by the loss of their only child.
“I was blessed with one child, but she presented as if I had ten,” her mother reflected, highlighting the immense love and joy Winnie brought into her life. She also shared touching anecdotes about Winnie’s beauty, particularly her striking eyes and physical appearance.
“Some of the things that stood out in her were her deep, dark complexion and eyes. They were very beautiful.” But Winnie’s most cherished physical endowment was her breasts, which, as her mother would say, later became a liability she found hard to let go of. “She had these big beautiful breasts, and just telling her to cut it was a very difficult thing to come to terms with,” she said.
While mourning her loss, Winnie’s father remembered her as a disciplined person who paid great attention to detail. “She was not just my child, my friend and confidant,” said Edmund Ndubi. He proudly stated that Winnie held a significant role in their family business, serving as the CEO and owning the largest shares alongside her mother.
As part of honoring her legacy, Winnie’s mother shared plans to start a foundation in her daughter’s memory aimed at supporting those battling cancer.
“We began the first phase of paying insurance premium coverage for cancer patients,” she revealed. Our desire is to create awareness about the challenges faced by caregivers. As a survivor and caregiver myself, I intend to work closely with those in similar situations.”
At the time of her death, Winnie was a celebrated actress at Citizen TV, was running Kejani by Designs, Kejani Cake Boutique and was the founder and lead vocalist of Juukwa the Band. She founded Bwire Ndubi Warriors Foundation to help facilitate treatment for those fighting cancer, a charity foundation now being managed by her mother.
Before her condition deteriorated, she was filming Scare the Scar, a documentary about her journey with cancer aimed at creating awareness and bursting myths associated with the disease. Winnie is survived by her parents, cousins, and a horde of nieces and nephews. She will be dearly missed by her friends, bandmates, fans, fellow actors, and creatives in the film and design industry. She was 36.
