Demo Grandma

♟️ Grandma Achieng – The Queen of the 64 Squares In a quiet lakeside village near Kisumu, where the papyrus sways with the wind and the fish markets bustle every morning, lived Grandma Achieng — a woman known not for her cooking (though her mandazis were heavenly), but for her unmatched skill on the chessboard. Achieng learned chess from her father, a retired schoolteacher who once studied in India and brought back a handmade wooden chess set. While her siblings chased goats and played kati, little Achieng spent her afternoons poring over her father’s dog-eared chess manual, mimicking the moves of greats like Capablanca and Anand. During her school years, she would sneak into the staffroom during lunch breaks and challenge her teachers — often leaving them stunned and defeated, smiling shyly as she packed up the board. She went on to become one of Kenya's first female chess coaches, teaching underfunded schools how to play with bottle caps and chalk-drawn boards. Her philosophy was simple: "A queen is powerful, but it's the pawns who shape the game." Now in her late 70s, she still wears her signature khanga with a chessboard pattern and hosts "Sunday Squares" at her veranda, where kids from the neighborhood gather around mismatched chairs and sip hibiscus tea as they duel under her watchful eye. Her house is full of trophies, dusty strategy books, and a portrait of her late husband — whom she met during a chess tournament in Nairobi in the '60s. “He won my heart with a knight sacrifice,” she laughs. Grandma Achieng doesn’t just play chess — she lives it. She says every part of life has a strategy: “Be patient like a bishop. Move with purpose like a rook. And protect your people like a king.”