The 23-year-old healthcare worker, who lived in Toronto, had earlier responded to comments from viewers before resuming her swim. Her body was found hours later at the bottom of the pool. According to her brother, she drowned in Collingwood, Ontario, the town where she worked. Nyabuto’s father John Kiyondi, 56, told CNN from his home in Kenya: “I saw this video. I cried. It’s terrible.” “He contacted me two days before he disappeared. He sounded very nice and I was very happy. He promised me a phone call. I didn’t feel anything abnormal,” he said. Nyabuto lived with her younger brother Enock in an apartment in Toronto and worked part-time as a health worker while studying nursing, her family said. “She’s been in Canada for about three years,” said Enock, who is one of five siblings. “All the financial responsibilities (of their family in Kenya) were on her,” he added.
“Damn it from the beginning”
Wendy’s father, a smallholder farmer in Kisii, southwestern Kenya, said he is “going back to square one” now that his daughter is gone. “She has been helping me financially to educate her siblings, especially with school fees and other expenses. I am stuck now and back to square one. I wonder how her younger siblings will continue school,” Kiyondi told CNN. All he wants now is for his daughter’s body to be returned to Kenya. “According to our tradition, one is supposed to be buried where one was born. I will not feel comfortable, psychologically, if my daughter is buried away from Kenya,” she said. Repatriating Wendy’s body will strain her family’s meager resources, and Enock said they have started a GoFundMe campaign to raise 50,000 Canadian dollars (about $38,000) to help with her burial costs. “The family is going through a difficult time now. All we want is for her body to be brought back home for burial,” he said.
