Actress Jackie Vike.
Comedian, actress and influencer Jacky Vike aka Awinja has made a name for herself in the Kenyan entertainment industry. She is among the highest-paid influencers in the industry at the moment.
Awinja burst into the limelight when she played the nosy and meddlesome housekeeper Awinja Nyamwalo in the once-popular local TV drama Papa Shirandula.
Vike is my real name. It is a Maragoli word meaning 'small'.
Jacky Vike popularly known as Awinja Nyamwalo poses for a photo during the launch party of Chateau Cellar Gastro Club owned by Akothee’s daughter Vesha at The Promenade, Westlands on July 29, 2023.
I was raised in the ghettos of Kanuku in Eastleigh, Nairobi. My (late) father was a cobbler and my mother ran a kibanda where she sold vegetables and cigarettes.
My father was a heavy drinker but that never took away the respect I have for him because he was a responsible father. He was always present and showed us love. We never lacked anything despite living in the ghetto.
I didn't start my journey in content creation on TV. I began as a stage performer. I did a lot of travelling theatre with Heartstrings Entertainment, and then an opportunity to move to TV presented itself, which I took.
I turned down the role in Papa Shirandula when the late Charles Bukeko offered it to me for the first time. I didn't want to play the village girl with a Luhya accent. He called again a month later and I accepted.
Actress Jackie Vike.
I didn't have a good reason to turn down the offer the first time. I had just started acting. I was naive and felt that playing a village girl would be demeaning.
We were working on another show with him called Mzee ni Wewe, when he passed away.
We had shot a pilot on Friday, and were due to meet on Monday to do a postmortem of the production.
He hadn't been ill at all. It was Wilbroda who broke the news to me on Saturday that Papa had passed away. I was devastated. Papa had become a father to me.
Actress Jacky Vike following Mammito and Girlfriends Comedy Night Show at Nairobi National Museum on August 26, 2023.
I don't want to discuss the circumstances surrounding his death because it breaks my heart every time I think about it. There is a lot that happened that I can't speak of, but the truth is that Papa's life could have been saved.
When he died, the show died with him. The production company gave us two months to figure out our next move. I didn't know where my next earnings would come from.
Mentally I was not okay as I was still mourning. Papa’s death was one of the hardest moments of my life.
