Every year, on her birthday, Maryann does something extraordinary called #maryannontour. Where she goes on a solo trip for a few days with a back pack way too heavy or somewhere with friends…also with luggage that’s way overweight. She’s done this every year for a while now. A lot has changed about her, but not the overpacking.
But, in 2025, instead of travelling to a physical destination, she chose to travel in a different way. Through stories shared between her and her friends, in her living room.
So she gathered all her close friends on the 9th of August, and there they laughed, talked, danced, and celebrated. And before cake cutting…she launched The Gutsy Person Club.
An idea that had been brewing in her for a while.
And if you asked her where all of this began, she’d probably tell it to you in three parts:
The story she was born into:
Maryann was born 32 years ago, at the back of a moving vehicle.
The doctors told her mother that she was pregnant with twins, so she did the most natural thing a mum would do… buy everything in two’s, only for her to come out as a single unit. Her mum says that maybe it’s because she was too chubby so they saw her as two babies, but some say she ate her twin. She’s always chosen to go with her mum’s version of events.
But, that evening she was born was as dramatic as she is now. What was meant to be another cosy, uneventful evening at the Kariuki’s household turned out to be one of the most memorable nights her family would have.
It went a little like this, I’m told:
There was a rumble in her mum’s belly, a quick run to the bathroom, and next thing you know, her dad was breaking the door down to get her mum out. The twins were coming.
Their neighbour had a saloon car, they had a truck. If her dad had chosen to drive her mum in the pickup, then she’d have been born in the back of a truck. But, he was a gentleman, and that wasn’t going to be his story. So, he called the nice neighbour man with the saloon car, propped his life-bearing wife in the back, and off they went, full speed ahead. Two men in the front, hoping and praying that they’d get to the hospital on time.
They didn’t.
A few metres from their house was a speed bump, and a pothole. The latter has her birth story written all over it. Because, as the driver was speeding to get them to the hospital, he sped over the pothole and that little jump was enough to get her dramatic self out of her mum’s belly. So her dad, quick in action, jumped over the back seat and helped pull her out. First the little head, second, a chubby frame. A master mid-wife if you ask me. Well, in this case that would make him a mid-husband, right?
But, semantics.
He seemed not to care why there wasn’t a second baby coming out. In that frantic moment, one seemed to be more than enough.
And so he held little Maryann in his arms, covered her with her mum’s little shawl, kissed her (I’m told), and the journey to the hospital continued so they could complete the whole delivery cycle…cutting her dangling umbilical cord, and checking her vitals to ensure that she was in fact, a baddie.
So if anyone ever wonders why she’s always travelling on her birthday, it’s because it’s how she came into this world, and because the road has always felt a little like home.
The stories that found her:
A few months back, she was home in Kenya and she found her late dad’s journals dating back around 32 years. In them, he wrote the story of how he fell in love with her mum, only 3 days after meeting her, and how he knew she was the one for him. He wrote about his son, the apple of his eye, about heartbreak from friendships, about his dreams and disappointments as well. Finding these gems, emotion put on paper and feelings not only lived but felt a second time in written form, made her realise why she was the way she was. A little bit too emotional. Passionate about words. About stories. About sharing them.
She also spent time with her mum, who told her stories about her childhood and life, her grandma…who always makes her laugh when she tells her stories from her childhood. Like how she hooked her friend up with her brother. She also spent time with her friends, who made her laugh as they reminisced about uni days. The parties they went to, the people they met. She even had a chat with her mum’s mechanic and he told her of how much he loved cooking and that he was thinking of opening a restaurant. I told you she was a yapper. She talks to rocks, if only they talked back.
So, storytelling has always been important to her, because she comes from a long line of storytellers. They never published a thing…but as her dear friend once told her…maybe they didn’t so that she would. So this, among other things…is her way of being.
Inspired by all these moments of closeness, conversations, and memories from back home, she started designing a storytelling card game. And she got so excited about it, because finally, she could share what she loved so dearly, with other people. But, there was only a little piece of the puzzle missing…a community.
Because it’s the people that make the stories.
The stories yet to be told:
So on that day, surrounded by her friends, in her living room, she launched a movement. Straight from that little girl’s beating heart at 7pm on a Monday in 1993. That little girl born at the back seat of a moving car was now taking a little bit of a front seat approach to life, by giving others the same beauty of stories and storytelling that had shaped her life.
And so she launched The Gutsy Person Club. A work in progress, not perfection. But it was in-progress-perfection, because her friends were there, and so were the stories. And there always would be.
The idea was to, once a month, gather in her living room, tell stories, laugh, cry, around different themes like Childhood, Scars, Becoming.
She hadn’t ironed out everything at that time, but now, now they’re something. They became the Friends and Stories series. Which you can read more about here.
She believes that everyone has a Gutsy story that has shaped who they are, some have quit jobs that weren’t serving them right, some have started believing in love again, some are new mums and dads, aunties and uncles…some have been chased by dogs and survived. All these are Gutsy stories.
And one day, these stories will move from her living room, to the world.
She knows that it’s going to take a bit of time to get there, but she’s here for the long of it.
So, this is to 32 years of stories, to the gutsy, the growing and the still becoming.
This is to all of us.
And this, is Maryann:
The little girl born in the back seat of a moving car who grew up to fill her living room with stories.
I believe that in this photo, she was yapping about something too.