Kaaria Mbaya

Kaaria Mbaya died at the age of 39 on September 11, 2001. He was the victim of the senseless and confusing and terribly hurtful terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. His mother, Vertistine Mbaya, is a college biochemistry professor who wanted nothing but the best for all 5 of her children. She sent them one by one to universities in the United States, when they reached college age in their native Nairobi.

Kaaria graduated from Villanova University with a degree in Computer Science, a school which was carefully chosen for him by his American born mother.

Although he became a senior computer analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, with an office high in the World Trade Center, Kaaria Mbaya had other plans for himself. He wanted his own software-development business and his own home. Already living in Edison, he was about to purchase a house in North Jersey; the mortgage papers, his mother said, arrived after his death.

He was also a budding artist, and friends stated that you could see "his soul" in his artwork.

Though he was single, Kaaria left behind a large extended and immediate family. Though the Kenyan embassy stated that no Kenyans perished in the attacks on 9/11, they were quite obviously mistaken.

He is now buried beside his father on the side of Mount Kenya