Sacrifices that made room for more

• Stanley and Esther Mureithi did not know comfort or luxury. In fact, adversity was a more familiar word. Still, they placed everyone’s needs before their own and it paid off

“I have gone from one challenge to another, but in almost all of them, I have come out stronger,” the outspoken woman says in a matter-of-fact way.

She’s referring to her long and hard journey to financial freedom that began right after she completed her secondary school education in 1994. 

Wangui recalls her first job as a 21-year-old salesperson in Kiambu town, a job that fetched her Sh20 a day. She was only able to negotiate her pay rise four years later. All this time, what the single mother took home on payday left her with more month at the end of the money. Her salary was finally raised from Sh600 to Sh700.

Handsome

Perhaps what cooled her heels was the everyday sight of a handsome young man who would come by the market where she worked. Stanley Mureithi, now 36, worked as a turn-boy for a pick-up that regularly delivered fruits and vegetables to business owners in Kiambu town. 

 “He carried the bags of fruits and vegetables from the van and that is how we met at the market,” Wangui says.

And he certainly had a way of lifting Wangui’s spirits every time he showed up. So much so that he managed to get her attention and keep it all through their humble dates in the market mkahawas.

 “He would occasionally take me out for tea at hotels. It cost about Sh5. But in 1996 he took me to Thompson’s Falls in Nyahururu for our first outing,” she says flashing an ageing photograph that recorded their time together.

Wangui had no way of knowing that Mureithi would be her husband but that did not stop her from enjoying his company.

In 1997, they got married and the following year, the couple had a baby girl. Wangui had to stop working for several months when she realised that she wasn’t juggling things so well.

Later that year, she and her husband decided to start their own fruit business with the little savings they had stashed away.

“We did not have enough capital and this appeared to me to be the only way we could start earning steady income since I had some expertise in it,” says Mureithi.

And so when they heard about a businesswoman with a vacant stall to dispose off, they were quick to approach her. The woman offered them the stall for free, allowing the couple to spend their money on stock.

Their business flourished and Wangui was able to join several women’s groups. Her husband continued to participate in several saving schemes.

Little did they know that they would come to suffer one blow after another. When Wangui’s ailing mother died in 2001 after three years of illness, the couple found that they had burial expenses to take care of.

“We consulted on the need to give our mother a decent burial even if it meant making sacrifices,” Mureithi explains.

Months later, the couple decided to do something for themselves, and their children. Through their savings and credit society, they managed to purchase a plot which they were to pay for in instalments.

That was in 2002. Four years later, they had a four-bedroom house for them and their children Alice Wamuyu, 12, Joan Wacuka, 10, and Anthony Ngugi, six.