To hell and back; a widow’s story
What you need to know:
- She was only 23 when her husband died, leaving her with four children, two living with disability.
- Step daughter has cerebral palsy while biological daughter is autistic.
- A frequent evictee for rent default, chased in between estates in Githurai 45 estate, Nairobi.
- Felt her step-daughter a was a curse, attempted to dump them at her matrimonial home.
- Took stepdaughter to children's home but was rejected.
- Went hungry on several occasions.
“I bought rat poison with the intention of killing my children. Then it just disappeared. I turned the house upside down but I couldn’t find it,” Ms Eunice Mungai recalls her turning point.
She was only 23 when her husband died, leaving her with four children, two of them living with disabilities.
His departure in September 2008, set in the phase of a struggle.
Now aged 40, Ms Mungai knows, in all shapes, the meaning of desperation and hopelessness.
As a carpenter, her late husband met all the family needs while she chipped in with wages from domestic work. His exit meant her work was the only source of income.
CEREBRAL PALSY
Having a step-daughter with cerebral palsy and a biological one with autism, both of whom needed her attention, her search for menial jobs was complicated.
She would beg people to offer her half-day jobs so she could attend to the children but only a few helped.
Between 2009 and 2012, life was a nightmare for her. Not only would she rarely get job offers but her relatives also precluded her for being ‘too much of a beggar’.
She became a frequent evictee, for rent default, chased in between estates in Githurai 45 estate in Nairobi County, where she has lived since the death of her husband.
Going without food, for days, became part of their life.
“I would look at my step-daughter and feel like she was a curse,” she says.
CURSED
“I felt she had cursed my daughter into autism and that she had cursed me too into joblessness. Why would people refuse to offer me a job? Why would I suffer this much?” says Ms Mungai.
“One time, we slept hungry for three consecutive days and I said to myself, ‘these kids will not die here with me. I will go dump them near their home in Nyeri (her late husband’s home).
“Interestingly, all my attempts to borrow transport money failed,” she narrates.
She then opted to surrender them to a children’s home albeit temporarily. This idea failed too, as the step-daughter would be rejected while the rest were accepted.
Further, she was informed that her custody would be forfeited permanently the moment she signed up for care in the children’s home.
She had reached the end of her tether. So, she bought rat poison only for it to mysteriously disappear from where she had placed it.
