Life is what you make of it

Mary Wangeci had to escape her home and start afresh after 2007’s political violence in the Rift Valley. She tells Simon Mburu how she rebuilt her life.

Mary Wangeci was busy painting and installing interior fittings at a construction site in Lanet, Nakuru, last week when we met.

In her orange apron and dark blue bandana, she stood out, not only be-cause of how immaculate her job was, but because she was the only woman on the site. How did Mary end up a fundi? She narrates:

“I am a 30-year-old mother a girl and a boy. I have been working in the construction sector over the past two and a half years as a painter and an interior fittings expert. My journey, though, did not start 30 months ago.

“It was not easy growing up in Eldama Ravine. I am the first born in a family of 11. Three of my siblings have since passed away. My siblings and I were raised by a single mother. For a long time, I wondered where my father was. But I have since come to learn that our father divorced my mother because she couldn’t bear him a son. This broke my mum.

"Despite that, she pulled all strings to ensure that we had as comfortable a life as she could possibly offer. Nonetheless, this did not stop me from dreaming about a better life. And whichever way I looked at it, education was the key I needed to unlock it. My mum would emphasise this to me before I left for school at Maji Mazuri Forest Primary every morning. Backed up by my good grades, I believed that life would not always be this hard. There was sunshine on the other side of the hill.

“This candle of hope was blown out in December 2007 after the post-election violence. We ran for our lives and left behind the little property we had. We were evacuated to Nakuru Town, where well-wishers helped us settle in Lanet. The following year in February, my mother enrolled me at Ndimu Primary School, Lanet, where I sat for my KCPE.

"Unfortunately, I was not able to proceed to secondary school. My mum could not afford to cater for my fees and still fend for my siblings. As the first born, I had to start chipping in. On the other hand, the problems we had endured had taken a psychological toll on me, and affected my academic performance negatively.

MY MOMENT

"To help my mum make ends meet, I started washing clothes in the neighbouring plots. Every end month, I would make Sh1,500. I consoled myself that although the amount was little, it was better than nothing. Over the next seven years, there were many times when I felt like giving up. ‘Will this poverty ever end?’ I would ask myself. In mid-2014, I raised my charges to Sh300 per day to match the rise cost of living.

"All along, though, I would save half of the money I earned for rainy days. But with more women offering the same cleaning services, jobs became scarce. I began to contemplate getting into a different field. There was more on my plate than a cleaning job could handle. For a start, within this period, I had been blessed with two kids. I couldn’t sit back and raise them in the same circle of problems that I had grown in.

"My eureka moment came in January 2015 when I quit washing clothes and started looking for jobs at various workshops in Lanet. I could handle it, I convinced myself. After all, I had once helped dig our pit latrine back in Eldama Ravine! Luckily, I got an opening where I would work for free as a budding handyman while I learned how to construct numerous varieties of furniture.

"Three months later, I began to feel stuck. I had not learned anything apart from handling paint brushes and sandpapers because the owners feared that there was no market for female ‘fundis’. I quit and decided to join a professional carpentry and joinery institute. I dug out Sh5,000 from my savings and enrolled at the Nakuru Training Institute. I studied here for five months before my cash ran out, forcing me to drop out.

"But this was my time, God was on my side. Through my trainers’ referrals, a gentleman called Njenga who was looking to take interns at his workshop chose me on the strength of the items I had constructed at the school. Over the next one year, I trained at his workshop and acquired all the requisite skills needed for residential and commercial painting and fittings.

“Today, I have bought all the equipment need in my field of work. My earnings have greatly improved, and I’m now able to take care of my kids, siblings, and still save and invest. I thank God that I can now say I have a decent life. It could have been easy to demean this field of work, but today, my earnings are superior to those of many in white collar jobs. And I am confident that this is just the beginning of soaring success. Life is really what you take and make out of it!”