The following story was submitted by a reader who asked to remain anonymous.
I am 34 years old and was born into a polygamist family of 24 children from five mothers. Due to our Tugen in Kalenjin culture, our parents refused to take us girls to school, and we had to look after goats and cows while our father looked for old men to marry us.
At the age of 15, we were to be circumcised (female genital mutation) and be married immediately. I escaped and had to trek for 3 days looking for manual work as a maid. I managed to get a job as house help. I worked in this house for 7 months for a single mother who had a baby boy whom I used to nurse and take care.
She had an issue with her husband but they reunited while I was there. The man come and started living with us. After two weeks he wanted to rape me, so I had to run back home. I had my six month’s salary of Ksh 3000 – Ksh 500 per month.
I had to buy goats for Ksh 100 each, so I had 26 goats. But while I was tending to my goats one day, I was abducted and taken away by force. The man who kidnapped me was a man I was told was my husband. I was 17, he was 34. He locked me in the house for 2 weeks, only bringing me food and water.
I had my first child at 17. After I had the baby, I underwent FGM. While I was taking care of this child, I decided to enroll for informal education. The teacher was very happy with my performance. It was while doing this that I became pregnant with my second born and dropped out of class. Soon after my second child was born, my husband got another woman. I had been with him for 5 years and 3 months. I was stressed and didn’t know what to do, but I remembered that I had some goats at home. I went home and found the goats had multiplied. I took them to the market, sold them and got Ksh 140K. I then enrolled for driving school as I had the dream of driving since I was a child.
I took my driving test in 2015. The instructor was very impressed with my driving ability and asked me if I would be interested in being a plant operator. I accepted and as a surprise, he asked me if I had the money for the course. I said yes, and the next week he had gotten me the admission letter from Institute of Applied Technology at the Ngong Matasia campus. I joined IAT and trained as a plant operator for 1 month and another one month for plant operator maintenance.
When I went for attachment, they said they could not even offer me an attachment since I was a woman. They didn’t believe in a woman operating such machinery.
While I was still looking for attachment, I got a call from IAT. They gave me an attachment for 3 months and employed me as an instructor. They used to pay me Ksh 13,000 as net pay with no allowances, while others (the men) were payed Ksh 45,000 net pay in 2016.
In 2017, my pay increased to Ksh 23,000 net pay; and in 2018, my pay was increased to Ksh 35,000.
In February while at work this year, I was in the field busy training students on the bulldozer when the boss called me and sacked me from the job due to political tensions between our president and the deputy, whom I happen to share the same name with. So, I was sacked based on my tribe. I have a Form 1 student whom I have been paying school fees for Ksh 62,000. As for now, it’s God’s plan.
