The following story has been published on the condition of anonymity. To protect the woman who has bravely shared her story to benefit our TWSC community, we have given her a pseudonym.
Sandra* was born in Kenya and raised by loving parents. Life was good up until high school when things shifted in her home.
Her parents, who had six children, were unable to pay for Sandra to attend university and thought it best to send her to Nairobi to live with a family member.
“That relative was very, very tough on me,” Sandra told The Weight She Carries. “I had to work for her in a very tough way; sleeping on the floor and receiving little to no food.”
Not having a phone at the time, Sandra had no way of informing her parents of the mistreatment. She became very ill at one point and suffered a medical emergency.
“I could not even walk or do anything,” she said. “A neighbour came to the rescue and helped me return to my parents’ home in the village. I spent two weeks in the hospital.”
Afraid to cause discord between her parents and the relative she lived with, Sandra chose not to tell them of the ill-treatment she had endured.
That relative showed up and convinced Sandra to return to Nairobi with him. This time around, she would stay in the guesthouse and attend hospitality training, he said. When Sandra arrived back in Nairobi, she was informed that she would need to pay for her own accommodation even though she was not earning an income.
“I was 20 at the time and had to negotiate with the manager of the hotel so management could pay for my rent and transport,” Sandra said. “My parents didn’t know about this.”
The training program lasted four years. During this time, Sandra met a man from Canada and fell in love.
“He was a White man from Zambia, but lived in Canada,” she said. “He was my first love. We were in a courtship for some time and decided to go ahead with a wedding.”
By then, the couple had forged a life together and had even ventured into a restaurant business together. His love was refreshing and provided a level of emotional security that assured Sandra that he was the right person for her.
But before the wedding date arrived, Sandra’s fiancé was involved in an accident and crashed into a trailer. He did not survive.
“Our wedding was supposed to be in June 2008, he died in December 2007,” she said. “I was in Nairobi when I heard the news. I cannot tell you how devastated I was.”
The days that followed were gut-wrenching. The unimaginable had happened and trying to make sense of it only led to more questions. Her fiancé’s siblings came to visit Sandra soon after his death and remained in touch for several years after his death.
As difficult as it was, she knew she had to move on. Life eventually settled and, three years later, Sandra met someone new.
“He was very humble, and I liked that about him,” she said. “He hadn’t attended university, but he had performed very well in his GSCE (high school) exams. I asked him why he had not gone on to university and he said his parents hadn’t been in a position to send him.”
The restaurant was doing well and things seemed to be progressing in an upward trajectory. So when this new flame entered the picture, the timing seemed ideal.
“He treated me well. He was a caretaker of some houses somewhere, but I just fell in love with him because he was so humble. I believed that maybe someday God would bless us and take us far.”
Things got serious, family introductions soon ensued, and the two made their relationship official.
Sandra and her husband approached their church pastor and asked if the church could raise money to send her husband to university.
“I felt that, as his wife, I should support him. I had about Ksh 250,000 (USD 1,700) saved from my business and we needed another Ksh 90,000,” Sandra said.
Church members offered donations and the Ksh 90,000 was raised, allowing Sandra’s husband to enroll at Mount Kenya University for an undergraduate degree in business. His being away at school added strain to the household.
“When he started school, I was already pregnant and later gave birth to a baby boy in 2010. So here I am dealing with a baby and working at the same time because I went back to work when our baby was eight months old.”
“He could call me and tell me that his meal card was finished or that he needed money for some other school-related expense, and I would work and send him the money.”
Upon completion, Sandra’s husband got a job with the government that stationed him in Mandera, which is a city near the borders of Somalia and Ethiopia, for a five-year term.
“It was not easy,” she said. “So many teachers were being killed in Mandera.”
Due to security concerns, Sandra raised money to release her husband from the contract.
“Once back in Nairobi, he asked me what I thought about him going back to school for his masters,” Sandra said.
She agreed to sponsor him again. By now, the couple’s second child had been born. Sandra worked long hours to meet the financial demands of the household and her husband’s education.
“I was very, very tired. I used to wake up at 4:30 in the morning and come back home around 11 pm,” she said. “It was not easy for me.”
Her husband finished his studies and moved back home. With his return came a new set of problems.
“Sometimes women would come to my house with babies and say, ‘This is your husband’s baby,’” Sandra said.
One fateful day – May 1, 2020 – while her niece was visiting from Tanzania, Sandra was surprised to see her teenage niece, along with Sandra’s two children, arriving at her place of business.
“This was out of the ordinary because it was during COVID and my husband had been very strict about the children leaving the house,” Sandra said. “I had left earlier in the day to attend to my business. My niece and children were supposed to be at home with my husband, so I was surprised to see them coming to me saying they had been sent with money and I was to take them out for lunch.”
After lunch and a few errands, Sandra and the children returned home only to stumble upon a scene they could have never imagined.
“He was with a woman in the house. They were in the kids’ bedroom.”
“I will never get that image out of my mind. And worse still, my niece and children witnessed it. I fainted in shock. The woman fled and my husband locked the rest of us in the house.”
Eventually, Sandra was able to get out of the house and went to confide in a friend. When she returned to the home four hours later, her husband had emptied the house.
“The children were crying when I returned,” she said. “That was the second shock. I had furnished the house myself while he was in school. I paid for his tuition for two degrees, and now he had left me with just clothes. Even the children’s beds were gone.”
Sandra’s friend loaned her a mattress for the kids, and two other friends came over to spend the night. Compounding her distress was the fact that this was the beginning of the month and rent was due.
“The landlady called my husband but he said he no longer lived in the house and the people in the house should pay the rent,” Sandra said. “My business was not doing well at that time, and I had no money. Ten days later, we were thrown out of the house for not paying rent.”
“I had worked so hard so that my babies could live well, but this is what I received in return.”
Sandra’s sister took in her children and kept them until Sandra was able to obtain a letter granting permission for the children to be taken to her mother’s place in a different county. The children were seven and two.
Meanwhile, a woman Sandra knew who owned a daycare offered her a room to stay in.
“At that time, I didn’t want to go and live with anyone because I felt I needed time to myself. I did not want to see anyone. I had hatred for myself. Why did I work this hard and get back to zero?”
The months that followed were depressing. There was no way to quantify the feeling of loss she was experiencing.
“For the first three months, I was not eating, I was not bathing, I was not cooking, I was not washing clothes, I could not even get out of the house,” she said. “Being separated from my children was the hardest part. I couldn’t afford to pay rent and send my kids to a school in Nairobi. It was too expensive. So I sent my boy to a boarding school when he was in Grade 4. That was a difficult decision.”
Traumatized by the scene he had witnessed and being away from his family, Sandra’s son struggled with his mental health and required medical attention. When she reached out to her husband’s family for support, there was no response.
“When I called my mother-in-law, she was not picking up the phone. When I called my husband’s brothers or sisters, no one was picking up the phone. I decided not to call anyone again,” she said. “It hurt because I had supported them financially at different times. My mother-in-law would call me when money was needed for projects around the house, and I would send. I never sent any money to my own parents. In fact, they are the ones who would help me. My dad used to pay rent for my husband so he could focus on his studies.”
A year later, Sandra’s husband returned wanting custody of the children.
“He told me that if I didn’t get back with him, he would seek custody of the babies. When I refused, he took me to the Child Welfare office. When we were told to share child expenses and responsibilities, he said he would not pay rent in a house he is not living in. So he agreed to pay for school fees and pay for medical bills.”
Sandra said he later removed the children from his medical insurance policy. Another outstanding issue was several pieces of land the couple owned.
“He took everything from me,” Sandra said. “I’ve seen people go to court to fight these cases, and actually, I tried but it requires a lot of money to follow up on things. I don’t have that money, so I had to leave this one for God.”
The Healing Journey
Coming to terms with the end of her marriage and the devastating effect it has had on her and her children was difficult.
“It took me three years to heal,” she said. “I blamed God a lot. First for the death of my fiancé, and then now when life just became good, it became messy again. It was a different type of grief because I invested so much into the relationship only to be taken advantage of.”
Many of the buried emotions resurfaced when her marriage ended. She longed for the man who had loved her fully and completely, but whose life had ended so abruptly.
“To this day, there are times I just call his number even though I know he’s not there to answer,” she said.
As time went on, Sandra began listening to Hope FM and Truth FM religiously, and God began to heal her heart.
“I let go of him completely. It hurts sometimes because, for seven good years, I worked day and night to support his education, having asked for nothing from his family,” she said. “And when I was down, they were nowhere to be found.”
Fortunately, Sandra’s family stepped up and provided much-needed support emotionally and financially. Her sister, whom Sandra considers her rock, gave her some money to start a business.
“I would go to the market early in the morning, buy a few clothes and bring them back to my neighborhood to sell.”
Slowly, things began to fall into place, and savings from a six-month contract job at a restaurant allowed Sandra to have enough money to open up a small shop.
“I sell baby’s shoes and clothes during the day. I arrive home at 10 pm from my shop and bake mandazi (donuts) until 1 am. Then I’m up by 5 am so I can go and deliver the baked goods to the shops before going to my shop,” she said.
Sandra doesn’t mind being so busy because she is working towards her goal of having her six-year-old daughter move back in with her next year.
“If I can encourage young girls and women, I would say to focus on yourself first. Build yourself first and everything else will come later. If I had put all the energy and resources I gave him into me, I could have gone very far. I made a mistake, but I don’t regret it because this was a lesson I needed to learn.”
Instead of focusing on the pain and disappointment, Sandra has chosen to take a different approach.
“I told myself it’s better to be silent. God knows the truth, his family knows, the church elders know. God knows the work that I did for our family to be where we were. And I believe He is going to bless me even more.”
Vimbai E. is a content marketer, ghostwriter, and the founder of The Weight She Carries. With hundreds of articles and stories publishing online, in print and for broadcast, her love of language and storytelling shines through every piece of writing that bears her name.