It is a few minutes past noon on a Saturday. The noise is deafening – loud music is blaring from a nearby shop, touts are calling for customers at the top of their voices, while hooting matatus fill the air with mind-numbing din.
Rose Kayugira lives in a block of flats right next to this chaos. At this moment, she is busy jotting down notes on an open book on the table, a frown of concentration creasing her forehead.
Occasionally, she refers to one of the textbooks on the table, before returning her attention to her notes. Rose seems unfazed by the commotion, which the walls of the single-room she calls home do nothing to muffle.
“Initially, the noise would bother me – not any more. In any case, I cannot afford to get distracted because I have very little time to study,” explains Rose, who lives at Nairobi’s AA estate, along Mombasa Road.
Rose is 31 years old, and will sit for her secondary school final examinations this year.
“I am apprehensive, but excited as well, because I have a feeling that this will be the beginning of a new chapter in my life, a much brighter chapter,” she says, a wide smile lighting up her face.
Rose, the last born in a family of four girls, grew up in Kakamega, Vihiga, with her mother, after her father, who had been the sole bread winner, died when she was only three years old.
“Mum did her best to provide for all of us, but her best wasn’t enough to take all of us to high school,” she explains. Rose, and the sister she follows, did not go past primary school.
After her mother broke the disheartening news, Rose recalls vowing that one day, no matter how long it took, she would go back to school.
“The vow I made to myself when mum explained to us why we could no longer go to school is what has kept me going all these years,” she says.
In 1996, when Rose turned 16, she travelled to an aunt’s home in Nairobi to work for her as a house girl.
“I was doing nothing at home, and did not want to be a burden to my mother, who I could see was struggling,” she explains.
Her aunt had two children, a nine-year old girl, and a nine-month old boy, who she was expected to look after while her aunt was at work, and also do the housework.
Her aunt paid her Sh2, 000. She would send her mother Sh1, 500, and use the remainder to buy personal effects.
“Looking back, it was too much hard work for a 16 year old girl,” Rose says, adding that most of the time, she felt overwhelmed by everything that was expected of her.
Being a relative, she had imagined that her aunt would treat her more like a daughter, rather than an employee. She was wrong.
She says that sometimes, she took tea without bread in the morning, because the bread was for the baby. There are also times when she went without lunch because there was no food in the house.
“I was miserable, but since this was the only job I could get, I preserved – at least I was helping my mum,” Rose says.
One day however, her aunt came home in the evening and told her that she could no longer afford to pay her, since her husband had lost his job.
This was in 1999, about three years after she started working for her aunt. Very disappointed, but with nowhere else to go, Rose decided to stay on with her aunt until she got another job.
Two months later, she managed to get another house help’s job, which she eagerly took, even though it did not come with a pay rise. However, the treatment here was even worse.
“My employer did not hide the fact that I was nothing more than a house girl to her. I was allowed a very small amount of food, and cannot remember a time when I had a filling meal. As a policy, there was no lunch for me,” Rose recalls.
To ensure that Rose did not eat more than she was allowed, or have what she wasn’t allowed to, her employer would keep a hawk eye over everything, especially the food.
For instance, if she bought fruits, she would count every piece when she came home from work in evening, just to make sure that Rose hadn’t eaten any.
“I felt worthless most of the time,” she says. Such inhumane treatment has either the power to crush the spirit, or trigger a fierce determination to succeed.
For Rose, it was the latter - this mistreatment gave birth to a steely resolve to do whatever it took to build herself a much better life, a life with a bright future.
“I had no intention of being a house girl for the rest of my life. I decided that this job would be a stepping stone to a better one.”
The only positive thing about her job was that her employer allowed her to go to a nearby tailoring shop every day for two hours, to learn the basics of tailoring.
For those two hours, she would pay Sh150, out of the Sh500 she was left with, after sending her mother Sh1, 500 for upkeep.
Her mother had been in poor health for quite some time, and wasn’t able to work. In 2000, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer – a week later, she died.
“Her death came as a shock to all of us because it was so sudden. Though she wasn’t financially well off, she was a pillar of strength to my sisters and I, and it is to her that we went when we wanted sound advice,” Rose says of her mother.
But as she points out, life has to go on, even when we lose our loved ones. Rose’s turning point came in 2003, when she met Juliet Hope, the woman who saw the immense potential in her, and volunteered to take her college.
“I met Rose through a friend of mine, who told me that she had done tailoring, and was looking for a job,” Juliet, who owned a fashion and design outlet, explains.
She agreed to give Rose a job, but unfortunately, it turned out that she knew very little about sewing, and according to Juliet, she couldn’t even stick a straight line. Obviously, the tailoring lessons she had been attending were not good enough.
Were it not for Rose’s positive attitude and willingness to learn, Juliet would have closed the door behind her back. “She was so willing to learn, I just couldn’t turn my back on her,” she says.
Juliet enrolled Rose to a proper tailoring and dress-making school, and paid her tuition for a year, while Rose, who had been employed by Juliet, paid for the remaining two years. A year’s tuition cost Sh12,000.
“Juliet started me off on a salary of Sh4,000, and by the time the boutique closed down in January 2009, I was earning Sh8,000, which made it possible for me to pay for the dress-making course,” Rose explains.
When Juliet’s family opened a guest house, Mariakani Villa Guest House, in Nairobi’s South C Estate in March the same year, she employed Rose as the receptionist. This is where she has been working since then.
Her employer, Juliet, says that Rose is a good employee, who rarely misses work, or reports to work late.
“Rose inspires me so much. She works to the best of her ability, and does so with a positive and pleasant attitude,” she says. But Rose believes she’s the lucky one.
She says, “Juliet is the angel that God sent to help me to realise my dreams, I will always be grateful to her for believing in me, and giving me a chance when I had nothing to offer.”
“I had been looking for a school that accommodates adult learners for some time, and when I heard about Westminister Academy, I immediately went to enquire whether they would accept me.”
Rose is one of the 54 adult learners at the secondary school, which is located along River Road, one of the busiest streets in the city centre. The school has normal classes, which run parallel with adult classes.
On most days, Rose wakes up at 3 am, especially if she was on the night shift, to put in a few hours’ reading and also finish up her homework before reporting to school at 8am.
When she’s on day shift, she leaves for work at 6am, and closes shop at 5pm, and then goes to school from 6pm, to 8.30 p.m.
“It’s a hectic schedule, and most of the time I am exhausted, but it is worth it. I’ve learnt that you have to be very willing to work hard to get what you want,” she says.
Unlike the normal secondary school curriculum which runs for four years, adult learners are on a crash course programme that takes only two years, meaning that students have to be fast on their toes and put in twice as much effort.
This hectic schedule also means that she’s left with very little time to socialise. Rose has a boyfriend, but, as she points out, right now, getting married and starting a family are not a priority; she wants to focus on her education first.
“My three sisters, who I’m very close to, are married, and have children, and are happy. I’d want that too, but the time isn’t right yet,” she says, and reasons, “Most of my salary goes to pay my school fees, so it would not be a good idea to start a family which I would have to struggle to support – there’s time for everything.” Her conviction is that there’s time for everything.
Though Rose enjoys most of what she learns in class, English, Kiswahili and Chemistry are her favourite subjects. She hopes to score a B grade come the final examinations.
“I am convinced that getting a secondary school certificate will open the door to many more opportunities that are closed to me, especially since I will be qualified to join a formal college,” she says.
She points out that no matter how good an employee you are, you cannot get promoted or bargain for better pay as long as you’re not educated.
Juliet is certainly a portrait of hope for all those who are resigned to fate, just because they did not get the chance to either go to school, or go beyond the basic level of learning. As she states, all it takes is a dream, and the determination to fight for that dream.
“I believe that it’s never too late to do what you have always longed for, including going back to school. Kimani Maruge dared to follow his dreams at 84 years, who are we not to follow ours?”
