Households’ Unsung Heroines
She is shy, reserved, and only talks when she is talked to. She covers her mouth with the back of her hand when she laughs, her joy illuminating through her eyes which she cannot cover. She is beautiful. She is short, light-skinned, has a generous set of eyebrows whose thickness and length almost meets towards the middle of her face. Her high cheek bones accentuate how long her face is. Her nose sits beautifully with a rather unusual sharpness compared to the noses that are common.
She has thick, pronounced lips that she is sensitive to, and that which she admits makes her shy, the reason she covers her laugh every time she laughs. One notices her white, well-kept symmetrical set of teeth, with gums as red as a ripe tomato. She has a gap between her front teeth big enough to fit an M&M piece of candy. She has long beautiful hair that she pats at the middle, plaiting it into two braids. The length of the hair reaching past her shoulders.
Occasionally, when she straightens her hair at the salon, the touch to it is silky, and even longer due to subjection to the heat. The hair is curled at the front, the perfect curls draping below her cheek bones. This is the rare time to see her smile exposing her teeth without covering the smile with the back of her hand. With time in the household, she gets comfortable, starts talking more, covers her mouth less when she laughs, visits the salon more often, and melts in delightful joy when she speaks of her two children. This woman was our house help or one who is referred to as the live-in-nanny. Her name was Rahab.
In the past two decades in East Africa, specifically Kenya, house helps were recommended to work in other people’s households through word of mouth. These were mostly young girls whose parents couldn’t raise school fees for their education nor provide the necessities for their families. The girls left without options, offered to work as house-helps, to help provide for their families and for their future. Unlike today, in the 1980’s and 90’s, there were no vetting or reputable agencies that connected the helps with their employers. Rahab’s story is among the many untold stories of house help in pursue of a livelihood.
Growing up, we had a couple of helps live with us. Some stayed for as long as two years, some longer. They left for different reasons. Some got married and left to start their own households, some left after saving enough money to start a business or go back to school. Some simply left and never came back for reasons best known to them. I remember being deeply disappointed when one just never came back after the Christmas break; she had lived with us for three years. My disappointment was solely because she was the only one who ever played dodgeball with me and my siblings.
Anyways, with time, I asked Rahab why she covered her mouth when she laughed. She expressed that her lips were too big and thick, that she felt shy. She told me that she was once smacked in the mouth by her ex-husband and was lucky that she did not lose her teeth, she joked that her thick lips were protection enough. As we both laughed at her remarked joke, she laughed carefree exposing a set of dimples that framed deeply on her cheeks. She stopped for a while cleaning the dishes, to express her joy at the safety that she enjoyed in the confines of our home. She expressed that life was a conundrum and for the first time in her life, she felt no pain of labor.
“Pain of labor?” I asked perplexed.
“Yes. I do dishes, I cook, I wash your clothes, iron them… I get to laugh and for a very long time, I haven’t had this joy,” she replied, rinsing off the set of cups that she had been washing after our four o’clock teatime.
“When was the last time that you were very happy?” I asked curiously.
“When I gave birth to my children,” she said.
“But that is a story for another day, a different type of labor; labor pain…,” she stated rolling her eyes.
“See, the difference is that either way, a woman inevitably experiences both pains, labor pain while birthing your children and the pain of labor, while working.”
“Oh, I see what you mean, labor pain for having a baby and pain of labor for work, right?” I echoed back my understanding.
“Exactly right!” she concurred.
“Before I came to your household, I worked on a people’s farm, digging and cultivating the land to remove weeds when the maize and beans stalk were still in the young stages of growth. The sun was hot, my back would hurt and sometimes the owner of the field wouldn’t even pay me for the day’s labor…after toiling the whole day. I had to work for my children…just to afford to eat,” she said sadly.
“There must be an easier way to get out of my situation…,” she continued, “from an abusive husband who couldn’t provide. I couldn’t stand seeing my children hungry. After going hungry for three days, I was done. I choose a different path by walking away…” she confessed as she stopped scrubbing the pot, looked out of the window for a moment, the reflection of her face on the glass, she smiled.
“Why are you smiling?” I asked to change the subject as she sounded emotional and on the verge of crying.
“Because I can see my long hair. I used to wear a turban you know…I belonged to the Wakurino Church, the Christian denomination where women wore the long-frilled dresses and always, always covered their hair…I wanted different. I wanted what Rahab never would have thought to do…” she said, confidently.
“What? You were in the Wakorino Church? You once covered that beautiful hair?” I asked puzzled.
“It is a decision that changed my life. My children were on the line, I choose them and in doing so, I wanted to make a bold decision as a I reminder of the different person that I would be for them. This job affords me not just their food but for their future as well. Their dad doesn’t care for them. I take the yoke, persevere the pain of labor, and work so that I can afford them a better life.” She looked at me and continued
“God is faithful and sees His children’s heart, not what they wear, if they cover their hair or not and most definitely, wants His children to live freely.”
Rahab worked in our household for three years. I came to learn of her two children, who she supported, her family of twelve which she also supported, and her liberation from an abusive husband. What she termed as man-made religion, religion of men whose hearts were far from God’s will. Her observation from her vivid experience, was that the church misled her. The man whom she married was a wolf in sheep’s clothing pretending to get the good girl in church and then play around with the girls’ life. Truly a sad situation. Rahab’s story and many like hers are the experiences that many house helps face in Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa.
