Her Name Was Sharolid

Abiria wote wa Maseno, Mumias, Migori, ingieni kwa hii basi ya Kisumu. Hakuna basi ingine inakuja, hii ndiyo itawapeleka". The obviously Luo voice rang over the microphone. I’m allowed to say that. Mimi ni mmoja wao as I came to realize sometime around the last general elections. The announcements were followed by a string of other efforts at humour. "Tafadhali usikubali kukula chakula kutoka kwa mwenye humjui barabarani. Mtu akitaka kukupatia sambusa hata kama uko na njaa aje, usikubali. Unaeza kuamkia Sambia." Yes Sambia, the country somewhere in Central Africa

See a week ago, my grandmother had called me and given me the description of the 20 year old who'd be sharing my house for a while. I was told to look out for a slender girl, with lines braided towards the back, wearing a purple skirt suit and carrying nothing. “Dana, onge gima oting’o?” (Grandma, carrying nothing?). Yes, carrying nothing. Apparently her ‘husband’ had discovered that she had acquired a city job and being against her leaving, he’d grabbed her bag, and she’d only just managed to jump onto a matatu for the trip to the bus stop in Busia. She was coming on the Busia bus. Easy Coach. She'd be arriving at 4pm. I needed to be there because she had never been to Nairobi. Never been to Nairobi? I'll take her!!! I can mold her into anything I want her to be, I can get her to become the best in the business. The endless possibilities. She never would need days off. She had no family to visit. And the biggest one, all she had asked for as her monthly wages was 2k. Two thousand Kenyan shillings. Heck! I gave her a welcome to Nairobi raise on the spot. “Nitakulipa 2,5. Two thousand five hundred shillings. As I planned the vain expenditure I’d incur with the extra cash I was now saving from my househelp salary budget line. I like that. I like her. And her Never-been-to-Nairobi. And so I picked her up.


"Gosh, don't be a victim like me!" Then they burst into their peals of laughter AGAIN. "Me I was used and then dumped. The stress!  You’re not seeing the way I've lost weight. I'm looking nice ya?" said the thinner taller one. I'll call her Dama. She looks like a Damaris. "Enyewe you look hot, your so thin." replied the shorter chubbier one called Shiro. She talked like a Shiro. She picks up her phone and checks her text messages impatiently. "Nowadays I'm wiser. Me I've found a bank. I'm going to milk him for everything he has. No more dating losers." I wondered if there was anywhere else I could have stood in the expansive bus park. Why on earth was I torturing myself with Dama and Shiro. But I couldn't budge. I stood still, and so did time. I wanted the jang’o guy to say it. Just say it. Add the bad jokes, but for crying out loud, just SAY IT! “Gosh how long have you been around? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Dama replied sweetly, “Aki sweetie si you just know the way I am. Sipendagi kusema.” And yes, they laughed again. A happy duo these two were.


See I had this other househelp called Sarah. Well that's what we thought she was called, but really her name was Serapia Pascal Mlanga. She was my high maintenance expatriate househelp from Tanzania. She was the best. I thought. She could whip up some mean herbal chapatis and mandazis. She was easy on the eyes, and my baby absolutely adored her. When I got home from work, I was greeted with a polite curtsy, “Shikamoo Mama Nia”. She was sent straight from Househelp’s Paradise and I loved her to bits!! Still I blame her. I blame her for Nia's perfect Swahili and two words of English. I also blame her for making my child one of those estate children. You know the ones everyone knows. The barber, the charcoal guy, the kiosk guy, the bamba50 guy. See, I discovered that Serapia had fixed her eyes on the textile industry and was only just transitioning in the domestic world. And in my absence she had been hawking lesos door to door, Nia in tow, all over the estate. So sadly, the herbal chapatis and Serapia had to go.


"Now why isn't this guy replying. He is supposed to Mpesa me some cash. I gave him some fake story about how I need 2K pronto for some college thing." Insert Hi5's and more laughter here. "But today I'm going to kunywa till I drop!!!" Laughter again. Dama seems to admire Shiro's sneaky gold digging ways. I'm looking at both of them and wondering almost out loud, "Who is your mother?". Shiro continued, “Unajua niliamua kuachana na Jeff kwanini? Imagine he used to share with his mother everything. Imagine ata ma sisters wake walikuwa wanajua everything about us.” “Acha!” That was me in my head. But Dama’s answer couldn’t have been more predictable, “Anaezaje kufanya hivyo, kwani what’s wrong with men nowadays?” And on and on they went about these men nowadays and their shortcomings.


So back to that day, the Busia bus came, and I took my cornrowed purple-suited unbagged girl-child home. Then came the interview. “Uko na miaka ngapi?” She was 20. Wow! I did the math. She could give me uninterrupted years of hard labour for another 10 years. “Umesoma?” She had somad till Form Two. Good, so she could read the menus and chore schedules I had painstakingly prepared on Excel the day before. “Umewahi kufanya kazi na motto?” And the answer came, “Pia mimi niko na motto wa 3 years.” Drat. I had to recalculate. Now she’d need Christmas off to go and see her child. Instead of accompanying us on a trip to the Coast, where I’d relax and she’d work, chasing after my spirited toddler. Sigh. Maybe if I gave her 3K she wouldn’t need to go see her child? And home we went. And then the games began. "Mama Nia, unawasha hii aje?" That was the gas cooker. "Mama Nia, unatumia hii aje?" That was the toilet. "Mama Nia, unafungua hii aje?" That was the tap. "Mama Nia, unafunga hii aje?" That was a diaper. "Mama Nia, hii ni nini?" That's the television. "Mama Nia, hii kitu ni ya nini?" Thats the iron. I had to remind myself, that eventually it would pay off to have a loyal, never-been-to-Nairobi househelp. It will be fine, it will be fine.


"Abiria wote wa Kisumu, Maseno, Mumia, basi ndio hii." The voice rang over the microphone again. Scaring me back into reality. "Sharo, usijali. Tukishamalizana na hii mambo ya harusi, tutakupigia urudi." I lied. It was just one in the string of lies I had told that evening.


We had been doing the "hii ni nini?" routine for about 4 days now, and it was becoming apparent that my bid to develop Loyal Househelp 2.0 was failing. My patience had run out and I'd had it with eating boiled sukuma wiki. I wanted my herbal chapatis and chinese rice. But not with Serapia the Hawker. There had to be another way. Maybe I could take my purple-suited girl to cooking class. But then we'd still have to overcome the flushing the toilet part. That morning, my 8am sleep was interrupted by Nia's screams of "Moto! Moto!" I jumped out of my bed and ran to her direction. No, not a fire. Boiling hot water, and Nia in it, apparently taking a bath.


And that was it. Hours later Nia was safely on her way to Grandma's, and I sat down with HB and delivered the news. "Sharo, tumeamua tukuachishe kazi. Tuko na mambo mingi sasa za harusi, na Nia ameenda kuishi na Nyanyake, kwa hivyo hatukuhitaji. Panga vitu vyako, tukupeleke kwa basi." Her countenance changed in a split second. I didn't know what to expect. "Sasa nitapanga nini, na sikukuja na kitu?"


"Basi ya Kakamega, abiria wanaoenda Kakamega, saa mbili basi yenu ndio hii" rang the now familiar Jang’o voice. I swiftly made for the bus with her in tow. Forgotten are the stories of Dama & Shiro. She was first on the queue, and I was happy. They checked her ticket and she boarded. I told her I'd call to make sure she'd arrived safely. I lied. Again.


Her name was Sharolid.

Too Poor To Get Sick

If you are too smart to pay the doctor, you had better be too smart to get ill. ~African Proverb

A couple of months ago I had the displeasure of meeting The Kenyatta National Hospital. For many years, KNH has been nothing short of a bus stop to me. Well that, and a place to hang out with my sister and her doctor friends. I stepped into the eery building when she was in medical school and lived and worked there. Still, that wasn't quite like the encounter that I had two months ago.

My diabetic mother suffered a stroke while upcountry. Let me give you a picture of my family to help you understand how we ended up at KNH. I am the third born of five children. My two elder siblings live outside of the country and both are eking out a living especially given the recession and the toll it took on the outside world. This therefore makes me the eldest child present. Next on line is my sister; the doc. And then there is our baby brother who is in Uni.

My mom is a widow and retired. I stopped working full time last November. My sister just started a new job after graduating from med school. Between me and her, we are all the help that my mom can get. Because she is diabetic, we have been unable to get her private medical insurance as no one wants to cover an pre-existing condition. Even though we were willing to beg, borrow and steal to make sure she had some form of basic insurance.

Anyway, so this March day, we get a call from my Aunt and she says that my mom had a stroke while upcountry. By herself. I cannot believe how long that day was. We tried to figure out what to do. The nearest hospital was Bondo District Hospital. A government clinic really. With one or two medical staff at best. With no form of transportation available, we had to call an Uncle who lives in Kisumu, about 2 hours away, to rush to our home and take her to the hospital. How dramatic was that? Eventually, they settled on going to Kisumu Provincial Hospital so that she could get specialized care. While there, my sister managed to talk to the doctor who explained that he was releasing her to us, so that she could come to Nairobi to be admitted and treated.

So we quickly went through all the options available. She had no insurance. The treatment could be prolonged based on the initial prognosis. We didn't have the deposit needed to have her admitted at a private hospital, let alone the doctor's fees etc. Our best bet, was the infamous Kenyatta National Hospital. We consoled ourselves that if we got her into the private wing, it wouldn't be TOO bad.

We went ahead to the hospital to begin the process of checking her in as we waited for her to arrive. I will NEVER forget the horror of the Casualty department when we walked in. My sister was used to it. I, even in my wildest imagination, never thought it would be THAT bad. Patients lying on cold metal beds, some with drips, some bandages, some looked unconscious. Their relatives running after ANYONE in uniform. "Daktari, wangu ako na Meningitis". They called out the diseases that they thought would get the doctor's attention quickest and get them some help. I could not believe I had been so sheltered. So lucky to be born on the right side of town, where I could sit on a leather seat, watch DSTV, wait for a "ding-dong" and have my number called to be seen by a calm doctor, have tests done in a super way and walk out with my meds in hand.

My mom arrived at about 8pm. It would be another two-hour wait before her doctor arrived at the hospital. Thankfully, the strong jaluo woman in her convinced him that she could be an outpatient and refused to be admitted. Even more thankfully, she fully recovered after a few weeks (and was back on the bus to upcountry much to my chagrin).

Still, that trip taught me that we will all at one time or the other (unless you are Catherine Elizabeth Middleton William Louis George) have our Kenyatta National Hospital moment. That decisive moment when you will have to make a choice that lands you in a government hospital or clinic. Ever thought of where all the car-crash victims on Nairobi-Nakuru highway, or enroute to Mombasa are taken? Nope, not Nairobi Hospital. You may one day find yourself (God Forbid!) at Sultan Hamud District Hospital. Sharing a bed with two other people, in a facility with no CT Scan, no X-Ray machine, 1 professional doctor and two nurses, no private bathroom, no ambulance. And the only thing that will be standing between you and the afterlife, is a doctor. A Kenyan doctor.

Did you know that there are places in Kenya where the ratio of doctor to patients is 1:270,000? Did you know that the average Kenyan doctor working for the government earns Kshs40,000? Ever ask yourself why they quickly quit the government program after the mandatory year to move to the private sector, or out of the country? And you know what, I would do EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Okay, last one, did you know that the CT scan machine at Kenyatta National Hospital was outdated in the US, over 20 years ago?

Did I say last one? I have more. Did you know that some kidney failure patients are advised NOT to start dialysis, because they cannot sustain it on their income? It costs about 4,500 per session at KNH. You need three a week. Do the math.

Kenyans are simply, too poor to get sick.