From Kilimani’s Dark Hustles to the Bright Side of Success

 

If anyone told me five years ago that I’d one day own my own boutique and live in a decent apartment without doing anything shameful, I would have laughed in their face. Back then, I was just another struggling single mother in the slums, trying to keep my two children fed and in school.

Life in the ghetto is a constant reminder that you’re at the bottom. I used to wake up every morning to the sound of noisy matatus and the smell of sewage from the drainage. Every mother in the slums dreams of moving out, giving her kids a better life, clean water, safe streets, good schools. I wasn’t different.

When my first child turned five and started asking questions like, “Mum, why don’t we have a fridge like Auntie?”, my heart sank. I wanted so badly to give them more. That desire became an obsession. I felt trapped by poverty.

A friend introduced me to the “Kilimani life.” She said, “If you want your kids to stop drinking uji for supper, you have to do what it takes.” I knew what she meant. At first I refused. But then my rent piled up, my baby got sick, and the landlord threatened to kick us out.

I’ll never forget the first night I compromised my dignity. I cried the whole way home. I told myself it would be just that one time. But shame is a slippery slope. One night turned into many.

Sometimes it wasn’t even by choice. One night a group of men I thought were clients turned violent. They treated me like an object and left me in the street. I remember limping home at dawn, bruised and broken, thinking, “So this is what my life has come to, Sodom and Gomorrah just to survive.”

I hated myself. I hated the life I was living. But I felt trapped because I didn’t know another way out. Every time I moved to a slightly better house or bought better clothes for my kids, the pressure to keep up that lifestyle only grew. Deep down I kept wishing I could just work honestly, sleep without shame, and still feed my family. to read more click here