Christine Kagayi, a woman without limits.
Christine Kagayi Andega is the salesperson at Kijani Refill Outlet Shop, a shop that purifies and sells bottled water along Naivasha road and its environs. Her bubbly personality and the fact that she never forgets to make reference to the Bible is always something to look forward to every time I visit the store to refill my 20-liter bottle of water.
With a night-time curfew in place and restriction of movement in various counties due to the covid-19 pandemic, many businesses including the ones in the capital city of Nairobi , have been affected leading to massive loss of jobs.
Christine’s is just one amongst many Kenyan women who live day by day wondering if they will be able to keep their jobs if the covid-19 pandemic persists, her only prayer is that her hard work doesn’t go unnoticed by her employer.
“Am grateful to God to be able to have a job during this time when covid-19 has caused a lot of havoc in the employment sector,” is all she says when I ask about how she has been able to keep the store open.
“I also have a good working relationship with my clients and this helps me get referrals here and there which have been able to boost our sales,” she adds.
Although she’s appears to effortlessly make her way through the challenging world of the bottled water business, Christine’s life is filled with ups and downs which she is ready to tell the world.
Her story begins in 2001 when her father remarried and relocated Christine and her younger brother from their home in Nairobi to their village in Subatia, Western Kenya, to live with their grandmother. A year later when she was only in standard 6 her father, the only parent she had known growing up died and that’s when she came to the painful realization that she and her brother were left without a home.
Now an orphan, her life changed drastically since she was forced to live with different relatives and with no one left to pay her school fees she quit school at an early age.
“At this time I struggled a lot with my faith, but I made a decision to get saved and joined Redeemed Gospel Church here in Nairobi where I started doing some evangelism work.” She recalls while holding back tears.
Through networks she had created with her evangelism work, she was able get work as a cleaner at Naro Moru River Lodge Hotel ,which was owned by the late Kenneth Matiba, a legendary Kenyan politian and activist for democracy. In 2010 her hard work and efficiency paid off when she was noticed by Matiba’s daughter, Julie Wahome who also happens to be the daughter in law to the late Wahome Mutahi, a beloved Kenyan humourist popularly known as ‘Whispers’ after the name of the column he wrote for the Daily Nation newspaper from 1982 to2003.
Julie employed her as a nanny and now Christine could finally rest easy knowing that she at least had a stable income. She vowed to save up most of her income so as to be able to buy a small parcel of land back in the village where she and her brother could eventually call home.
After working for Julie for 2 years, tragedy struck again when her niece died and due to financial difficulties that her brother was experiencing she had to step up and use her savings to cater for the funeral expenses.
After the burial she continued to work for Julie Wahome until 2016 when she got pregnant and could no longer work for her.
“I thank God for Julie who taught me a lot of life skills including bakery and culinary skills which I still use upto date as a side hustle that gives me an extra income. When I left she also gave me a total of my three months salary as a gratuity,” she says. Now with a child on the way and the father refusing to take responsibility, she was forced to relocate back to the village.
“Life in the village proved to be hard. This time round I couldn’t just think of myself but also for my child who wasn’t born yet,” she recalls. “I wanted to seek for employment but I had no where to live my child once she was born and that’s when I decided to look for my mother who I hadn’t seen since she and my father separated.” After finding her mother they came to a painful agreement whereby once she got a job she would leave her daughter with her mother as she goes to work as long as she sends money every end month to cater to her child’s upkeep.
As luck would have it she was able to get a job as a house help at a prominent nominated female senator’s house in 2018. She worked for her for 7 months at which point the senator took a vacation with her family and told her to find a place to stay while they were away and that they would call her when they got back. Unfortunately, that call never came and she was again left homeless since she was living at her employers house . This time round her friends were there for her and were able to raise Ksh. 1500 for her which she used to rent a house.
“I never stopped praying all this time and one of my friends called me to tell me that she had organized a job for me at a hotel along Naivasha Road which I was expected to show up to the next day. When I showed up to work I was overdressed for the job because it turned out to be a ‘kibanda’ but the owner still let me work there for the day and gave me ksh. 100,” she remembers.
At around the same time Kijani Water Refill had just set up shop around the area and was looking to employ, an opportunity that Christine was quick to jump to but was astonished to find out that the job requirements needed a man and not a woman.
“I had to convince my boss that I could do the job including carrying the big bottles of water and thank God he gave me the chance and that’s how I started working here sine 1st of June 2019,” she confidently says.
After getting the job she was tasked with getting clients for the shop which sells water from as little as sh. 20 for a 500 ml bottle of water. She worked tirelessly to get clients and also deliver water to them at no extra cost. This in turn was able to increase their sales from the first day where she only made ksh. 40 to days where she can even record sales of upto ksh. 7000 a day.
Through this job, she was able to be reunited with her daughter, Chantelle Magaret, who she has enrolled to school near the area whereshe works . She hopes she can be able to one day start her own so business so that she can be finally financially stable.
“Job stability is what anyone whose employed prays for and that’s why I advise others to be diligent when working for someone and also to treat the business as if its their own because if the business takes a hit the your job also takes a hit. But at the end of the day nobody really knows what the future holds, so I have to do the best I can today so that my child can at least have some hope about the future,” says Christine as we end our interview.
Original story by: Ms. Beryl Anyango
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