Rose Etole
Rose is a single mother (24 years old) who works as a house made of a family with a 5 months old baby.
She has been working for the family more than half of a year.
She was selling some small snacks, before she started working as an nanny.
Rose has a 7 years old son, *Luke. She lives with *Luke in a slum area in Nakuru.
When she comes back home from her work late, *Luke stays at his aunt’s house.
Rose grew up in a big family with 5 sisters and 2 brothers.
Their father passed away when the last born, Rose was little.
Therefore, their mother had to work to earn money to survive with her children.
However, their mother never had an education, so that she did not know how to read or write. Thus she could not get a job with a good payment.
She just worked in farms and was earning a very little money.
Accordingly, the family was very poor.
All of Rose’s sisters and brothers dropped out from schools, because their mother could not pay their school fee.
Only Rose went up to the college, yet it was not easy to do this. Because her mother could not pay Rose’s school fee, the head of the school would beat Rose and send her home demanding the fees. However, the more she was beaten, the more she went back to the school. “I let them know that ‘This girl wants to learn’” Rose says.
As there was no money at the house, sometimes the family had no food.
When there was no food, Rose drank just a cup of water before she went to bed and before she attended the school. “It was not easy, but I tried my best” Rose says.
Still, there was no money in the house for Rose to do some graduation exams, so that the school again tried to kick her out from the school, not to give her a chance to graduate.
At this time, a local Kenyan volunteer appeared from nowhere and paid for the Rose’s exams fees.
Thanks to the volunteer, she could do the exams and she graduated with one of the highest marks in her grade.
After the graduation from the college, at the age of 20, Rose got pregnant with her boyfriend.
When she got pregnant, her boyfriend left her saying “This is not my responsibility”.
Since her boyfriend left, she gave birth to her baby, *Luke, and raised him up to now, at his age of 4 all by herself without anyone’s help.
Now, *Luke’s father is married to another woman and has another child.
He has never contacted or helped Rose to raise *Luke since he was born, but recently he contacted Rose and asked to take *Luke into his new family, because *Luke is now a child and useful.
Rose is strongly against this.
“I would rather let *Luke suffer with me in this poor life than give him away. I will never give him up”. Rose says with her strong eyes.
Rose works 6 days and 12 or more hours in a day, but still struggles to afford *Luke’s school fee.
*Not his real name
