Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 3 Feb 1975 –

We have got a very nice girl helping me in the house – Hannah has never worked before but is a very good worker and the children like her. Fiona stays with her quite happily when I go shopping. She speaks good English as she has done up to Standard 1 (14 years) schooling. Her father has five wives and her own mother has nine children so there was no money for more schooling for her. Hudson our garden ‘boy’ is in a similar position – he is earning money to buy a water supply for the co-operative farm he helps with. They both work from 8am-12noon and 2-4pm for 50 Shillings and 45 Shillings a week respectively and think themselves very lucky because we don’t ask them to work on a Saturday ! I am really enjoying a rest from housework though I do all the cooking and of course shopping means a trip to Nairobi twice a week.

Letter from Judy to Elaine 5 Feb 1975 –

I have got a ‘girl’ to help in the house called Hannah – she has never worked before but is much better than I am at housework – she thinks this is very funny ! It is quite frightening how quickly one adjusts to having this kind of help – I already feel very noble having to wash up after supper – the one meal Hannah doesn’t wash up. The funny thing is that Graham always helps dry up – something he never did at home ! !

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 8 Feb 1975 –

Our garden is looking less wild now, thanks to our gardener and a little work I did last weekend. We pay less than 10p per hour and it seems rather mean. However it must be a useful sum of money and we try to be model employers. Hannah was very nervous at first but now she obviously likes coming. She also looks after Fiona if Judy goes out for a while.

Letter from Judy to Jo 18 Mar 1975 –

Behind our house are the servants’ quarters which we share with the people next door – we have a living room, shower/toilet and store for Hannah and Hudson. As they don’t ‘live in’ it is ample for them – when it rains or for their 2 hours lunch break.

Letter from Judy to Sue & Gravel 13 June 1975 –

We no longer have Hudson the gardener as we found it frustrating to watch someone doing a not very good job of the gardening. I still have Hannah for 3 days a week to do the washing, ironing and floorwashing – something I’m sure Sue would appreciate ! The nearest tarmac or pavement is a long way away so everything is either muddy or dusty according to whether it’s wet or dry season so there is a lot more washing than at home and of course it’s all done by hand.

Letter from Graham to Tom & Mary 19 June 1975 –

We are doing our own gardening now because the gardener we hired was not satisfactorily competent. He had never done the job before though he managed the vegetable plot well enough. We enjoy the work and get exercise from it – our quality of life has improved. Meanwhile another Kenyan is jobless I suppose though he has a small amount of land to get food from. There is a noticeable tendency for men in low-paid work to be very slow workers – making the job last or perhaps making it look enough for two men, thus productivity is low and a mean-sounding rate of pay looks adequate in respect of the work done. At least, it looks adequate to most people here and of course if everyone else accepts this one tends to agree oneself.

Letter from Judy to Jo July 1975 –

The official rate for unskilled labour is now 175/- a month; I pay Hannah, our housegirl, 15/- a day (she works from 8:30am to 4pm with a lunch break) which is considerably above average but can’t go far towards buying food. There is great competition for getting gardening and house jobs especially out here where it is too far for people to go to Nairobi for work.

Diary entry by Juliet 31 Mar 1977 –

We are now at the coast on holiday. Mary (Karanja) our housegirl is looking after our cat – a long haired tortoiseshell (which came to us at the end of another Alliance staff member’s contract) and also my mice. She was most amused when I told her they were pets.