Martha

What would we do without Martha? Martha is what you would call a nanny or a 'house girl' or a 'maid'. We think she is an angel!

Labor in Kenya is relatively cheap so for a few hundred dollars a month you can have someone live in your house and support you to cook, clean and look after the children. Finding the right person is a huge challenge but once you do, it is magic.

Martha lives next door to us (there is our house and then the 'servants quarters' or 'SQ') but spends a good deal of her time in our house. She is up early making breakfast and works late. She washes and irons the kids clothes, prepares delicious food a few days a week and runs around during school days to pick and drop kids. It will sound odd to those of you who have not lived here...and very ordinary to those of you who do/have.

She has two kids of her own who are in their early teens. They are being raised by the 'village' (their father, aunties and uncles) and are going to school. It is always a dilemma for me - 'breaking-up' one family so that you can 'run' another. Coming in from outside of this system, I struggled for a long time and wondered if what I was doing (creating employment but taking a mother away from her kids) was the best way to build a society. It all seems a bit 'Downton Abbey-ish'. Ya, hold on as I start taking shots of other 'employees' and then judge. But I do not have an alternative just yet to this scenario.

In the meantime, the kids (and we parents) love her! She has good morals, a great personality and a loving spirit. Many times there is so much laughter in this house you wonder if everyone is on a sugar high!