Resilience: Inspiring story of women hawkers in Nairobi

The ubiquitous image of Nairobi for visitors and its residents is the matatu. These public service vehicles are found in every neighbourhood of the city.

They are loved by the majority of Nairobians who rely on them every day. They are feared, or should one say hated, by the minority who own cars and are hassled by the seeming unruliness of matatu drivers. But there is another character of Nairobi that often goes unnoticed by visitors to the city – women hawkers.

The eye of a visitor or even a resident of Nairobi tends to see the hawker and not necessarily the gender of the person. Yet, women hawkers are all over the town, especially in the city centre and its periphery.

Citizens of Nairobi may not know but Nairobi and hawkers have known each other for a long time. Think about it. Where did the newly arrived mzungu or mhindi get their fresh food supplies when they settled in the place that would later become the green city in the sun?

However, city authorities like to pretend that this relationship is not that old. They harass and intimidate the hawkers, sometimes confiscating their wares, fining them for unlicensed trading or sending them to jail.

The relationship between the city managers and the hawkers is a perpetual cat-and-mouse game, with the hawker ending on the losing side. Yet, the women and men who sell small wares on the streets, either on the pavements or the city roads’ roundabouts, have eye-opening stories to tell about their lives and how they ended up hawking.

In Resilience: Stories in the Lives of Nairobi Women Hawkers (Amka/Goethe/Three Legs Consortium, 2023) one encounters personal stories that probably tell the story of Kenya’s socio-economic reality better than any policy document available.

These are lived experiences of struggle against socio-economic odds; the fight to live from hand to mouth, day by day or even hour by hour. Yet, the stories in this collection aren’t about resignation to fate. The women whose stories are captured in Resilience haven’t given up on life; they remain stoic.

Relate with the hawker

What the stories do is to remind the reader to stop and look and relate with that woman hawker she or he meets every day or once in a while. Where are these women hawkers from? Where and how do they live?

Where did or do they get the capital to purchase the goods they sell? How much do they earn? What problems do they experience every day in the course of their work? What are their views on life in the country?

Each one of the 45 stories in Resilience is a special snapshot into the life of a subject as well as that of Kenya. These are lives spread across the selling and buying world in Nairobi. From the seller of fruit pudding or salad, as Kenyans call it, to the seller of books on the pavement, the reader meets several vendors of things Nairobians buy without ever bothering to know who the seller is and the source of the item they have just bought.

There are women who sell an assortment of merchandise; then there are those who sell foodstuffs such as sugarcane or melons or roast potatoes or chapati or chicken feet or gizzards; or those who sell bras or masks or coffins; or those who sell water or alcohol; or the shoeshiner etc.

What these stories reveal are lives that are trapped in an unending cycle of socio-economic inequality. A majority of the women hawkers whose stories are in Resilience have some degree of schooling – primary education to post-secondary training in a profession.

Some dropped out of school and got married. However, the marriages didn’t work out, either because the men became abusive or abandoned the families. Consequently, these women opted to fend for themselves, and in many cases, their child or children. They try their hands at whatever would pay rent, school fees and buy food.

But hawking in Nairobi is not an easy job. The obstacles and risks are innumerable. Capital is problem number one. Where to sell the goods is the second big problem. Dealing with city authorities is a hurdle that has dampened the spirit of many would-be hawkers.

Where does one get funds to start a business in a country where savings are so low and bank interest rates on loans are so high? How much should one invest in a business that is not secure and whose returns are not guaranteed?

State of fear

Many hawkers trade in a state of fear considering the tense relationship between them and city authorities. Because a majority of hawkers are generally unlicensed, they are easy to exploit through harassment and extortion. This is why it is not surprising when the media reports run-ins between hawkers and county askaris.

The presence of hawkers in the city centre and its environs is largely because of failed economic policies. These women and men, many of them people who should be gainfully employed in industries, have been shepherded into vending all kinds of wares because of economic plans that have neither encouraged savings nor industrial investments and production.

Kenyans sell and buy goods mostly produced in other countries. This means that the country supports and sustains employment elsewhere.

For as long as those who make economic policies in Kenya don’t encourage industrial production, and those who have the resources to support the establishment of industries don’t do so, the country will continue to be one big market for foreign goods. Hawking will always be part of the economy.

In fact, hawking has just become fancier with online selling and buying of goods, which are delivered to one’s doorstep or workplace. In fact, it is in the interest of city planners and administrators to ensure that hawkers do not interfere with other businesses in the city and can do their vending in decent spaces and safely.

Hawking is about making livelihoods. Indeed, the women hawkers in Resilience ensure that some goods and services are affordably available to Kenyans who are economically stressed. They bring their goods and services, at a relatively cheaper cost, to the buyer.

They work on very small margins. Yet many of them say that they manage to pay for life essentials and make some small savings. Resilience is about the Sh500 economy, which is the average daily income most of the women say they make. The words of one of them should be the challenge of the year for all Kenyans, “I have never begged or borrowed from anyone even when times were so hard”. 

The writer teaches literature, performing arts and media at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]