Drugs, crime turn Bondeni grannies into mothers again

The sound of happy children, laughing and playing as they chant, drowns out honking vehicles on the roads nearby as the stench from open sewers wafts and mixes with the dust.

In the Bondeni informal settlement in Nakuru East Constituency, adults are busy in shops, groceries, furniture workshops and mini restaurants.

Celestine Owino, 50, wakes up every day and goes to a small structure she put up 20 years ago. She runs a tailoring business that earns her just enough to help put food on the table.

Celestine has worked here since she graduated with a dress-making certificate from a local polytechnic in 1989. 

She married and bore two daughters.

After her husband’s workshop was vandalised and his working tools stolen in 2020, she became the sole breadwinner. She is now left with the burden of raising her four grandchildren, who were left under her care after their mothers left.

She must work long hours and even on Sundays to earn enough money to sustain the family’s growing needs.

Celestine’s tribulations started 14 years ago when her first-born daughter gave birth while only in Standard Seven. The girl went back to school to sit her final exams, and Celestine had to take care of her grandchild.

But, after enrolling in Form One, she eloped with another man, only to come back home later with a two-month-old baby after falling out with her boyfriend.

“That was the beginning of my problems. All I ever wanted was to give her a good education but she let me down twice at a very tender age,” Celestine said.

“I always thought she would complete her studies and be able to take care of them but I was wrong.”

Celestine’s daughter nursed the baby for about nine months before leaving the child to her care. The girl and her friends would disappear for days and resurface only to eat or change clothing.

Her tribulations worsened when her second-born daughter became pregnant in 2013 just after enrolling at a polytechnic for a hairdressing and beauty course, forcing her to drop out of school.

Celestine said her daughter nursed the baby for only one year before she disappeared from home, leaving the child behind.

She could not continue with her work, as she had to devote her time to the grandchildren.

“I thought she would learn from her elder sister but she followed the same path, giving birth to two children, whom she left under my care and I have been struggling with them since.”

Last year, Celestine’s first-born daughter died while giving birth. But her second-born daughter lives in the same estate and occasionally pops into her mother’s house to check on the children.

“I have to take care of these children. If I do not, who will? They even refer to me as their mother,” Celestine added.

Her grandchildren are in nursery school and in grades Seven, Four, Two.

On a good day, she said, she earns at least Sh500. But there are days when she earns as little as Sh200, which she spends on house rent, food and basic needs.

She pays Sh2,500 a month for the single room she shares with her grandchildren. A curtain separates the sitting area from the bedroom. The children sleep on the floor.

“I cannot save. All my money goes to food. We live from hand to mouth, but I vowed to give the children some education so that they can help improve their lives in the future.”

Celestine is not the only one who has been left with the burden of caring for grandchildren. Just 50 metres away, Rose Apicha is also struggling to raise a 14-year-old girl. She started raising the child when she was just eight months old after her daughter became an alcoholic and disappeared from home.

Rose depends on casual jobs and raises the child single-handedly, though the girl’s mother is spotted occasionally in the estate.

“The child is now 14 years old and will be sitting for her primary final exams this year. I only hope I will get money so that she can continue with her studies.”

Residents of the slum say hundreds of grandmothers and elderly women are taking care of their daughters’ children because many young people use drugs and are involved in crime.

The Nakuru County children’s department does not have statistics on the minors being raised by their grandparents, but coordinator Alice Wanyonyi said several caregivers are enrolled for the national government’s Inua Jamii programme.

More than 7,000 households have been registered to benefit from the cash transfer for orphans and vulnerable children in Nakuru County, Ms Wanyonyi said.

“We only receive and intervene in cases where children are suffering either parental neglect, abandonment or are orphaned. However, such parents as these you mentioned are being helped through the Inua Jamii programme,” she said.

Most early pregnancies and child abandonment in informal settlements, said sociologist Austin Ochieng, result from sexual abuse and other forms of violence that usually not reported to the authorities. In most cases, said sociologist Mary Karanja, young mothers leave the children at home because they have no sense of responsibility due to several factors including rape, defilement and early marriage.

“Peer pressure also plays a huge role. In these informal settlements, there is a lot of pressure to abuse drugs and get into crime as a strategy to get money quickly,” Ms Karanja said.

“So, if a child is born along the way, these young parents perceive the children as a stumbling block, but at the same time, they have parental instincts and so they prefer to hand over the responsibilities to their parents.”

Both Mr Ochieng and Ms Karanja say the only way to reduce these cases is by strengthening community policing to ensure a good relationship between law enforcers and local communities so as to curb rape and improve interventions by the government.

“It starts with improving the lives of the communities and empowering them economically and making young girls aware of their rights and the structures in place to deal with sexual violence,” Ms Karanja said.