'I worked so hard. I never slept', granny's cry after losing 50 years' savings to floods
Jane Njeri, during the interview at her home in Kahawa Wendani, Nairobi on May 23, 2024. By 2013, she had saved enough to buy a 100 by 60ft parcel in Bosnia, and immediately put up her iron-sheet house and 10 single rooms for renting out. She lost all.
What you need to know:
- For nearly 50 years, Jane Njeri worked tirelessly to save enough to build rental homes to fund her grandchildren's education, but devastating floods have now submerged her sole source of income.
- With no money left, the granny fears for her grandkids' future prospects unless she receives help.
For nearly five decades, Jane Njeri toiled at Githurai market in Kiambu County, sleeping past 1am and waking up at 3am to prepare for the opening of her green grocery business.
For 42 years, she maintained a frugal ritual. She saved a huge portion of her profits and economically spent the remaining on her children, including buying food, and paying their school fees.
Her husband died in 2000 and before his death, he worked as a casual labourer in construction projects, drawing irregular household income.
“I worked so hard. I never slept,” says Jane, now aged 78. She sold the vegetables from 1971 to 2016, when she retired.
By 2016, she was 70-years-old and her body had already “refused to do the donkey work.”
“I had made a commitment to myself never to be a beggar or depend on my children in my old age. So, I made sacrifices. I rarely bought myself new clothes or shoes,” shares the granny who resides in Bosnia area, Kiambu County.
Every penny she saved through merry-go-round saving groups and ‘mattress bank’ went into a development project she had planned for: buying a piece of land and building rentals.
Jane Njeri, 78, speaks to nation.africa at her home in Kahawa Wendani, Nairobi on May 23, 2024.
By 2013, the savings were enough to buy a 100 by 60 feet parcel in Bosnia, and immediately put up her iron-sheet house and 10 single rooms for renting out.
In 2014, she and her seven children moved from their rented house within the area to their new home. She managed to educate all her children up to high school.
Finished school
By April, this year, the granny was earning Sh2,500 from each of the rooms, an income she used to sustain herself and her two grandsons left behind by her late daughter.
“My daughter died when the eldest son was in Form Two and the younger one was in Class Six,” she says.
“I used the rental income to educate them. The first one finished high school in 2022 and the second one is in Class Eight now.”
All she wanted for her grandchildren is a college education as that is the only way they can gain employable skills pivotal to building their future in her absence, she stresses.
“I wanted to save the rental income in the table banking groups and secure loans to send both of them to college. In fact, the one who finished Form Four wants to enrol in some college in Kiambu,” she opens up.
That future now feels like a broken egg in her hands.
Why?
Last April, the heavy rains rolled up into heavy floods, gushed into her homestead and submerged her house and the rentals.
All the tenants left.
“I’m super stressed,” she exclaims.
“Just today (May 23, 2024), the teacher sent my grandson back home to bring Sh500 for exams. I don’t have even a single cent. What will happen to my grandchildren? I can’t ask my children for help. They are all jobless.”
All Jane says she needs is money to educate her grandchildren.
“I don’t want them to suffer in adulthood. I’m sure with higher education they can secure paid work or start something sustainable for themselves,” she concludes.
