In Nairobi's middle-class neighbourhoods, there are certain zones where women wait for cleaning jobs from 'lazy' bachelors and working women. These job seekers are usually young, and a good number of them are mothers. A lot of them live in slums that flourish in high-end surroundings. Have you ever stopped to wonder what the lives of these women are like? What they have learned about the men and women they have worked for? What they are occasionally given to wash?
What the men and women they work for put them through? We decided to find out what their world is all about and here is the report. It is quite vexing, even dehumanising that some men and women actually give out their most intimate pieces of clothing to be washed by the women. And what does she do with them?
I don't care whether they will call me for the next cleaning job or not," the year-old mother of one says. She has been cleaning houses for more than five years in Donholm.
And she believes she has seen it all. But Ruth says she was not even thinking about it. The husband said that I had done an excellent job. But the wife thought that I had not," she remembers. Ruth and her friends have seen so much - there is never a dull moment in their lives, as they wait for the next job. One of the women we spoke to claims to have once walked in two men making love and she was shocked.
The men were equally dumbfounded. But they quickly composed themselves, and she decided to blackmail them. She was given a lot of cash to never mention the incident to anyone. She has kept part of the bargain, given she will not mention which neighbourhood it happened in. But some cleaning ladies offer extra services to men, especially bachelors in the city.
