A national census was conducted in Kenya at the end of August. Hundreds of thousands of enumerators and supervisors were hired by the government to do this.
Jennifer, a young woman who lived at Tasaru for several years after running away from her family to avoid a forced marriage, was one of those hired for the census. If you look at the slide show just to the right here on the website, you will see a photo of Jennifer with her grandmother on a visit home. I call Jennifer "Kubwa" (Swahili for "big") because there are several Jennifers at the rescue center. Many of the girls at Tasaru have picked up on these nicknames and use them themselves for the two Jennifers. There is a third Jennifer at the center - I often call her "kati kati" which means "middle" in Swahili. At the very least, all of the girls at Tasaru know who I mean when I say "wapi Mdogo?" but everybody gets a good laugh too. Its nice.
Kubwa is currently living in a small house in Narok (along with Sila, another Tasaru "graduate") and working as a secretary for 5000ksh (about $75)/month. She applied for the job of census taker, passed an exam, and took two and a half weeks off from work for the training required of all enumerators for the census as well as the census itself. She was told that she would be paid 24,000ksh -what she makes in almost 5 months as a secretary. What great news, right?!
According to Kenyan newspapers, the government has not paid the census workers yet, and there seems to be quite a bit of confusion about where the money to do so actually is. I feel so bad for Jennifer because she entered into the endeavor with good intentions, pride in her country and desire to be part of something civic, and now has nothing to show for it. She could be using that money to add to her savings (she opened a small bank account a few months ago), buy a new dress, or even a few more dishes for her home. Unfortunately she may also be learning an important lesson about life in her country.
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