The Help

She came to my home straight from the village, from the border between Kenya and Tanzania. She had never worked for anyone. She had never been away from home.

She left home to teach her husband a lesson. “I want to be away a whole year,” she said. “He doesn’t pay school fees, he doesn’t buy food. He’s only buying for his many girlfriends. He has like four.”

They had been sent home for several months now. They owed the school about Kshs 70,000 which she had tried to settle with petty trade like mitumba and vegetables… but it wasn’t enough. She needed work.

Her sister-in-law recommended her to me. And so she came to my house – a few weeks before I was due to go back to work from maternity.

We started from scratch. She had never used a stove. She had never taken transport in Nairobi. But by a week’s end, the house ran perfectly. And I was finally getting good sleep.

I read and researched a lot about child development. But even with her Class 8 education, she did everything the books say you should do with infants. She sang to her, with rhymes she made up. She spoke to her and entertained her at every moment. About how the birds were her friends, the teddy bears (which she called dogs) were her friends… instead of reprimanding her for refusing to do things as babies are wont to do, she always found a creative way around it. “Yum yum!” she’d encourage, “before the churries (what she called birds) come eat your food!”

We worked like that for five months. We had a rhythm. I never told her what to do. She always did it before I could’ve asked her.

And then she asked me if she could go home to see her children. Which of course, obliged. It had been five months since she’d been away from home. It was an ordinary Saturday. We said our goodbyes as we usually did, with the intonation and expectation of returning on Monday. But during the course of the day, several thoughts ran through my head… she had reconciled with her husband. Her children were back in school…

I opened the drawer where she normally kept her things and it was empty…

Perhaps some goodbyes are harder to say, we pretend they’re not forever.

I suppose I could’ve found a replacement immediately. But personally, I needed to grieve. I stayed/ worked from home, replaying our conversations – half in denial/ stupid hope that she would come back – waiting until the last day of her “leave” before finding someone else.

It’s normal, I know. People come and go. And I understand her reasons. I would’ve chosen them myself. But she wasn’t just my nanny. She was a blessing. And I would’ve liked a moment to really say goodbye.

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UPDATE: Two weeks later she apologised for not saying goodbye