My story of hope and possibilities by Janet Andar

I want to share with you a story that most women in my situation did not live long enough to tell. I come from a very humble background. My father was a peasant and my mother a housewife raising her 11 children.

For a child from a rural village who did not know any differently, my childhood was good. I started my education in a rural public school, performed quite well, and was admitted at Kilgoris High School, a good government school by the standards then. I was happy at Kilgoris, but I hardly spent time in school as I was often sent home for lack of tuition. 

Luckily, I was able to sit for my grade 12 national examination, but my hope of getting direct entry to university ended. My grades were on the low end to be accepted to a college, and even if I had performed better, my parents could not afford my college fee. Thus, my dream to pursue any kind of a career ended.

In 1991, I decided to seek employment as a house help in Nakuru township, the only kind of employment I could easily find since I had no one to hold my hands for a better job. I worked for three years as a maid to help my parents pay high school tuition for my younger siblings. 

In 1994 I was married as a second wife to a man who promised that he would pay for me to go to college. I was willing to be married as a second wife if it meant I’d further my education. He paid for my first term as he promised, but that is where it ended. He had no capability to support two wives, and soon I started to have children.

Therefore, in 2000, I got a job with a local security firm to pay for my children’s education. But in 2006 I was diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. I was traumatized by the news, thinking how I would soon die and leave my young children orphaned. 
My husband was also AIDS positive, and so was his first wife. Together we had nine children between the ages of 14 and 1. One year after my diagnosis, my husband died from AIDS. That ended my hope for any possibility of surviving.  

After his burial in our rural village of Burlowo, I was rejected by my in-laws, following the merciless cultural taboos against a woman whose husband had died from AIDS. I was not allowed to inherit any land to raise my late husband’s children on. I was weak from AIDS, the stigma, the trauma of having lost a husband. I had no one to turn to. I was in and out of Chulaimbo hospital. l would cry nonstop from not being able to be there for my young children, not even able to feed them.

That is when I found Mwanzo, where hope has a home for all no matter your status or age. Elderly or child, widow and sickly, you are embraced and loved at Mwanzo. 

Through Mwanzo my life is forever transformed! Today, I am an employee of Mwanzo taking care of our high school students. And in the community, I am a counselor in my church, a caregiver to HIV and AIDS positive children (mine and others), a committee member of an education forum in my community, and more than all that, a jovial loving mother to my kids – still alive. My two last girls are in high school, a dream I never thought I would realize!

Mwanzo has given me happiness, purpose, confidence, leadership skills, and humor.  

I am grateful,
Janet Andar

February 10, 2024

Janet Andar and a Mwanzo volunteer at Mwanzo’s tree nursery