Woman dumped by her husband builds her own house after 4 years of riding okada (Photos)
If anyone had told Eunice Otieng that one day she would be a landlord in 2017 when her life was falling apart, she would never have believed the person.
By then, she was having a myriad of challenges; her husband whom she had financially supported had ditched her for another woman, leaving her with huge loans to service.
Speaking to Kenya’s leading media platform TUKO.co.ke, the mother of one recounted how she and her daughter became homeless after the landlord closed down their house due to months-long rent arrears.
However, being the strong woman she is, Otieng, who works as a nurse said she decided to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life from scratch.
“I almost ran mad with my small salary. I had no option but to think about how to start life from zeros. I had a motorcycle which I took and I started boda boda job,” she said.
Working as an Okada rider
Being that her salary as a nurse was going into the repayment of the loans that she took for her ex-spouse, she did night shifts and so during the day, she hustled as an Okada rider.
She saved a sum of N94,000 and started a small business in 2018. Since she had a piece of land that she had bought before marriage, she started building her house.
“I decided that I will work hard for my baby to get the best. I think I was working hard with a lot of anger to change my life. That’s why I was able to finish the house,” Otieng said.
She also had savings for her baby and she decided to use them to build the rentals which she recently finished.
The hardworking Busia woman said she gifted her five-year-old daughter the rentals to heal the pain they went through when the landlord closed their house due to rent arrears.
“I gifted her the houses to wipe the tears we cried when the landlord was locking our house. I vowed to make her a landlady at this tender age,” she said.