Filinda Kamau has made a career out of a profession most people shun. The 26-year-old is a mortician at the Egerton University funeral home in Nakuru.
Upon arriving there, you’ll find her in her immaculate white overall, gumboots, surgical mask, and gloves.
Her tools of work include scissors, syringes, tongs, knives, sewing threads, syringes, threads, and beauty products, among others.
She became an internet sensation when her videos working at the mortuary went viral, gaining thousands of views and a massive following on TikTok.
She has been working as a mortician for years and considers the job as her passion. Initially, her childhood ambition was to be a nurse. However, she could not pursue a nursing course due to a lack of school fees.
Just when it seemed like her life had come to a standstill, a priest at her church informed her of a course called mortuary science. She decided to pursue the course while waiting to get enough money to pursue a nursing course.
However, upon informing her parents and siblings, they were horrified. They discouraged her, saying they wouldn’t want a mortician in the family.
The ambitious Filinda decided to plug her ears and do the course as it aligned with her passion to pursue a career in the medical field.
Over the years, her parents and siblings have come to accept her job.
Daily Routine
Upon waking up in the morning, the first thing she does is to pray for protection as she never knows what might happen during the day.
“This job involves numerous accidents, and one may be injured,” she says.
When a body is brought to the mortuary, her first task is to fumigate and disinfect it. The second thing is to confirm whether the person is really dead, as some people are brought in a comma.
After disinfection, the body is left alone for two hours, after which she massages it to straighten all the organs. She also closes the corpse’s mouth and eyes. The next step is to label the body with an identification tag.
The body is finally put in the fridge, waiting for dispatch. In a day, she receives 0 to 10 bodies.
Social Media
The reason Filinda decided to share her job on social media was because she wanted to change the negative perception of the kind of work done by morticians
“Many people wrongly believe that mortuary attendants are dirty or have mental health issues,” she says.
She has been received positively, as people learn about mortuary work and even aspire to pursue the career. Naturally, others provoke and condemn her for posting her work on social media
She says she has never had nightmares. Once she leaves through the hospital gate, all thoughts of the mortuary are left behind.
Sadly, working in the mortuary industry has lost her a lot of friends.
“Some people even refuse to pick up my calls and avoid me when they hear that I am a mortician. Others look at me strangely,” she says.
However, she has found solace in her husband, who appreciates her work. Her ambition is to advance her studies on a mortuary-related course and maybe start her own mortuary later in life.
Her advice to jobless youths is for them to work in the mortuary industry.
“Here, you have freedom because no one tells you what to do and you are your own boss,” she says.
Her most traumatizing experience was when a body fell on her when she was removing it from the fridge together with a colleague. Although the experience traumatized her for a week, she has since gotten over it.
Her Favorite meal is ugali and meat.
