Salome Wanjiku is among Kenyan ladies who were fortunate to fly outside the country for work with hopes of making a life for herself.
She secured a job in Saudi Arabia where she worked for a couple of years but she later quit her job because of a boss who mistreated her.
While in the gulf country, she would send money back home for her family and kids as well as the construction of her house.
However, following her return back home, she was surprised to find that a land that she sent money for had not been bought and her house was badly built.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
Salome, a mother of two left the country for Saudi Arabia with hopes of improving her family and her children’s life.
With her parents parting ways while she was still young, she knew the feeling of growing up in a dysfunctional family and the challenges that came with it.
“In school, the teacher let me learn without any fees, hoping that my parents will eventually pay but they never did
“I left everything in school and found both dad and mum had left home with the latter taking the two youngest kids,” Salome said.
In an interview with Tuko Talks, Salome noted that after clearing high school, she got a job shortly before getting married.
However, things between Salome and her lover who was an Egerton University student did not work out forcing them to separate.
At the time, she worked in a flower farm but this was shortly before she got an opportunity to fly to Saudi Arabia for work.
Salome Wanjiku was employed as a domestic worker but she would be subjected to immense mistreatment by her boss.
“She almost poisoned me in the house and never used to give me food. Whenever there were guests, she would keep me late at night until her husband called her out on it,” she said.
The mistreatment from her boss was unbearable forcing her to run away from the home, however, life in the streets was not easy.
“After a lot of mistreatment, I ran away from the home but life on the outside was not easy as I had to pay rent, and needed a car to move everywhere. I really suffered for two years,” Salome added.
After some time, she secured a job with a Syrian family where she settled and worked for three years.
While working with the family, Salome would send thousands back home for purposes of her family and children’s needs.
She also wanted to get a land for herself and build a beautiful home.
“All this time, I used to send money home and when I asked how much money was there, I was told there is only Ksh 80,000
“Sometimes I would send Ksh 100,000 or Ksh 200,000. I used to send enough money to sort out and their needs and they could access it at any time,” she said.
Salome Wanjiku stated that following her return back home, she was treated to a shocker after realizing that all her money had been misused.
She returned home from Saudi Arabia after running away from her employer.
“They said they bought me a shamba but it was hot air. My Ksh 700,000 was misused just like that. The person that I was sending money tl could also not account for some Ksh 250,000,” she said.
On the beautiful house that she had hoped to sleep into, she found a badly constructed structure despite sending money for the same.
Despite the rude shock, an opportunity for her to fly to Turkey for work presented itself but she missed the chance as Kenyan authorities have allegedly kept her passport.
She said that every time she tried to access her passport she would be taken in circles.
“I was at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at passport control, waiting for the process to board the plane when we were removed from the line and taken to the waiting room
“We were told that our travel was a case of human trafficking and that we were being taken to Thailand and Malaysia. We were taken to another room where more people were being held, no one travelled to Turkey that day,” Salome explained.
