This is Brendah

I deliberately keep my blogs light hearted, fully appreciating that it would make very uncomfortable reading if I were to constantly recount all of the poverty, squalor and deprivation that I see on a daily basis. That said, it has occurred to me that, by telling only the amusing stories, I am painting a very one-sided picture of life here.


It would be a long and painful blog if I were tod detail everything that I have experienced but to redress the balance a little, I would like to tell you about one lady – I think her story sums up the situation here quite well.



Brendah is 32 years old, married, with two children; a twelve year old daughter and seven year old son. Her husband is sick so cannot work therefore Brendah is the only bread winner. She works five days a week as a cleaning lady – two of those days are at my home, the other three are spread over other VSO volunteers. Brendah is actually very lucky, with unemployment running at 84%, she is one of the few in Zambia that has a job. She is also lucky to be working for westerners which means she is given lunch every day – probably the only meal she eats.

She lives in Sido Compound, a collection of 100 or so houses on the outskirts of Chipata. Home for Brendah is in a shared building and consists of one living room and one bedroom. At night, the living room doubles up as a bedroom for the children. Brendah’s bedroom is not in a part of the building with an outside wall and therefore has no window; she has to light a candle to see, even during the day. The bedroom has no wardrobe or drawers so when she has washed and dried the family’s clothes, they are wrapped up in a chitenga (a piece of material) and stored on the floor. Brendah asked me if she could have an empty cardboard box that was in our spare room explaining that she wanted it to store clothes in! All meals are cooked outdoors on a charcoal brazier (a bucket with holes). There is no running water. Brendah walks 500 meters to a small building with a tap owned by the Water & Sewerage Company where she buys her water. It costs 50 kwacha for 20 litres. With no hot water and the cost of buying it, water is a precious commodity so she washes her clothes in a stream. The toilet is a communal pit latrine.

Brendah is a highly intelligent woman with a brilliant sense of humour – she has been a great friend and adviser to me during my stay. Don’t know how I would have managed without her! In another country where there are opportunities for talented people, she would be a high flying executive but alas in Zambia she will remain a domestic help for as long as she is able to work. She walks one hour to get to work daily. I look forward to her arrival, we usually have a chat over a bowl of cornflakes then she gets down to washing, which she does in a back-breaking bend over the bath!

Normally, she doesn’t complain but yesterday she was very upset and relayed the following to me: 2am the night before, she had been struggling to carry her husband to the outside toilet when he fell. He has probably broken his hip. All she was able to do, was get him back to bed where he remains, in agony. Without the money to pay for health care, he has no access to a doctor or hospital. Brendah must continue working but with him bed-ridden, she wakes at 4.30am, prepares the family meals and cleans her house before setting off for an eight hour shift cleaning for us. She is terrified of the future. She can’t simply leave him to suffer but equally, cannot pay even for a check-up to establish what is wrong.

Brendah’s total monthly income is 365,000 kwacha, which when you take out her rent of 60,000 per month, she is left with around 10,000 per day to feed and family of four. To put this into context, a loaf of bread costs 3,380 kwacha so she earns the cost equivalent of less than three loaves a day!!!
She has to buy water plus feed and clothe a family of four on this meagre wage. She is struggling but determined to educate her two children; schools here charge pupils to attend and parents are required to buy the specified uniform along with all books, pencils etc. Health care has to be paid for too.



It would be easy for Brendah to loose hope but she feels lucky ….the saddest fact of her story is that she genuinely is one of the lucky ones.