The journey from Kakamega to Nairobi was long enough for Faith Musikoyo to accept a marriage proposal from the man that sat next to her.
The two got to know a few things about each other and even agreed to live as husband and wife. Faith learnt that the man, who she prefers to call John, was a construction contractor in the city who was looking for a girl to marry.
It was good news for Faith who says she had nowhere to go that day after she fled from her home in Mumias. She had fought with her parents and in anger, she boarded a Nairobi-bound bus without knowing who would be her host.
She later learnt he was already a family man. He would later try to kill her after locking her in the house and raping her for a whole month
Faith admits that she entered the marriage because it was the only option she had
Faith, 28, is now an actress at Shoe-back Media, an online platform that showcases short skits on reproductive health for people living in informal settlements She says that marriages for lack of basic needs are referred to as part-time jobs by slum dwellers.
“When John expressed interest in me, I was elated not because I had developed feelings for him in the few hours I knew him on that bus.
In fact, I wasn’t ready for marriage. I just knew I would have a place to call home and that was enough for me at that time,” she says. But it wasn’t the first marriage that Faith was getting married for convenience.
She first moved in with a man the first time she ran away from home when she was unable to endure frequent fights in her polygamous family.
Her father, unable to sustain his four wives and many children evaded the discussion of taking her to college when she completed high school
Faith travelled to Nairobi and found refuge at her aunt’s place, which aunt lived in
We were always unable to pay rent most times and survived on just one meal every day,” she says. Meanwhile, she battled the allure to join slum gangs for survival.
She would later escape two rapes in the slum when she resisted the invitation to join the gangs that terrorised slum residents. When she was down on her luck, she met Justus*, a boy she had known in her high school days.
She immediately joined Justus who lived with seven other siblings in Babadogo, one of Nairobi’s low-end estates. With
But something else defined her relationship with Justus.”Sometimes I looked at him as a brother. He was also my friend but we also started sleeping together.
It was hard to define the nature of our relationship. When we decided to look for a single room where we would share the Sh1,000 rent, we also continued sleeping together until we all lost our jobs,” she recalls
The two were homeless again when they lost their jobs and parted ways. She would try her luck in the village but ended up fighting with her parents
It was when she left the village after the disagreement with her parents that she met John and entered her second marriage. When John took her in, he got her pregnant and rushed to formalise marriage arrangements with her parents.
He even took gifts to them.”Once or twice, I also visited his parents’ home. And all that time, they never told me that John was married and had children who travelled to Nairobi when I was back in his village,” she says.