1978 is a year that Lucy Muthoni Maina remembers all too well. Up until this year she had been a wife and a homemaker for seven years. During this period, Lucy and her husband had welcomed two children into their growing family and joy was all around her. Yet as they were living out their happily ever after, her husband passed away. The sense of loss was profound and Lucy staggered with the double responsibility of being father and mother to her infants. She needed a strong support system and so she moved from Kiambu back to her hometown – Nakuru – to be closer to her family.
Back in Nakuru, Lucy began rebuilding her life with the help of her loved ones. She needed a job and since many of her relatives were seasoned tailors willing to teach her the craft, she decided to give this work a try. Lucy soon found her footing in this business and though the pay wasn’t much, it kept her afloat and put food on the table. In 1985 Lucy caught her first break when her aunt put her in touch with a Nairobi-based business that made stuffed animals and had vacancies for tailors. Having to uproot her life once more was difficult especially since her children were a bit older, but this job offered her a chance at a stable income and she wasn’t going to pass it up. Lucy quickly packed her bags and headed to the capital for a new phase of her life.
Learning the ropes wasn’t too difficult since Lucy knew the basics of sewing. All she needed to do was sketch an existing pattern onto a fabric, cut it to the required dimensions and join the pieces together. This cover would later be stuffed to make a toy animal. She enjoyed making the animals and didn’t miss a chance to make some for her two darlings. Over the next nine years, Lucy became highly skilled at making these wares and began training other tailors on how to make the toys. With this job, she was putting her children through school and giving back to those who had helped her through her darkest times.
In 1994 the unsettling feeling of change descended on Lucy’s life once more as her employer, who was an expatriate, informed her that he would soon be returning to his home country. During her time at that company, Lucy’s dedication to her work had pleased her boss who decided to hand the reigns of the business to her rather than shut it down. Stunned by this show of generosity, she took ownership of the enterprise and vowed to keep it going by herself.
Operations were proceeding smoothly until tragedy hit three years later when Lucy’s father suddenly became fatally ill. Wanting to be close to him in his final moments, she decided to relocate to her hometown and run her business from there. This choice presented her with a unique set of challenges. To begin with, Lucy’s market was in Nairobi and the commute to and from took up a lot of time, thus greatly reducing her output. Travel costs also had to be budgeted for which cut into her profits. Lucy was at a crossroad and had to make a choice. Since family was very important to her, she decided to shut down the business and focus on nursing her ailing father.
Stability returned to Lucy’s life in 1998. At that time, she was ready to venture back into the job market. Having had the experience of both employment and self-employment, she decided that she was better suited in the former. While searching for a new job, Lucy found out about a business that had been recently established in Nakuru – Kenana Knitters – that had vacancies for knitters. Her prior experience was with sewing, not knitting, but by this time Lucy trusted the winds of change and made a decision to shift as they blew.
Trading in her sewing machine for knitting needles, Lucy learnt how to make different patterns. After several weeks, she had gained the ability to turn a spool of yarn into a handcrafted hippo, zebra, elephant or horse. Kenana Knitters soon became Lucy’s home and over the last 22 years, she has made a name for herself as one of their most dedicated employees.
Lucy’s resilience over the years is admirable. The lengths she has gone through to sustain her family is telling of her dedication and we applaud her achievements. Hongera Lucy!
#KeCrafters
