Saumu Omari Bogi
Surrounded by a new environment, Saumu is a happy woman in her early twenties. She breast feeds a very healthy child that she delivered in the year 2000. This is her second child, a daughter. The stock in her kiosk has an air of an income generating business. No wonder she says ‘ni mwanzo’, meaning it is the beginning. Things are going pretty well in her favor.
Saumu Bogi was born in 1980 at Tezo in Kilifi District. Her father was working with the Kenya Cashew Nut Company, but retired a few years after she was born. While the father was employed, money was not a problem to the family, thus the family encountered no financial difficulties. At the age of seven, Sauma went to school at Ezamoyo Primary School for her primary education. Before long, her father retired from his job. However, money was still not a problem. However, the needs of a large family diminished her dad’s wealth. Eventually, the situation worsened until her father was left with no money. The family found themselves in a very difficult position having nothing to depend upon. Saumu, now in standard five, was compelled to quit school. The situation had become so dire that the family could no longer struggle out of it.
Saumu, now out of school, lived at home in a miserable state. Her father had squandered all his money. Saumu now found herself destitute and in a hopeless situation. She resolved to start a business to help her earn at least few shillings to enable her to cloth herself as her parents were no longer able to do so. She would wake up early in the morning for her to conduct her business. She would then make sure that she was through by ten in the morning in order to join her family in their agricultural activities. Life for her had become all about hardship.
In 1993, Saumu, still very young, decided the only way to escape her life of misery was to get married. She married Mr. Omari Bogi, a medicine man whom she thought would take care of her. Mr. Bogi already had two wives at home and hence, Saumu became the third wife. In her new home, life improved. Being young, her co-wives treated her like a granddaughter and she respected them like her grandmothers. For five years, Saumu did not sleep in her husband’s bedroom because she was still very young. It was not until late 1996 that she was assimilated into the family as a real wife to Mr. Bogi. In early 1998, she delivered her first child, a son.
Since 1993, Saumu has been working on the farm with her two co-wives. The three wives have been cultivating a three acre piece of land where they plant maize, rice, beans, peas and cassava. These crops serve as food for the family. The can no longer depend on their husband who is burdened by the needs of too many children from three wives. All the women work hand-in-hand to assist their husband to take care of the family. In 1998, when CHOICE HUMANITARIAN started its savings program, the senior wife joined the program. She borrowed money from her husband to make regular weekly savings in order to meet the program’s requirements of saving. However, in October 1999, the third wife conceived and thus, could no longer commit herself to the weekly meetings. She quit the program and asked Saumu to continue on her behalf. Saumu then joined the Mwambalazi A centre in late October 1999. She received twenty shillings for savings every week from her co-wife who got the money from their husband.
Saumu, now a committed member to the program, continued saving and in early, January 2001, she received her first loan of 5,000 Kenya shillings. From the loan money, she started a kiosk business. At first, she invested Ksh. 1000 into the business. A week later, she invested another Ksh. 2000, then another Ksh. 1000 and another Ksh. 1000 each week until she had used all the money from the loan.
Before she opened her business, Saumu had no source of income. She lived like a baby waiting to be fed by someone else. As a result of the loan she could now generate her own daily income and begin a life of self-reliance.
Her business generates sufficient income that Saumu is able to save with the Yehu Bank without getting money from husband, pay off her loan, buy paraffin for her tin lamp, buy some body lotion for herself and her children, washing detergents, and salt and wheat flour when her husband is away and there is no food at home. These are things that she could not do before, being fully depended on her husband.
She is proud of her involvement in the Yehu Bank, and her association with CHOICE HUMANITARIAN. She said that had it not been for CHOICE, she would still be in the situation of waiting for someone to do things for her. She plans to quickly pay off her existing loan so that she may take out a larger loan of Ksh. 10,000 to expand her business even more. Saumu now has dignity and hope and is in control of her future. Those are the outcomes that are truly priceless.