NAIROBI Low-rise, tin-roofed house, two carcasses, a block of brick residential building. Elizabeth Wanjiru, 52, presents its courtyard district in the suburb of Kahawa Sukar, twenty kilometers from downtown Nairobi. There is also sadness in his bright smile.
The sentence begins again in a familiar way, Mungu akipenda.
– If God wills, we will succeed and life will be better.
Husband of Elizabeth Wanjirun Godfrey Ngigi returned home permanently three years ago, after working for decades in Germany and Saudi Arabia.
Construction of a new house began, and the loving couple finally got to live in the same place.
But then Godfrey fell ill and everything changed.
Godfrey Ngigi was in the hospital for more than a month, most of the time in the intensive care unit. Hospital fees in Kenya are high and everyone has to pay for themselves. Over the course of the month, not only did Godfrey’s forces run out, but also the money saved to finish the new house.
The hospital’s bill was 1.8 million Kenyan shillings, about 14,000 euros. Without the help of a daughter living in Norway, Elizabeth would not have survived.
Godfrey Ngigi died crowned on March 15, 2021. Elizabeth was left alone to support the family.
– After Godfrey’s death, I couldn’t sleep at first, and I can’t think of anything but his loss. But then I realized I had to stand up and come up with something I could support my family with, Elizabeth says.
The adult daughters suggested to her mother that she could become an Uber driver. Elizabeth had been a housewife all her adult life, but she had a driver’s license.
The Kenyan character is enterprising. And it must be, because society’s safety nets work very poorly. If the conditions get tougher, then you just have to try harder. Elizabeth Wanjiru took out a bank loan, bought a used but relatively new Mitsubishi for € 6,300 – and became a taxi driver.
The market leader is American taxi giant Uber. It has almost 50,000 drivers in sub-Saharan Africa and 9,000 in Kenya.
Taxi apps provide drivers with a flexible earning opportunity and have made taxi traffic in Nairobi smoother and safer.
But earnings levels are so low that it forces unreasonable working days and weeks. In Nairobi, most drivers drive six days a week, first over a 12-hour workday allowed by the Uber app and then a few more hours with Bolt or some other app.
Uber takes 25 percent of each ride, and Estonian-based Bolt has a 20 percent commission.
Application companies also set ride prices without consulting with drivers. Right now, taxi drivers in Nairobi are angry and desperate. The war in Ukraine has raised the price of gasoline, but ride prices have remained unchanged.
Head of Communications for Uber’s West and East Africa Operations Lorraine Onduru cancels the agreed interview but responds via email.
He says Uber takes care of the drivers and has raised ride prices in March. Job Isaac, Elizabeth Wanjiru and the other drivers interviewed by have not noticed such an increase in fares.
– There have been no raises, and Uber is not listening to us. If nothing else helps, we will go on strike, taxi driver Job Isaac assures.
The Kenyan government has not intervened in the pricing of application companies.
In neighboring Tanzania, the situation is different: at the beginning of the year, the country’s road transport agency set the maximum and minimum fares for travel. It also ruled that taxi app companies could take on only 15 percent of the price of a ride.
The new regulations in Tanzania were too much for Uber, which withdrew completely from the Tanzanian market in April. Bolt is still operating in Tanzania, but that too threatens to leave if the Tanzanian Road Administration does not agree to relax its new regulations.
Elizabeth Wanjiru has only been driving a taxi in downtown Nairobi since December. There is still uncertainty in his grip, but little Mitsubishi always has his own fairway among SUVs, buses and motorcycles.
Elizabeth also runs a taxi six days a week, around the clock. On a good day he earns about 50 euros, on a bad day only a couple of dozen.
After the interest and repayments on the car loan, Elizabeth will have about 500 euros in shillings a month.
For she needs to be able to buy food for a family of six, pay for electricity and water bills, internet access and most importantly: children’s school fees.
– I myself could not continue school after the seventh grade because my mother could not afford school fees. I don’t want my grandchildren to experience the same fate. Without education, they have no future.
Monday night in Elizabeth’s backyard. He has not driven a taxi today, but has gone with Mitsubishi to buy school supplies for his 17-year-old foster daughter, Agnes, and her 13-year-old granddaughter, Natalian.
Agnes and Natalian are starting a new school year at the boarding school.
Pens, notebooks and sanitary ware are sorted, each girl packing their share in a small suitcase. Tomorrow Elizabeth will drive them to school. If God willing, He will be able to pay off the car loan, the family’s livelihood, and still pay for the children to go to school in the years to come.
– The future is good, I think we will survive. There must be hope, without it one cannot live.
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