Outside the expat garden walls ... residents in the usual conditions of Nairobi's Mukuru-kwa-Njenga slum. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
One of the perks of living in a developing country on an international salary is that you have staff at home. What would be unaffordable back home is within reach. It takes time to get used to the invasion of privacy, but you end up living a comfortable, if public, life. Few things go beyond the notice of the full-time, live-in nannies and housekeepers. The trade-off is worth it. Houses are spotless, gardens are large and tended, children are happy. The Rolls Royce standard, my dad said.
Hiring people informally is not without its responsibilities. While the concept of a living wage has yet to reach Kenya, expatriates from Europe cannot say we haven’t heard of it. What does it mean in the Kenyan context? How far are you prepared to take it? How many lives can you become responsible for? Most people with jobs are depended on by a brood of children, adoptees, siblings, parents and grandchildren.
What is living in a city where poverty is absolute? Is residing in a tin-roofed shack with no running water and electricity living? Is being forced to defecate in a plastic bag living? Is spending over 50% of your income on food living? Most of the hired help flocks from filthy slums to work in our posh houses.
Those who live with us, in the staff quarters in the garden, keep their families up-country, or in the same slums. Jobs in expat homes are sought after, providing free accommodation, a better income than many, and often school fees and other perks. Paying double and triple what many (wealthy) Kenyans might offer, you might begin to feel pretty good. Yet the difficult questions don’t go away. Should people be content with the material basics? A tin roof, dark evenings, shared latrines, “clinics” full of counterfeit drugs and the “free” education that has 60 tattered kids per ramshackle classroom.
With time you can’t ignore the brutal truths. Your long-serving, lovely ayah (nanny) couldn’t afford decent schools. Her husband died of a preventable disease. Her children grew up without her and have no expectations. Her nephew’s polio meant he missed out on school. Had you understood earlier, would you have done something? For the first couple of years here, I didn’t even know what questions to ask. Now I feel ashamed, but how could I have known? This level of inequality is another world.
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