"The House is Good"
By Amy Owen

Margaret Kina's family stays dry.


Bent to her work scrubbing a bucket of clothes, Margaret Kina is intent on her task. It’s January in the Runyenjes in Kenya—which usually means hot and sunny weather, but on this day it has been raining since before dawn.

Margaret, a Habitat homeowner since 1996, is hidden by stalks of maize that tower over her. When visitors arrive, she looks up slowly at the wageni (guests) pushing their way through the vegetation. She stands up and asks if she should finish her washing or wait until the interview is over. In other words, she wants to know if this “will take long, because I’ve got work to do.”

This is the same attitude she must have taken in regard to her Habitat house. In just three years, this widowed mother of two has managed to pay off her mortgage and now owns her Habitat house outright. Shy and hardworking, Margaret braids hair for women at a local market, tends to her shamba (farm) and raises her children, all with a modest air of one who is accustomed to hard work.

She learned about Habitat from a relative, John Nyaga Nyaga, who was the founder of the Kigumo Habitat for Humanity affiliate. With help from relatives and friends, Margaret’s 24-by-13-foot Habitat house was completed in April 1996.

During the building, she helped gather materials such as timbers for the roof and framing, fetched water and prepared mud for mud and wattle walls. Her new house has a cement floor, an iron sheet roof and a cement-plaster exterior—an improvement over her previous house that had a thatched roof, and mud walls and floor.

Margaret says, in Kiswahili, of her house: “Nyumba nzuri,” meaning, “The house is good.”

Indeed, on days when the rain pours down, Margaret’s simple Habitat house provides her family with a dry and sturdy home.


Snapshot
Margaret Kina, Runyenjes, Kenya, Africa
House description: Three rooms with a wood door and iron-sheet roof. The mud and wattle walls are plastered with cement on the interior and exterior.
Moved in: 1996
Total amount of mortgage: $332 or 43 bags of cement
Monthly payment: $5.65 or one bag of cement
Paid off in: 1999


Amy Own is a resource development coordinator with Habitat for Humanity in Kenya.


Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, April/May 2001.
This article may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
©2001 Habitat for Humanity International