By Natachi Onwuamaegbu
with help from Dianne Saliamo

Photos by Elsa Kariuki
Lucy Ann Adhiambo loves to work. Well, maybe it’s better to say Lucy loves the freedom work affords her. She loves getting her own paycheck, living in her own house, buying her own food, taking care of her own belongings. And Kenyatta Market? Well, for Lucy there’s no better place.
Even after the last three years of economic hardships. Even after she lost the majority of her customers, and with that, the majority of her income. Even after she’s had to rely on her daughter to keep a rough above her head.
“I love Kenyatta Market,” said Lucy. “Here I’m stress-free. I’m comfortable. I mean, unless I were to go abroad,” she finishes with a laugh.
Lucy can’t imagine doing anything else with her life anywhere else. For Lucy, it’s braiding. That’s it. And if she could, she’d braid in Kenyatta Market for the rest of her life.
“I’m praying to God I get to work until I’m 100 years old,” said Lucy. “If I’m well enough.”
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So how can a place that’s provided so much economic instability simultaneously provide so much emotional stability? It’s a complicated question – one that Lucy doesn’t quite have the answer to – but it can be broken down to two main categories: 1. It wasn’t always like this, and 2. It’s always been like this.
An explanation is in order.
It wasn’t always like this
Lucy first entered the market in 1999 mainly out of pure frustration. She had been a housewife for over a decade, her sole job to tidy and care and cook and stay out of the way. By the turn of the century, she was done. It didn’t help that money was tight. Getting a job meant many an argument with her husband, but at the end of the day she was allowed out – and into the market.
Plus, her husband grew to like the idea –
“Once I got out there and started making money,” said Lucy with a laugh. “Before he just wanted me to sit there and wait. Yeah, it was not easy.”
She started as many do, learning in other womens’ salons, helping the more experienced braiders and sweeping up after them once they were done. In 2003, she moved into a salon she shares with 12 other braiders. All are tasked with bringing in their own customers and paying equal rent to the salon owner.
Before 2020, Lucy was on track to open her own salon. Have her own braiders. Decide when she wanted to open and close. By her calculations, she needed to bring in 3 to 4 clients a week to make enough money, and she had 2-3. So close. Then Covid hit and she had to go home and wait. For almost a year.
“My daughter was helping,” said Lucy, her lips turned slightly downwards. “She was the one I depend on those days. There was no money, no job, no money.”
And her daughter, Lucy’s only child, had three sons to care for and was dealing with her own decrease in work. Plus, Lucy didn’t want to rely on anyone. She wanted to work, to have access to the economic freedom she’d grown accustomed to. This time was reminiscent of her childhood. She was the ninth out of ten children, and she relied on family members for everything. Once she was married, she relied on her husband. After her husband passed away a decade ago, she’s been on her own. Covid sent her right back, needing help from others she didn’t want to bother.

It was always like this
Lucy has been braiding since she was a child, practicing on long strands of grass in her family’s compound. She didn’t get to try her new skills out on her siblings, her sisters were much older, but that didn’t stop her from slowly but surely gaining a passion for braiding. When Lucy decided to start working she knew exactly what she wanted to do – and that passion for her craft has not faded in her 52 years.
At this point in our series, you must know that if you want to braid, Kenyatta Market is (or was) the place to go. So that’s where Lucy went.
Since the first time she set foot in the market, it’s felt like home – a cliche, but true nonetheless. She has friends, the women who surround her in neighboring salons who will always lend her whatever money they have at the drop of a hat.
It’s been 24 years. Lucy has raised a beautiful daughter who is now raising three of her own sons. (“Our family is growing,” Lucy can’t help but smile. “Now, with my daughter and her husband we are six.”) She’s mourned her husband while still maintaining the home and property they built together. She’s lived by herself. She’s grown to love it. While the economic situation within the market has changed, the friend’s she’s made – “they are my family now” – has not.
So Lucy will stay in Kenyatta, even as she struggles, even as she’s unable to feed herself, because she has faith that the place she loves will bounce back. That the customers will return, and that maybe, just maybe, she’ll really be able to work until she’s 100.
But at 100 she hopes to have a slightly different role in the market:
“I just want to be a boss,” laughs Lucy. “I want to be a boss in my own shop. They braid and give me their commission. I pay them. I’m the boss.”
And a boss she will be.
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