By Natachi Onwuamaegbu
with help from translator and cultural guide, Dianne Saliamo
Photos by Carly Steyer
When Jemmimah Atieno Owya was young, the government employee tasked with printing her first ID misheard the teenager's faint voice. Jemmimah walked out with a new name: “Jemma.” The nuance and a syllable disappeared in a moment.
The 51-year-old has introduced herself as “Jemmimah, but it is spelled Jemma on my ID,” for most of her life -- but the dual identity makes sense for the hair braider. Looking at it one way, her life has been split into two parts: life before the market and after the market.
Jemma appreciates both halves of her. It wasn’t until the third phase of her life began that new roadblocks started to arise. The phase that began in March of 2020.
Sitting in her shop last week, Jemma took a packet of braiding hair, broke it into thin, separate strands and laid the pieces out on her thigh, one after the other until there were over 100 of the strips, ready for braiding. She did it without looking, her eyes were instead trained on me, her lips turned up into a slight smile.
On some days, Jemma doesn’t get any customers. One day can turn into two, and two days can turn into a week. This lack of clientele may be a common occurrence for newer hair braiders who have yet to find their footing in the market, but Jemma has been operating out of shop 378 since the late 90s. And – it wasn’t always like this.
Just a few years ago, Jemma could expect up to six customers a day. She has a small operation, employing four other women in her single shop. Six was plenty – but six is also a thing of the past. Now, Jemma’s lucky if she gets six customers in one week.
So I asked Jemma the obvious: has she considered leaving? Doing something new (or the same thing) somewhere else?
At first, she didn't understand the question. Considering a life outside the market seems unfathomable. She tilted her head and I asked again.
Jemma moved her previously stilled hands back into the pile of hair she’d been working on separating. She picked up one strand.
“I do not have another option but to come to the market and hustle,” she set down another strand. “And pray.”
–
With the onset of Covid-19 and its subsequent restrictions, small business owners across the world suffered. The hair braiders of Kenyatta Market were no different. Some adapted by offering house calls and employing rigorous social distancing policies. Others didn’t have the clientele or the capital to adhere to such an unplanned shift. Jemma fell into the latter category.
However, the market wasn’t always a struggle for Jemma. Kenyatta helped the single mother of two raise and support her children. She moved her small family to Nairobi, paid school fees, put food on the table, and helped her kids become the successful adults they are today. Until March 2020, Jemma was one of the market’s success stories.
But, like all good stories, it doesn’t make sense to start at the last phase, the last chapter. The story starts when Jemma was a child.
Carly Steyer
–
Jemma grew up with cropped short hair, not a single braid in sight. She spent most of her childhood like that, in the outskirts of Eldoret spending time with her five sisters and parents. Her family moved to Bondo, a town in Siyaya County, Kenya, when she was in high school, but during her final year, she got pregnant with her first daughter.
This, of course, changed her life. Due to school policies, she was no longer allowed to attend class in person, and instead had to finish her high school certificate from home. When she graduated, she immediately found work to support herself and her child. After working for family members around Eldoret, one of her sisters called her with a job opportunity – in Nairobi. Without knowing much about the job, Jemma moved to the big city, at this point with two children, to start a new life.
--
It’s the spring of 1995 and a 24-year-old Jemma entered Kenyatta Market for the first time. She’d never lived in a city as big or busy as this one but she didn’t have time to relish in her new reality. Instead, she dove fingers first into her new opportunity – helping a hair braider in Kenyatta Market.
Jemma had never done box braids before – in fact, she barely knew how to cornrow. But for the young mother, learning to thrive in Kenyatta Market was about survival. So, as she washed clients’ hair, and swept the store, she watched and watched and watched. Eventually, she learned.
Jemma would come to spend the next 27 years of her life in the market. A few years in, she opened her own store and recruited braiders with their own clientele to use her space. Eventually, she learned how to braid too. Her daughters grew up and moved out: one is a businesswoman and the other is a teacher. She hired her own braiders, retained her own clients. She got married to a man she loved. Sadly, after a few years of marriage, Jemma became a widow and had to take space away from Nairobi. Life happened in and around the market – until 2020 when life stopped.
–
When Jemma went home for the first time after the market closed in 2020, she had no idea when she would be able to come back to her business. All that the government report said was Kenyatta Market was closing indefinitely to comply with social distancing guidelines. It didn’t say what women like Jemma should do in the meantime. It didn’t provide resources, let alone any resources for financial support, according to Jemma. So Jemma went home. When she was allowed to return to the market a few months later, the clients weren’t there. No one was coming – and none of her clients wanted house calls, afraid of infection.
“We used to pray to God that this period and disease would end,” said Jemma, referring to herself and her braiders. “We had not given up.”
Her family helped her out, sending her money as she sat at home unemployed for seven months. Luckily, she wasn’t forced to pay rent during this time (“a miracle.”) She just sat and waited to go back to the market. For Jemma, it was the only way she knew how to make a living. She had employees to think about. This was her life. So she waited and waited and waited.
Carly Steyer
–
And yet. When she did get to return, things were not the same.
The clients weren’t there, but the braiders certainly were (“I would say business is low because a lot of people have gotten into this [industry].”) Which is to say the pandemic produced more braiders (women who had lost their jobs trying to find work) but also more fear (customers terrified of getting the virus in a crowded market place). So, after 25 years, Jemma and her business started struggling.
When we met her for this interview, she was seated outside of the market close to the entrance holding a handful of pre-braided hair.
“I sit to get people to come to my business,” she explained.
“Is that where you get a lot of your customers from?”
“No. No.”
Jemma spends hours in the hot sun appealing to potential customers who usually already have a destination in mind. With dreams of buying her shop (instead of renting) pushed to the side, the mother and widow is simply trying to survive.
–
But Jemma has hope and ideas for the future. She thinks the market needs better publicity. People need to understand that Kenyatta Market isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago: the braiders aren’t as harsh with your hair, they don’t pull as much as they used to, they’ve mastered gentler techniques, there’s less stealing, fairer prices, and better customer care. Plus the market is much cleaner. Jemma thinks some Kenyans have lost faith or have even forgotten about the hair braiders of Kenyatta Market. She’s here to say they’re still here, fighting to make a living.
For Jemma, there is no other option but to stay in the market. It’s all she knows, the only business she has the capital to uphold. One day, she wants to move back to Kisumu and open a different business. She’s not sure of what yet, but she knows it won’t have to do with hair braiding. Braiding is reserved for one chapter – this chapter. And it’s not done yet.
“Braiding, it doesn’t have a lot of money,” said Jemma as she finally sets down the pile of hair she dutifully separated. One of her braiders came back from a house call and the two were about to get to work on a client’s head. “But even if you go from Monday to Friday without getting a customer, you don’t give up. I can’t give up.” Jemma gestures around her with a wave of her hand.
“This is my life.”
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