Meet Sandra

Sandra lives with her parents and older brother and sister on their own small piece of land that has two mud-walled structures with iron roofs. In the main structure, there is the living room on one side and the bedroom on the other side which Sandra shares with her parents. The other structure is the kitchen and and a small room that her brother sleeps in whenever he is back home from boarding school. In their culture, when a boy undergoes the right of passage he is supposed to sleep outside of the main house as he is now considered a man. 

Both of her parents are casual labourers. During the planting or harvesting season, her mother will be found on people's land tilling or harvesting, especially maize and beans. If there is any construction work in her area, she will go and find work so that her children can be well fed. Sandra's father is a tractor driver and his work tends to be seasonal only. 

The family fetch water from the river and her mother goes some distance to get the water and carries it in 20 litre jerry cans on her back. They boil their drinking water and do their laundry by the river. The family has three chickens that sometimes gives them eggs and when they get old, they plan to slaughter them for meat. Sandra's mother tries to save some money in a savings and lending group for bad days although most of her borrowing goes to pay school fees for the older children in secondary school. 

Sandra is firm and says that she hopes to continue being a prefect in her new school. Her mother says that Sandra makes decisions on her own and would rarely ask for anyone's opinion as she knows what she wants. She says that she will definitely become a great leader when she grows up and lead this country well.