A life in the day of .... A road cleaner

Nislata Murekatete, 31, sweeps Kigali’s streets I wake up at 5 a.m.. The first thing I do is to prepare my children’s breakfast. I have two children; one in nursery school and another one in primary one. After preparing breakfast, at 5.30 a.m. I head to work.My husband stays behind to take care of the children before leaving for work himself. The house remains in the hands of a house maid when children are at school. It takes me 45 minutes to reach at work. I get there at exactly 6.15 a.m. We wait for our supervisor to organise us into groups. My section work ranges from Kimihurura round about up to Chez Lando Hotel. At 7 a.m in the morning, we start cleaning the road until it’s spotless. It is often quite difficult work. It is so risky if you are not used of it especially cleaning in the middle of the road with vehicles passing. The drivers do not some times consider cleaners along side the road. But fortunately so far there haven’t been any accidents. I have been working with this association called ‘Local Defense Cleaners’ since the 2005. My colleagues and I thank God for protecting us from these accidents. We earn Frw600 a day with one day off a week. This comes to approximately Frw15,000 a month. It’s not much but it at least helps me buy some little domestic items like clothes for my children. I am lucky to share life’s struggles with my husband who is a shopkeeper. We keep cleaning from morning up to evening. We don’t break for lunch because the work ends early. I wind up with my work at 2 p.m. and head back home. At home, I normally arrive and spend much of the evening hours chatting with my children and dealing with domestic work. At 7 p.m. I prepare my children’s supper, after which I put them to bed. My husband and I eat our supper at 9 and are in bed by 10.30 p.m. deave204@yahoo.com