Arrival

Winnie Linet is journalist, born and raised in Western Kenya. She worked in Lebanon for five years and in this four part series, explains why she left Kenya to work in Lebanon and her experience working under the expoitative Kefala system there.

Now in the first part of this blog, I explained to you my reasons for leaving Kenya. Now, I will talk about my journey from Kenya to Lebanon, my experience when I arrived. I will let you walk with me to unravel the new discoveries that I had to accept since I wasn’t give the chance to choose, but rather I had to resign myself to fate. This story will explain my first encounter with my Lebanese employers.

The flight from Kenya took 9 hours with a stop-over at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. I was sad and nervous all the way. We landed at Rafiq Hariri international airport at six in the morning. With a new day ahead, I knew was to stop crying and embrace a new life. Upon arrval, I was led to a waiting area, and found that I was not alone. I found three Kenyan girls who quickly saw that I was soaked in tears and approached me speaking in Swahili. “Wewe ni Mkenya?” One of them asked…asking if I was Kenyan I quickly nodded...

English | September 24, 2020

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