Merentia works for her family’s sake
This local domestic worker says she works to keep her children and grandchildren fed.
They keep homes neat and tidy, ease the workload for many and even help raise the children in some households.
Yet seldom do we hear the story on the lives of the remarkable domestic workers, who keep many homes afloat with their efforts.
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This week, the Vryheid Herald sat down with local domestic worker, Merentia Sithebe from Mondlo, to get a closer look into the life of a regular ‘auntie’, as many of these women are affectionately known.
Merentia has been a domestic worker for more than 30 years, and started in her late teens in the 1980s.
“This work is all I have ever known. When I was younger, I had dreams of going to a tertiary [institution] and obtaining a degree in a great qualification too, but my father, who did not believe that a girl child should be in school, crushed those dreams. I was taken out of school at around Standard Three and had to go help my family strip timber, on a farm that we resided on as a means to make money,” she explained.
Today, Merentia is a mother of three (one of her children unfortunately passed away recently) and lives with her two surviving children (aged 42 and 31) and her three grandchildren.
“My eldest child’s children now have children of their own. Although I am grateful to have great-grandchildren, it is taking a serious strain on me, as I am the only breadwinner at home,” Merentia explained. “I have worked tirelessly all my life to get my children through school, but they are struggling to find work.”
Although life is tough for the 56 year-old, she still prides herself on how she ensures all members of her family are fed and the children stay in school.
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“I work to ensure that all of these children at least get the education that I never got, so they may have better opportunities in life,” Merentia concluded.
Merentia Sithebe is one of a number of women that get on the Mondlo bus, heading to Vryheid in the early hours of each morning, with a hope in her heart that she will build a better future for her children.
