When Catherine Njenga first walked to a teachers training college, she thought that she would retire in this profession.
But, her father’s death came with a different inspiration that saw her switch from teaching to becoming a mortician.
“The facility where my dad’s body was preserved when he passed on did not do a good job. However, when we transferred his body to Kenyatta University funeral home I liked the reception and how the morticians handled his body,” she told K24 Digital of the 2018 incident.
Today, she is a mortician at the Nairobi Women Hospital.
At the Kenyatta University mortuary, she asked one of the female attendants how to go about it all.
Njenga was told to look up online for training courses, and she found one at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
She went there and was later referred to Nairobi University for a three months training course which she completed and landed a job at Nairobi Women Hospital.
The mother of two says her family did not understand her when she told them what she wants to pursue.
“At first they thought I was crazy. My mom didn’t want to hear anything regarding the whole matter but I reminded her of the reception we got at KU and told her that I want to be of help to families who’ve lost their loved ones,” she remarks.
The hardest thing was to convince her mother. It took time, but she eventually did on the condition that it remains a top-secret.
“My mom told me to continue being a teacher, but right now I can’t go back to the classroom, teaching is no longer for me,” the mother of two offers.
Had she known earlier, teaching would not be anywhere close in her life, she says.