Nakuru youth abandon farming for lucrative cemetery work

While most young people shy away from jobs associated with handling the dead, a group of 12 young men has abandoned other socially ‘correct’ jobs for a cemetery in Nakuru.

Rather than work in local markets as porters or in farms, the group would rather work in grave yards. And it is easy to see why their choice for the jobs that are viewed with some stigma is easy.

For work done on a single grave, the group can earn between Sh10,000 and Sh150,000. These earnings have seen the secondary school leavers and dropouts support their families, some for more than three years now .

“Working here has been fruitful for us since we do not have to steal to earn a living. All we do is dig graves, bury the dead, design and maintain the graves,” says Moses Mburu who works at the Nakuru North Cemetery.

Mr Mburu had previously been working at the Nakuru’s Wakulima market doing casual jobs before relocating to work at the cemetery.

“I quit working at the market because I was not making much to support my family. I immediately landed a job at the cemetery and for three years now, I have not regretted working here,” Mr Mburu adds.

The group, has a chairman and a vice chairman who arrange for payments on a weekly basis. Members are divided into two teams with six members each working on a weekly basis and taking a break on the subsequent week when the other resumes.

“We share out the earnings equally and spare some for our savings which we are planning to start a business in a few years. The earnings can sustain us since we pay school fees, rent and other necessities,” says Mr Mburu.

He explains that each member digs six graves a day which are paid depending on the depth and width of the grave. Other jobs that also earn them income include maintaining the graves by weeding and renovating.

The charges for designing the graves, they say, depend on the materials used. For instance, using regular tiles costs between Sh10,000 and Sh30,000 while for granite the charges can go up to Sh150,000 per grave.

Like any other business, the group has both low and high seasons. During rains, the group records high earnings compared to the dry seasons since weeds start to grow on the graves.

“During the rainy season, the graves are choked with weeds and so we readily get extra work. Also most families visit the graves of their beloved ones during the December holiday and give us work to tend to the graves and even renovate,” says Martin Oketch a father of three and the vice chairman of the group.

The majority of the group members abandoned farming and other casual jobs when they heard of the handsome wages at the cemetery.

“We are so busy here. Our services are always needed despite the way people look down on our work. They tend to forget that we are just taking good care and giving a decent send-off to our beloved ones,” Mr Oketch says.

“Some of us are young fathers trying to provide for our families while others are yet to get married,” say Mr Mburu.

One of the challenges they face at times, they say, is when some relatives demand the remains of their loved ones be exhumed for burial elsewhere.

“We have handled many of such cases. That is when we get to the limelight and people start thinking that what we do is weird. It isn’t a nice feeling to be viewed like that. I often tell anyone who cares to ask that it is just like any other,” Mr Mburu notes.

Even though they aspire to open up businesses in the near future from their savings, the group says it is not about to leave the cemetery jobs. Some members, they say, will be managing the businesses when they are on a break.