Melicent carries herself with a presence that sets her apart. She has a quiet, but powerful speaking voice as she opens the Namelok ladies group meeting with a whispered prayer. In group, she does not take the lead, but instead, she spends much of the meeting listening to the other women. Her eyes are intent as she listens to each person. When it is her turn to speak, the room is quiet, as the group leans in to hear her voice and light-hearted humor.
Melanie Detty, who traveled with me many times to Kenya, noted on our last trip together in 2019 that there was something about Melicent that we struggled to put to words. We finally settled on the word, “regal” because she walks with an air of royalty in the midst of dirt floors, cow dung, and thatched-roof houses. We resolved that she was like a princess.
The word “princess” is misleading because Melicent is no stranger to back-breaking work, typical for rural Kenyan women. She cooks. She cleans. She tends to seven children. She carries 30-50 pounds of water on her back daily.
Her brother is a pastor and the first Maasai to win public office in the region. He is famous in these parts for representing their people who are marginalized and disdained for their traditional way of life.
Melicent was 19-years-old when she married her husband, Isaya. She was older than most Maasai women who begin having children. Her husband, Isaya, was an educated young man, one of the few in her village. He had been forced as a young boy to attend boarding school by the government, against the will of his family.
She benefitted from his education. He credits that education for fostering a desire to live differently than his parents. Traditionally, Maasai men and women live in separate homes. It is the young men who prepare food for the elders. Fathers rarely have contact with their children growing up.
Isaya chose Melicent to be his only wife. He chose to live together, raising their children, and therefore, defying tradition. He risked being ostracized from his village and being ridiculed by the elders, but instead of being ridiculed, Isaya moved up in the community, became a village elder and later attended seminary and became a respected pastor and village leader.
Together, they work as a team, raising their children, working to improve their community through education, addressing WASH issues through soap making, Biosand filters, washable menstrual pads, mentoring and encouraging their neighbors. Melicent and Isaya both emphasize the importance of honoring their culture before they could help empower them to improve their lives.
Melicent is often late for meetings because, along the way, she deals with important business that only the pastor’s wife can attend to. She is frequently delayed by people asking for advice or support. But more often, we find her educating women and girls about WASH (Clean water, sanitation & hygiene) and selling soap as only she can.
She is a perfect choice to lead marketing for the ladies group. She finds women at the spring, in their homesteads, fetching water. She is never without a small bag of soap tucked in her skirt. She boldly puts a bar in their hands, confident they will pay her in time. It would be bad luck to leave a debt, even a bar of soap unsettled. It would be devastating to owe that debt to the pastor’s wife. Melicent knows her power.
Today, she oversees the soap making production and leads in marketing. She and the Namelok ladies give soap to over 1,300 children per month in their community with the support of Pacha Soap Co. while selling affordable, high-quality soap to hundreds of families in their community.
Melicent and her husband have taken a the bold stand by sending all seven of their children to school, even selling their prized cattle to pay for school fees.
Last year over a cooking fire, she laughed and told us how her 8-year-old son came home crying that week, saying, “I don’t want to be Maasai anymore!” She giggled retelling his protest. And she sang the song that was familiar to her, a sing-song insult calling the Maasai stupid and dirty, a song children of other tribes sing to make fun of their people. It would seem an unusual response to her child being bullied, but to Melicent, I understood her laughter to be that of a woman who knew how petty and weak this insult was in the face of what she and her husband had already overcome for him.
In January of 2020, Foothold International launched the Maasai Adult Education Center. Melicent was instrumental in organizing and supporting the project.
It wasn’t until the first day of class, that she shared with us that she had never been able to attend school herself. We asked her and each student why they were attending and what they hoped to gain.
Melicent shared with us that what she wanted was to better understand what her children were learning in school. This time it was her turn to go to school, and in doing so she made a courageous statement to her children, to the men of her community and to other young women. And to date, she continues to show up early, and even stay after class, to be tutored by some of the younger women in the ladies group.
She promised us before we left in March of 2020, that the next time we returned to Kenya, she would be speaking English. Even though I too promised her I would study Swahili until then, I am confident her English is already much better than my Swahili.
Foothold Market (formerly Namelok Soap Co.)
Foothold Market is an online store that supports the mission of Foothold International through the sale of handcrafted soap and accessories made in Kenya, Nebraska and Ohio. What originally began as the Namelok Soap Co. to support our soap making groups in Kenya has now grown into an international venture bringing artisans from Kenya and the United States together.
We decided in 2020 to change the name from Namelok Soap Co to better connect with our mission and to broaden the title as we were adding more than soap to our products to our sales.
Although our partnership with Pacha Soap Co began in 2016, we took our relationship another step in December of 2019, when we began working with them as a vendor, selling their handcrafted soap.
This venture supports the work of Foothold twofold. Every bar of Pacha Soap supports clean water initiatives, hygiene education and small business opportunities worldwide through Foothold, Imagine Burundi, Water4, and other like-minded organizations.
When you buy a bar of Pacha Soap directly from Foothold through our website or at a Foothold table at a live event, proceeds directly support our work in Kenya as well as Pacha Soap Co’s other partners.
Purchasing Pacha Soap through Foothold further helps us devote more time to the mission of Foothold instead of making soap. We still plan to make soap in limited supplies. Check the Foothold Market site for available products.
If you are in our hometown of Chillicothe, Ohio, we also encourage you to visit another Foothold Market partner, a retail of gifts an apparel called Kindly, located in the Fort Collective Building on the corner of Mulberry & 2nd St.
Owner, Deidre Rowland has an incredible testimony of her own and a beautiful variety of items that have a story, a message or a mission. Not only she has offered us generous shelf space where you can purchase Pacha Soap, but she has also worked with us to craft high-quality candles and other self-care products.
In February of 2020, we provided our ladies groups in Kenya with new sewing machines and training to help them diversify their current business of making washable menstrual pads which they both sell and donate to more tailored items. They learned to make bags, aprons, headbands. During that month Cherie also worked with the Maasai women who are already famous for jewelry-making to develop lines of jewelry that would be marketable back in the US.
During the months of April and March, Foothold family members and supporters began sewing masks which they donated to Foothold as another way to provide for our local community and raise money for Foothold. We are so grateful for these generous and talented makers and look forward to adding more handmade items to our Market.
UPDATE! Julie’s Shop on Paint St. in Chillicothe, Ohio has resumed carrying our handmade soaps & candles too. Check out her Facebook page
Contact Cherie at [email protected] if you are interested becoming a partner in the Foothold Market.
This past Sunday we had our first Namelok Soap party of the season. Jennifer Strickland graciously and generously hosted at her house. I think she was a little disappointed at the turn out, but I was not discouraged.
I think many people worry this will happen when they host a Soap party. I think they worry that I’ll put in all this time to prepare, and not enough people will come. So, let me set it all straight.
- No matter how few, even if no one shows up, I consider it a success.
Ok, I know that sounds weird. But for me, absolute worst-case scenario, I get to spend time with you, the host. We spend time we wouldn’t have, and we usually come up with some amazing ideas for future events or fundraisers we wouldn’t have if everyone invited came. By the way, this has never happened.
If we have a small group, which is more common, we have more time to answer questions and really discuss our ministry and our soap products…another win for me.
Sometimes the turn out is so big, it’s hard to manage the soap scrub part, and I don’t get to answer questions well or get to know everyone. This is also not a problem. Usually when this happens, follow-up parties get scheduled with new people who want to hear more…another win
A really funny story about my cousin, Angela. She lives in Columbus, she is so sweet and welcoming. The night before the party, she told me when I arrived that she had a nightmare about the party, and no one came! This was my first party at someone’s house besides mine, so I had come really early to set up. She was feeling anxious that I came all the way up to her house, and as the morning progressed, it looked like her nightmare was coming true. Phone call after text, cancelations, one by one.
I kept reassuring her it would be fine, and we would have some great time catching up if it truly came to pass, but what happened instead was that some people came even though she thought they weren’t and others invited people. We ended up with about 8 people. And through that experience one person came late, and she introduced us to the Powell festival we wouldn’t have known how to get into otherwise. It was a HUGE success!
- It’s not just about sales!
Namelok is a project of Foothold International. Even if I sell little-to-no soap, this is an opportunity to share our work, invite people to volunteer, sign up for our newsletter, etc. These people who came would be much less inclined to come to one of our fundraising events. But you invited them to your house which is much less threatening than a fundraiser dinner. We offered them some useful tips about healthier skincare.
- It might be fun.
My first soap party, was one my mom kind of organized at my house. She had recently reunited with some old classmates, and they agreed to come as a chance just to get together.
We almost cancelled it the morning of because of severe snowstorm. It was so severe, Route 23 was shut down at some point. We had a very good reason to cancel. And to be honest, I was scrambling with a lot of projects, and was tempted to cancel it for my own reasons.
But we decided at the last minute to go for it. 18 women braved the snow on a Saturday evening. We were packed into my living room and dining room as a white blanket shower became thicker and more steady. It was loud and fun and silly and smelled wonderful. And it lingered on as the snow came down.
I tried to end it early because I was worried about the road conditions as it became darker and heavier snow, but these women came prepared with their snow boots. They were not to be deterred. Everyone made it home safe by the way.
- Follow up
One thing Jennifer did that I so very appreciate is that she encouraged me to post my inventory on her Facebook group. She encouraged those who couldn’t make it to place orders. To date I have processed an additional 8 orders from those who couldn’t make it. So, I consider her party a great success.
If you like what we do or if you’re interested in learning more about our work, please consider hosting a party. There are also opportunities for volunteers at these parties as well as people to help recruit. We have a couple of venues around Chillicothe area if you don’t feel comfortable hosting it at your house.
I look forward to many more parties to come!
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