Jobs

Elaine and Karino Lekisolish- Cook Manager and General Catering Assistant

Elaine Lekisolish, Cook Manager
Karino Lekisolish, General Catering Assistant

Out of Africa and into Hertfordshire is the story of Elaine and Karino Lekisolish’s married life. The couple - who met, married and intended to make their home in Kenya - changed their plans to ensure Elaine’s frail mother has the care she needs.

Now, they make their home in Harpenden and both have jobs with Hertfordshire Catering.

Elaine started cooking school meals when she had to return from Kenya to look after her elderly parents and needed a part-time job. She had previously worked as a chef and a friend who used to work with her suggested she apply for a school job.

Now Elaine is cook manager at Grove Road Infants & Nursery School, Harpenden, just a short distance from home. She works 30 hours a week in term time. “The hours are ideal. I can help my mother get up and ready for the day before I leave and I’m back home for her in the afternoon.”

Besides catering for Grove Road pupils, Elaine and her team provide freshly cooked meals for Sauncey Road Primary School, putting them in hot boxes which are delivered in time for lunch.

“School catering is a million miles away from working as a chef but I really enjoy the work,” said Elaine.

“Being able to combine my job with looking after my mother has made a big difference to me. The organisation has been wonderful about that and very understanding - and so are the people I work with. I love them to bits and I couldn’t manage without them.”

What was particularly hard for Elaine when she first came back to live here was leaving her husband behind in Kenya. As he is a Masai, the couple were married twice – first at a traditional three-day tribal wedding and later at an official ceremony in the District Commissioner’s office.

Elaine was torn between being with her parents and being in Kenya. As it proved impossible for her to keep going back and forth, especially after the death of her father, Karino decided to come to this country and applied for residency.

Karino joined Elaine in November and took on his two-hours-a-morning job as a general catering assistant at Manland Primary School, Harpenden in February.

He said: “In Kenya I was looking after sheep and goats. It is the first time I’ve done work like this. The people are very friendly and nice to me,”

Karino currently combines his work for Hertfordshire Catering with another two-hour-a-day school caretaking job.

“I would really like one job with longer hours and maybe that will happen one day,” he said. “It’s good that we are here together. We have everything we want.”

“We’ve still got land and a herd of goats in Kenya but it seems like a long time away now,” said Elaine.