Jovial Reveals The Odd Jobs She Used To Venture Into To Survive

Kenyans know Jovial as the “Queen of Vocals” from the Coast, but she recently shared a deeply personal story about her past struggles. The singer revealed on Instagram how she once worked as a receptionist in a Mombasa guesthouse, a job she took to support her infant daughter.

A Mother’s Ingenuity

Jovial recounted how memories flooded back to her after a recent performance. She explained that life’s hardships forced her into the receptionist role when her daughter was just four months old. To make ends meet on a meager salary, she and a coworker devised a plan to earn extra income.

The guesthouse, not a typical hotel, often had rooms that were rented during the day but vacated by nightfall. Jovial saw an opportunity in this. “During the day, there was work while others were breaking for lunch, others could break and come for their private time, and so most of them never spent the night there,” she explained.

Reselling Rooms for Survival

After guests checked out, Jovial and the housekeeper would quickly clean the rooms, change the linens, and then re-rent them without the management’s knowledge. They would then split the earnings. “After they leave, I could wash the room together with the housekeeper, we change the bedsheets and towels, we resell them again, and we share the revenue,” she admitted.

Anticipating judgment, Jovial urged her fans to understand her desperate situation. She highlighted her low salary and the urgent need to provide for her baby. “Don’t judge me, the salary was low, and a mother and daughter needed to survive,” she pleaded, adding, “Someone might wonder whether there were no CCTV cameras, but at the time, God couldn’t allow it to be there because there was nowhere I could get milk for my baby.”

Forging Resilience

Jovial believes these challenging experiences shaped her into the resilient person she is today. She reflected on how her past hardships made her “tough-headed,” a quality that has been crucial in rebuilding her life and her daughter’s.

“Life was hard back then, now I look at my baby and I smile, she is a survivor, tough like me. I’m glad I’m rewriting my story,” Jovial shared emotionally. “Sometimes I look back at these memories, I break down, but then I remember where it was not for such moments, I couldn’t be tough-headed like I am today.”

Jovial’s story is a reflection of moving from grass to grace!