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My first job was a waitress - Citizen TV's Kanze Dena emotionally narrates her long journey to the top
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During a segment on Hot 96, the beautiful news anchor emotionally narrated her journey to success, where she started off as a waitress at her Grandfathers Fast Food Restaurant along the busy Nairobi- Mombasa Highway.
According to Kanze, she had just concluded her high school and her mother could not allow her to stay at home, because she taught she will mingle with bad company.
“So she sent me to my grandfather’s Petrol station along Mombasa Road where he had a Fast Food Café called Le Café . I started off in the Kitchen Pealing Potatoes, because that was the starting point for everyone. Day one I checked in, given an overall and directed to the Kitchen. After I while I graduated to washing dishes , that was hardest job I have ever done. You wash dishes until your hands lose the senses of hot things.. That’s why I respect all the dish washers in every Hotel. When I see somebody mishandling dish washers it pains me so much. Days past and I was promoted to a waitress.”
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Being a waitress was not easy as she had to remember more than10 orders at ones. She stayed at her Grandfathers facility for almost one year and a half then got another hustle in the CBD.
“After sometime I got another job at a café called Vesbar. I worked with them for 7 month. While at Vesbar is when I got pregnant with my first daughter who later passed on after three months."
The pregnancy forced her to go back to home to take care of her growing bump. She carried it in privacy with plans of giving of out her new born for Adoption. Things did not go has planned and in the end she lost the baby.
After the Painful experience, Kanze had to deal with family stigma, as giving birth before marriage was a big deal.
“I went into some kind of depression, I felt unworthy for almost a year, I was battling self-esteem seeing like God did want me to continue being Natasha’s mother. I was very hurt by the incidents, after that I came back to Nairobi and I was able to get admission to study Mass Commination."
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While At the college, Kanze decided to go for attachment at the end of her course. Luckily she landed at KBC, where she met with Terryanne Chebet.
“I remember by that time KBC was only taking student from Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. So we forced to be everywhere to avoid being kicked out. I could do news, be a Assistant -producer and even recite poems.
While at KBC, I was reading news on KBC Radio Taifa, so one day the new anchor on duty had not checked in, so I was forced to step in for him. After the news the editor in Chief who was Hirim Mucheke (Director KIMC now) called me and told that I was good, and I should take up the news bulleting.
After a few days, I was taken to TV as a Swahili news anchor, where now my journey on TV started. My first day was very tricky after being paired with Bahati Makusini, while on air I lost my voice, the struggles went on for some time but I got better with time.
She worked with KBC for almost 6 years, before crossing over to Citizen TV.
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Asked on how she met with Lulu Hassan who they have become the inseparable duo on TV. Kanze reveals that she met with Lulu at her son’s Birthday after being Facebook friends for almost one year.
By that time Lulu was working at KTN while Kanze was on KBC. Later on, the two met at Royal Media.
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