Friday 30th January 2026
Purity calls first thing to say she is back at the hospital with her dad and so today’s funding is off. I decide I can have a little lie in, roll over and when I wake up it is two oclock. There is also a text from Vicky saying that there might be a problem with the Mombasa trip – for which train and room are booked on Sunday.
Not ideal.
I go and meet Julius to talk businesses old and new and look at applications for raincatchers.
In Julius’ area the general population is aged and female. To say nothing of left with both some of their own children and their grandchildren. The middle generation is missing to a great extent and for many reasons : the grinding poverty and hopelessness of the area means some just dump their kid with the grand parent and bugger off. The toll of HIV has been severe here. Grandmas are simply the go-to dumping ground for unwanted children.
Mama’s raincatchers have been nothing short of transformative here (smirks happily). We buy a huge watertank and a great big sheet of 1000 guage plastic which is reinforced with the same size of chicken wire and secured together. This big ‘scoop’ is dangled over the opening in the top of the tank, with its corners held nice and high, making a very effective funnel for rainwater. The whole thing is easily disassembled when there is no rain. Generally, each raincatcher services five families. And it is so simple that the families take care of it themselves, takinh down the dcoop in the dry season. Access to clean water has changed everything here. No waterborne disease, no diaorrhea, even the prevalence of the beasties like jiggers and lice is hugely reduced because the house can be sprinkled with water every day so there is no dry dust. One of my better ideas, I think. Now, when I say “family”, in today’s cases this means Family 1 : 4 adults and 53 children Family 2 :7 adults and 71 children Family 3 : 6 adults and 61 children. All of these families live in remote areas and all the adults are women in in there 60s and 70s – sometimes 80s – so this will make a massive difference to them.
There are a couple of business plans – one ripening and selling avocados, one roasting corn – well thought through and taking into account that the ladies are, again in their 60s 70s and 80s with quite outrageous numbers of children and grandchildren to look after. I rather think this is some kind of abuse,disguised as ‘family’. There is one more group who have obviously not heard about me other than that there is money. I get my red pen out and point out that demanding a large cooler box for the ridiculously huge amount of fish you want to fry (having bought them at a dreadful price) without even having a way of cooking them on your ‘please pay for’ list, suggests disaster. And Souad and I do not stand freezing our tits off in the shop to give money to business disasters. I decide the porridge flour can go to Western with Julius and we make a list (amazingly short, which just goes to show how much Mama is helping in Western: pauses to enjoy warm glow) of the meds to send.
I get a pikipiki to Junction for some wifi. I really want to find out more about the small girls traffiked here from Turkana to work as Somali house girls. And also to see if I can locate one of the donkey slaughterhouses. Anyone know Ricky Gervais ? Seriously, if you are going to take on the Chinese, and their apparent utter lack of respect for the wellbeing of any life form that might – once slaughtered, skinned and boiled – contain anything that might be said to help “anaemia, insomnia and dry cough” he would be my man.
I get a tin of tuna for my mummy cat – I know, ridiculous but there is no pet food.
The pikipiki journey back to Corner in the dark is really rather terrifying. I think I squeak a lot, which is embarrassing. I tell the biker guy I don’t want to die and he laughs merrily. I notice again, he is the one with the helmet …
Vicky has said nothing about the problems with the Mombasa trip. I decide to call and ask. She says she will tell me tomorrow. I do not have good feelings about this.
