Thursday 29 January 2026
Officially our last day in the Emporium of Loveliness. I have insufficient vocabulary to describe how brilliant Souad has been, holding the fort and selling everything she can lest it go to a dump somewhere. She is a phenomenon!
We head to Kawangware to get 25 kilos of porridge flour to send to Mombasa. My own mix has proved, to quote reviews of Medicinal Compound (for those that remember the Scaffold) “most efficacious in every way”. We also find my little honey man lurking in his crevice in the market (this is not a euphemism) and I get some honey. It is fabulous stuff.
Thence to town – the seething bowels of Temple Road where vehicles play catch as catch can and anything that might have been construed as a pavement becomes a fruit and veg market. If life were any more tightly packed in here its very juice would be extracted. Luckily, once I make it along as far as the little door to the wholesale pharmacy, there is space, there is even coolth.
I get all the usual dewormers, anti-fungals, anti inflammatories, painkillers, a marvellous sounding cough mixture that should do nicely for the regular queues of children doing impressions of old cab horses plus a goodly supply of clotrimazole and doxycycline. The vulvas of the coast shall itch no more.
David has been unable to get parking nearby and says to come to ENA Coach. Easier said than done. Four different people give four different sets of directions. Kenyans give directions like fish tapdance. They are just not capable. Possibly a genetic thing. But phrases like “just there” are used a lot.
Now to the little man in Ngara to buy black seeds (the best) although no black seed soap.
Pausing only to have a heartstoppingly good young coconut, we go back to Corner.
David wants to eat fish.
So two twice fried, shrivelled Tilapia it is. I take the head home in case the cat wants it.
I also buy another little chunk (less shrivelled) of fish for the little cat.
I am thrilled when she brings her mother to dinner and another fun night is had by all. Tonight I even get away without having the kitten shit on my bag.
