Thursday 28th May 2026
Today is a bit of a surprise – costly (ish) but good.
I am supposed to meet Jayne (she of Awendo/Biwati Community with whom Mama B has done quite some funding over the years). She has been (so far as I have been told) incredibly ill for many months, but is now much improved.
She had some eye problems after a fall from a motorbike but her main problem seemed to be agonising pain above her right eye and up into her scalp. Some few questions later (plus a display of her many medications) it transpires she had shingles. Despite the virus not being active since November, her doctors (kerrrrching) have kept her on Acyclovir. More on this story later.
I should have realised that this would not just be an “ooo you are looking well, here have a cup of tea and a mandazi before we both go our separate ways” situation. And she does look incredibly well. Well enough, as it turns out, to present me with a report on the businesses we started the last time I was with her plus a sixteen strong list of businesses looking for funding.
In many ways, South Nyanza is like Western, in that people – ok women – are left to take care of random family members who are dumped on them. Siblings, parents, other people’s children – their willingness is genuinely impressive, given the poverty in which they live. There is a very high incidence of HIV/AIDS and sooo many positive children. There is also a bewildering number of people (mainly children) with disabilities ranging from severe autism, through cerebral palsy, spina bifida, deafness … one family has three children, none of whom can speak. And there is absolutely no support for them.
In fact, in many areas they are regarded as cursed. Added to that there is a load of fathers who have lost limbs in the sugar cane fields and mines and many many women with ghastly goo where their lungs should be after trying to earn some money labouring in the sugar cane fields and inhaling the industrial fertilisers they use there. So all in all, on top of a baseline of the kind of poverty that grinds the human soul to dust, an area with more than its fair share of problems. Generally borne by the women. The business plan are impressive – all sixteen of them. Well thought out, decent profit and with, as they say, legs. All selling stuff in demand locally and available locally.
Although here there is little in the way of the kind of abuse we normally hear about (although several of the mothers have left abusive relationships) , the improvement that will be made to the lives of these women and their families is huge. HUGE.
After lunch I take Jayne round to John The Pharmacy and get her sorted out, meds wise.
I take a quick wander round the market at Junction and go back to Java for wifi and Hibiscus and Mint.
Friday 29th May 2026
Last funding of the trip – and we have probably done more funding this trip than ever in The Annals of Mama B. I shall be crunching numbers at some point in the not too distant, so stand by to be amazed and delighted. The Brothers Trust plus a generous donation from New Zealand (not the entire country, two sisters living there who want to keep a low profile) has made it possible for Mama B to do more groups than ever. And of course the Emporium (thank you Mark Stolkin and W12 Investments) so keep buying and NOT asking for “best price”.
We are back in Limuru for this extra funding with ladies who, says Purity, “are very desperate”. Ten groups of women with horrendous tales of abuse. Star of the show is a lady whose husband set her on fire. Please never think I do not realise there is horrible domestic violence in UK. But … well I am not sure ‘but’ what.
The businesses are, as usual, really solid. And our ladies are getting socially adventurous – two of the groups are selling strawberries and mushrooms to posh people in estates and to private schools. I ask Purity how on earth they get orders from places like than and she says “you have a friend and you are nice to people”. Seems fair. And quite impressive.
We go to eat. Purity is keen on Viceroy and coke and, while we wait for lunch to boil we discuss how Kenya’s president has gone completely against his own Supreme Court AND pretty much all of his people and allowed America to build a quarantine facility for American citizens who have been exposed to Ebola. There is currently NO Ebola in Kenya. But it may well be the latest import from America. Many MANY more than thirty pieces of silver were involved.
There is a lot of boiling involved and our talks wander far and wide, including a deeply shaming insight into the horror of working with me in Kenya. People actually contact David to find out how I am on any given day – good mood or bad mood ? How appalling is that ?? I mean, I know I get moody when I get tired but, bloody hell. I am a monster. I am deeply, deeply ashamed, and promise to do better. For what that is worth.
David and I have a nightcap at our local pub. It is very full and I sit down beside a gentleman who is nodding off (it seems). He rouses himself, takes one look at me and tells me to get lost. Understandable.
Saturday 30th May 2026
At around 7.30 I become aware of a level of craziness outside that is not usual in Corner. I look outside and the place is going unnecessarily violent. More than a hundred young men are fighting a street battle. One guy in particular is being targetted for a beating – with lumps of stone, rungus (great big heavy sticks) – and being kicked on the ground. There are pikipiki people everywhere. It is wildly violent in an unfocussed way – never good – except for the bloke on the ground. Two guys get the man off the ground and onto a pikipiki and race off. Followed by more blokes on more pikipikis The remaining mob mill around. About 40 minutes later the same thing happens again, only with another man on the ground. And this time it feels more hardcore. One of the pikipiki blokes doing the beating takes off his helmet and starts hitting the man on the ground with that. There are also three men with guns – the AK47s the police carry. They shoot into the air. There is much shrieking and running. But regrouping almost immediately. Eventually – by 10.30 is, it all calms down
In other news, in an adventure packed morning, I cannot help but notice there are four tiny kittens behind the basket in the corner of my room. They are heart stoppingly, eye-wateringly lovely. It seems that Mummy Cat has another litter. Bad timing though, as I am leaving tomorrow night, leaving me with few options : smuggle them back to London, stay here in Kenya till they grow up a bit, or find out where they have been living and take them back. Oh bloody hell.
We go to get 200 litres of soap chemicals for one extra group of Purity’s – the SMELL in the wee chemical kiosk would, as we say in Glasgow, knock ye doon. But we take the big sack of business to the matatu to send to Purity and head to market.
Of course the replacement queen (don’t get excited girls, we are talking chess here) has not arrived from Kisii but she will (hopefully) tomorrow. I collect my forgotton bits and bobs from Jacintah and we leave. Very easy day – and I get to spend more time with the cat family and finish packing for tomorrow. I spend three hours, as it happens, fending off the kids from the building who, having heard I had kittens (as it were) had come to play.
