Friday 8th May 2026
If you could bottle the feel of the world here at 6.30am, the therapy business would be destroyed. Along with many other aspects of ‘normal’ life. There is something extraordinarily good for the soul in living the ‘sufficient unto the day’ lives these women do. The slight problem here is that they were making do with insufficient. But now they are all Mama Businesses that can change a bit. The concept of “enough” is a wonderful thing. When the ladies explained to me yesterday about buying at 50 bob and selling at 60 bob which gave them ‘enough’ to buy a fistful of flour to make a meal and go on to the next day, it was an eye opener. OK, not ideal, and a fistful of flour is not REALLY ‘enough’, but if they can make enough for a decent meal for them and their kids, some tea, and other basics, I am not sure that that is not a better life than many I have seen in big cities. Or am I talking romanticised shite just because I love sleeping in a smokey hut, pissing in the open air and drinking tea with goat’s milk ? To be fair, I wouldn’t mind a good wash.
We finalise instructions for the dewormers I brought – yes you only take the ONCE – and the various vitamins and I write down the names of various cough medicines they might want to try for the phlegm infestation.
Of COURSE I am not picked up on the road at 8.00am. Nor at half past, when Letina attempts to flag down passing cars to give me a lift. However finaslly a sort of a bus arrives and I board. It seems to be a shrine to Real Madrid, none of whose players (whose faces are plastered all over the interior) looks particularly Spanish.
On the right hand side, as we bump along, are the Table Mountains, a whole range that looks like the top has just been sliced off. It is extraordinary. I cannot get a decent view as a photo of a bloke in an alice band holding a trophy obscures half of what I can see, and to get a lower angle I would need to put my face in the lap of the guy sitting next to me. Not, I suspect, a good idea.
Nearly three hours and another soldier search (these machine guns are BIG) later, we are in Isiolo.
I am the third to get into the shuttle. Never good because we have to wait until it fills up before leaving. Which is another hour and a half.
We get to Nairobi at around 7.30pm and David (who had said he would be there at 7pm) textx to say he is “on the way coming”. Never, ever a good thing to hear. I have a coffee and get stared at a lot in a hole in the wall place next door and wait. When I stared at, I just mean in a mildly puzzled sort of a way. I have yet to meet the London attitude. I remember, the day before I left to come to Kenya, a woman (ok, obviously one colour stripe short of an LGBTQIA++ + … Flag) on the bus hissed at me “I don’t know what you think you are thinking of doing, you white bitch, but you are not doing it with me” None of that here. In fact some of the old people still talk fondly about the days when the schools and the roads were good. It is incredible.
I go out and stand in the street so David can see me.
The whole of this area is a constant noisy, exhaust-fume-filled mash up of huge busses, small busses, carts, porters with metal thingies on wheels, motorbikes and shouting, pushing, grabbing humanity. I guess I am not in Samburu any more.
Saturday 9th May 2026
The dreaded market looms. I am not one of life’s enthusiastic shoppers. Anywhere. And here, constantly called by desperate traders who – as they keep pointing out – are “very down” and “have not yet sold even one thing”, it is surprisingly stressful. Plus my sense of direction in the labyrinthine layout is non existent. I send David off to send 20kg of Jesus Unga (see previous post) and a load of basic meds for what the Jesus Unga does not fix. Like worms.
In the evening we eat some very dried out goat and I try something called Jabba Juice. It is non alcoholic but heavily infused with miraa, the ‘herb’ so enthusiastically chewed across East Africa. David and the guy at the nerxt table watch me like hawks to see the effect. Not much. Although I do feel pleasantly ‘mellow’. According to them I shall be ‘up all night cleaning your room’. Which sounds like rather a positive thing.
Spoiler Alert : I am not.
Sunday 10th May 2026
I was rather hoping to have a day off but there is too much to do. A trip to Kawangware is fruitless – the soap chemicals place is closed, but I do get a big box of Hydroxyurea for Mary Faith’s kids with sickle cell. Mokono in Eastleigh (who, of course, has answered none of my texts) is also closed although the rest of Eastleigh is throbbing. I get a dozen lessos to send to Samburu for another business group in the village, and a vast pile of panties to start a business for a “very special” group of ladies in Mombasa (according to Vicky).
I discovered that Meiso (the little company that shuttled me to Isiolo)delivers luggage direct to Wamba. This is extraordinary. We take the lessos there and head back to Corner, via dropping off various supplements and the Hydroxyurea at Mary Faith Centre.
Monday 11 May 2026
Today’s diary is entitled Ladies !! Learn To Control Your Buibui !!
In line with the Kenyan’s way with information, there is almost no signage at all, at any of the turnings – not even the motorway exits – to indicate the location of the SGR Terminus. Billions of kenyan shillings. An unrepayable debt to China and no one is considering some signage.
There are three sets of x-ray machines and two sniffer dog line ups just to get into the railway station. Interesting. But my panties and I get through without a problem. I get my ticket and wait upstairs.
The route to the platform is down an escalator. All is going well until, around six treads from the bottom, I hear a shriek and a series of bumps behind me.
Some woman in about a thousand yards of billowing fabric, inside which she cannot locate even her hands, has dropped her suitcase. And it is now tumbling down the escalator towards me, gathering speed. I pretty much know I am going to fall, so I would rather fall backwards. By the time we make contact, the suitcase and I, we are very nearly at the bottom, which is great, and I get away with banging my hip against the edge of the tread above. I channel my inner Mark Marquez, get up and hobble away.
Upgrade ? A free coffee ? No. Just the instructions that I have to sign a release form to say that I am travelling at my own risk. I do.
