Saturday 23rd May 2026
David texts to say he is going to be half an hour late and I don’t feel like hanging around so I get a pikipiki up into Kawangware. Quite exhilirating. I get some of Mama B’s Jesus Uji to send to Western for Julius’ ailing oldies. We take it to the coach (company goes by the name of Climax, which I think rather overplays the service they offer) and dispatch it to Western.
Market day. Which I am dreading. Thanks to the riots and the strikes, a couple of days have been missed, transport costs are up and everyone is desperate for a bit of business. I am, I have to admit, getting tired and this is a dangerous time for me. If anyone bangs on at me enough I will just accede to make them stop and let me go. Pathetic, I know, but … you would just laugh at me if I said I maybe need assertiveness training, wouldn’t you ?
I decide to give myself a break halfway through everything. Which actually works quite well.
Again I do A Bad Thing and go to Java House, drink Hibiscus and Mint and eat a salad. I cannot help myself. It has become my dirty little Kenyan secret. I eat it while a woman wearing an “I Stand With Israel” stands in front of me. I am a bad person.
The lessos are dispatched to Samburu for round two of the business – I send Munu David’s number and the cost of sending by Meiso. 300 shillings. A huge bargain to go all the way to Wamba.
Back at Corner David wants to eat fish and I use the long drop facilities as the unexpected salad works its effects on my bowels.
Sunday 24th May 2026
Today’s funding is practically in Tanzania. Vicky changes things at the last moment and things go a bit Kenyan. But we do meet and head to Maile Tisa, near Namange which, as mentioned, is practically Tanzania.
More or less four hours there and four hours back means the day is squeezed of usable hours.
There are five groups.And I come bearing a tightly bound bundle of panties wrenched from the very depths of the Olympic Mall in Eastleigh.
All but one of these groups are the victims of tribal violence – houses burned, beatings, sexual assaults – and the FGM and early marriage that comes as a corollary. It is – you might have noticed – becoming impossible to find new words to describe the horror of it all. But to say “same old same old” although true, would be appalling.
The last group have their girls cut and sold off because it is ‘what happens’. Around age ten. And the men get, I am told, one cow for their daughter.
We have a potato farm, a contract to cook and serve githeri and a group selling carrots and peas. Plus one selling carrier bags.
The panties get the seal of approval from the assembled ladies.
Our transport costs have risen dramatically.
Partly because of the rise in fuel prices (and of course the lorry drivers take advantage of that) but also because our groups – Vicky’s groups – tend to be 15 now. She whittles them down as much as possible but …
On our way back we see a giant tortoise at the side of the road. It is obviously lost, poor thing. And there is a group of young men heading its way – never good, given that Kenyans tend to have an attitude towards animals that does not even approach the k of kindness, but fully embraces the k of kill and/or kick. David sees no need to stop, finding it risible that I would want to help and Vicky says the boys are Maasai and will not hurt it.
We drop Vicky in Isinya and head back to Nairobi in the absolute pitch dark.
