Tuesday 12 May 2026
I have a fabulous bruise and a bit of discomfort but nothing to write home about – albeit I am now writing home about it. Not even painkiller worthy. But impressive. The very best kind of injury.
Having said that, as the day wears on, I am experiencing some really quite excruciating abdominal cramps. Hmmm.
We are travelling quite far and walk a bit, get into a matatu (always a bit of a nightmare). Get off, walk a bit and get a tuktuk which, despite saying it will take us the whole way, dumps us on the wrong side of the ferry, leaving us with more walking and stair climbing. The actual ferry journey is nice and breezy, which is a relief. I am sweating like a racehorse running the Grand National while about to be exposed as a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein. I am not normally a sweaty person. Sweat, as it happens, is my least favourite body fluid. But I am dripping. Literally. And I use the word literally, literally.
Having climbed the hill away from the ferry, we get a tuktuk and rattle off deep into the surrounding villages. My admiration for Vicky’s ability to remember the way around these interior villages knows no bounds. We are far from the main anything. We visit a Mama B greengrocery business – like most, the little stall is home base and the ladies hawk around different areas. It maximises sales.
We do, it has to be said, get lost trying to find the safe house for the funding and the last part of the route is by walking but we get there.
All our fundings are in safe houses provided by previous Mama B groups. In fact all the groups come to Mama B through previous groups. They are the ones on the ground, sometimes in far flung places, they are the ones who know a woman in trouble when they see one. Then they contact Vicky.
This safe house is also a workshop for mat making. Several years ago a group of ladies were set up in a makuti business (the sort of fan shaped leaf “tiles” used for roofing here on the Coast). This group has expanded and split and developed and now a group of them is weaving big floor mats with extraordinary levels of success (and profit). They are lovely. Mats and ladies. Our business hopefuls are huddled on the floor. They come from a variety of villages, all desperate to save their daughters from FGM and early marriage, usually around age 9 or 10. The businesses are solid. One group are going into the garlic and ginger business (coincidentally, just like Brother Geoff), we have a firewood contract, a farm, another contract to make curtains and two groups who will be hawking carrier bags. As we make our way back to Mtwapa Vicky puts my bag on the floor of the tuktuk. “We are in hostile territory” she says.
We manage to get a tuktuk back as far as Lights and change to a matatu. My cramps are not subsiding through any of this.
Back at Baraka, I feel the urge to “download” as Vicky puts it and, crampy and urgent as it feels, nothing happens.
