Wednesday 29 April 2026
We are going to Limuru to meet up with Purity, but, not wanting to waste a morning, we go to Eastleigh, which is absolutely seething. It has been so wet for so long that this first day of sunshine has everyone on the streets and selling … everything. I can hardly hear myself think. No great loss at the moment. We get some bits and bobs from Mokono, order more and head back to the car. I am stopped by a lady selling bras. She knows me, she says. She sold me bras at a very good price, she says. Not me, I say. But I do understand that all white people look the same … How we laugh.
Less laughter in Limuru where I get the full story on Purity’s Nightmare,
About three or so weeks ago, someone had come to her and revealed that, in an outlying area, there was a building where young girls (aged maybe 16 / 15) were being held and offered to anyone who wanted a house girl (slave), a cleaner (slave) or something less savoury. The girls were brought there by their fathers (or ‘uncles’, says Purity) and never received anything except abuse. Purity found a safe place for them to go. And they went.
Some hours later Purity was ‘arrested’ by two uniformed police officers. Quite forcefully. Having done nothing wrong (in fact, the opposite) she pointed this out to the gentlemen. She was told that she was accused of “sticking her nose into business which was not hers”. And that she could be arrested. As this would only involve the officers producing a small bag of weed and saying they found it on her, this was a definite possibility. The law in Kenya is, pretty much at every level, what you can afford to buy. The price here was, they told her 20,000 shillings (just over 100 quid). Which she ‘negotiated’ down to 12000 and was released.
My initial reaction is to charge into the police station and demand an explanation. Stupid idea guaranteed to make things worse.
Or to go to this building and leap out the car taking pictures and hinting that I am a reporter for the Daily Nation. Equally bad idea, apparently, guaranteed to make things worse,
Purity has a plan. So watch this space.
My cats have come back ! So, of course I have to get food for them.
It does feel a bit bad, spending more on a tin of cat food than many people spend to feed their family in the evening. But it is really the only mzungu thing I do nowadays.
And now the rain.
Thursday 30 April 2026
Julius wants money because he is broke and cannot buy food. Joyce wants cod liver oil and multivits for women in her clinic who have Stage 4 HIV, various people who have heard I am back in town get in touch to say hello and ‘when can we meet’, which means ‘give me something’.
We go to Forex in town because the exchange rate at Junction is so shit. Not much better in town. And the young man behind the desk is deeply irritating. So I half the amount I change and hope things improve. He fails to understand the warcry of Mama B “every shilling counts”.
Now we get out of town – a permanent heaving, seething jam of traffic nowadays – and go to Kawangware – also a heaving, seething jam, but somehow more acceptable. They have got tarmac on a couple of the roads now and I really like the crush of stalls selling everything you can imagine and the vendors yelling incomprehensible retail come-ons to passing customers. I drink a pint of fresh sugar cane / beetroot / lemon juice. And hit the wholesale pharmacy. Dewormers have gone up in price a bit but at about 20p to rid a tiny Samburuan of intestinal nasties, it seems fair.
My soon to be host, and founder of the Women’s Village in Samburu has asked for some of Mama B’s health uji and I get some at Milka’s posho mill. 20Kg for Samburu and 20kg for Joyce at the clinic. I think I might have overestimated my portering capabilities in terms of getting this sack to Samburu. But … you never know. It is just I also have the meds to take and a big blanket to sleep on in the village. We shall see.
Pausing only to buy some worryingly flammable hair extension thingies – the static they build up just with my taking them off the hook would charge my phone for a week – and gels and hooha for our girls who are doing hairdressing training, we go to have something to eat at our fave place. Finally we head up Ngong Road (hoping to beat the rain) and go to Bwana Chuma (the Metal Man). Sparks are flying, hammers are beating and the heady scent of varnish and spray paint is in the air. I might post a picture of what I get there. TOOOOO cute.
We stop at Junction market where I lose the will to live as Annette (maker of beautiful but high-priced swing back jackets and other loveliness) attacks with full force. To cast one’s eye in any direction results in everything dangling in that area being ripped from its hanger and shoved in front of you. Admitting that something is “nice” leads to a demand that you order ten of them and she will make “in your colours”. It is an utterly exhausting experience and I have to escape and go and sit with Mwangi. My head is dirling (if you are not Scottish, look it up) and I leave.
The rain has really set in and by the time we get back to Corner, what can only be described as ladleful sized lumps of water are falling from the sky.
Both my cats are there to greet me – I do not kid myself that this is anything other than food and a warm place to rest – which makes me happy.
Unfortunately there is a massive black out and Safaricom seems to be incapable of operating and so I am without internet.
I sleep the sleep of the person who has accomplished quite a lot in a day.
