Tuesday
My bowels are still in spate. But generally getting much better. Doris has been given a hot tip on a wholesale chemist in town where we can buy dewormers. The suspension for tiny people have been costing about 30 pence each and the tablets for the slightly larger person 25. I have a meeting with Charles at the bank regarding Equity’s refusal to give a loan to someone in need and who has a guarantor standing by. I wait half an hour past my appointment time and then go. David and I negotiate the labyrinthine streets downtown and find the wholesalers. On my way from the car to the warehousey place a bloke in a lorry tells me I look sexy and asks if I would like to have sex with him. My wrinkly old heart soars. My day is made. I tell him I am sorry but I am too busy. But thank him for the offer. The first floor cavern is fairly crowded. I get prices and place an order. You then go to another desk, collect your printed invoice, take that to the cash desk, pay, get it stamped and then take it back to the bloke who took your order in the first place. An hour later I am still waiting. And things are moving in the Niagara of my innards. Fifteen minutes later a bloke calls “mama biashara ” and I leap to the grill. Half my order has arrived. A smirking bloke in an overall advertising family planning seems unconvinced that there is more to my order. I get the bored looking bloke who took my order in the first place to convince him. Smirking bloke shoots me a glance and shrugs. Twenty minutes later I suggest to the room at large that I might cancel my order because all the children will be dead by e time I get the medicine to them. Now three of the slow moving figures behind the bars smirk. And ten minutes after that I tell the fat women with the bad weave who seems to be in charge, if only because she appears to be doing nothing at all, that I have (direct translation) “a big problem of diarrhoea and if I wait much longer I will just shit myself here”. Smirking man smirks and the rest laugh. I do not know if the smirking man is neurodiverse or just bloody rude because he never looks at me when I ask him where the fuck my order has got to. Another fifteen minutes and the dewormers arrive. Then I am locked in a small room with their security man while we check that the order is correct and I sign for it.
Hence to the market where no one has anything ready for me.
We are meeting with Felista in the evening. I have some stuff for her, including some of the Eastleigh panties, some of the FABULOUS range of bras we have had donated, and a load of Poundland earphones for her to sell in the cyber cafe. She is keen to take the whole lot of bras for the girls at DECIP, but the underwired loveliness of the multicoloured, sexy, lacy boobie hammocks we have had given to us is entirely unsuited to the pubescent schoolgirl. Especially the crazy Luo girls she is having so much trouble with. I spend the time shredding my torn leggings for the next leg (see what I did there) of the pad experiment. I reckon if we take rags, shred them and boil them to mush, we can reconstitute them into pads.
Wednesday
I awake feeling positively brimming with health. And poo, unfortunately, but no pains, headaches, dizziness, sweats. I feel, in the words of James Brown, GOOD. Off up the hill for a pointless chat with Charles, who uses the word ‘system’ a lot nowadays, which is never good. Then I walk into Kawangware Market and buy a stove, a sufuria, a drainy thing, a stirry thing a board and a roller. Yes, the Great Pad Project takes a step forward. The stove is lit and the shredded legging boiled. For four hours. Which affects it not one whit. I knew I should have used cotton but I didn’t think a weeny bit of lycra in the mix would make them indestructible. I mean they ripped easily enough.
David arrives at one is and we go to Kibera to meet Timo. Who is not answering messages. So I call. It is not sounding hopeful. We wait for about twenty minutes and he turns up. There will be no medical today. Apparently I should have had ‘meetings’. But I did. With Kemo. Ah yes, but not with Timo. But I thought you work together ? Well, yes, but that does not mean that a meeting with one can take the place of a meeting with the other. We should have talked. But we did talk. On the phone. Yes. That is not talking. We need to plan. Plan what ? Rooms. No. Seating. No. Public address system. No. Posters. No. We need to know who you are targeting. Needy people. Then we need to identify them. Er … look around you ?
Timo does not seem impressed. He leaves and David and I head vaguely in the direction of Kawangware. I call Doris to see if we can come to the place where she is contacting mamas for a medical. Apparently not. She has told the mamas that the medical will be on Saturday and that is what they want. But I will be in Western on Saturday. Silence. I am embarrassed to admit that I get a bit shouty. I am just so frustrated. We go and meet her in Uthiru and head to a slum village called Kahoho. It is built in a dam. Apparently it floods every time the rain comes. The houses have brick lips on the doors to try and stop the water coming in but to no real avail. We deworm about a hundred and fifty children, treat some ringworm, see a young man COVERED in the stuff and do a few bits and bobs. A young boy has what looks like fungal keritosis in both eyes. He should be going to hospital but the doctors are still on strike …
Doris takes pictures because she is in a bad mood with me. Which is fair enough. My Kibera thing fucked up so I needed her to rearrange the afternoon. Fair dos. And I got shouty. David and I hand out the medicine. It is fairly obvious the kids would swallow anything if they got to wash it down with a cup of water. They are parched. Loads of them – and their Mamas – have ash crosses on their foreheads. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if their faith could help them with water and their worms instead of giving them The Power of The Dirty Mark On Your Forehead for a day. We leave and go to Uthiru for coffee. As I am feeling perky and have not exploded recently, I have some greens called managu. I love them. LOVE them. I have two portions.
Doris tells me about the hate male she was recieving online. She posted on WhatsApp about our little deworming / ringworm etc clinics and was horribly trolled by a group of DOCTORS warning that ‘small time’ efforts like ours do nothing to help. Ah, tell that to a village of ladies who, yesterday, were hunched and moaning and today, thanks to some diclofenac gel, some ibuprofen and a few stretching suggestions, are positively gymnastic. They have sent their thanks. Ditto scabby, rashy, pussy people. And the horde of ladies with ‘ulsas’ cured overnight with a handful of antacids and some advice about not eating a Kilimanjaro sized portion of ugali before bed are ecstatic. Curing cancer never really was on my to do list. But then it seems, dear doctors, it is not on your list either … 88 days on strike and counting. I am still exercised by Timo and Kemo’s lack of understanding of the low level at which MAma B operates. They are, after all, of the street themselves. “No one, Copi”, says Doris earnestly “no one could understand how low you go.” I am taking that as a compliment.
