Night on the town

Today I met with the interns and Mbaluka to pray. When you look at the enormity and complexity of the issues surrounding prostitution here, you can feel out of your depth and often like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. So in a way it’s a relief to be able to put it in God’s hands and ask him to lead the change that we want to bring. In the evening we’d planned to go to town and to spend some time in the clubs with some sex workers. Also we have a trustee who’s never seen the women doing their business or even been to some of those clubs so we thought it would be good for her to get some exposure. So we piled into a car at around 10 and headed for town. As usual at nighttime the road was lined with lorries, with drivers spending the night in hostels in Naivasha. Me, Pastor Mbaluka and Selinah met up with a CSW called Mama Maina and headed to a club called Tru Carnivore. The music was booming…reggae and local hip hop…we got a drink and sat down next to the dance floor. It felt like we were going underground into some kind of den…it was a wooden building with a dirt floor and dim lights. And the dance floor was jammed full of young people dancing and generally having a good time. At first it was hard to figure out who was there just to have a good time and who was there to work. But gradually as you watch people dancing you begin to figure out which women are really “working” the dance floor. It’s like seeing people being on the pull - but these ones are going to get paid at the end of the night for what they do. There was a real party atmosphere there though so after gathering some strength and forcing myself to ignore all the stares from various men, I dived onto the dance floor and did my best to disguise my lack of rhythm! One of the interns soon found herself propositioned by a guy who assumed she was practising the same business as the women we were dancing with…she gave him short shrift and he soon realised he was barking up the wrong tree! The sex workers we were with seemed really happy to see us there just relaxing with them, enjoying ourselves and meeting them on their turf. After a while we left the club and walked down the street, chatting to some women outside the hostels waiting for clients. I recognised some women from December…working the same corners as before. We went to another club but it was a bit of a different ball game there…it was a lot quiter…nearly every woman in the club was a CSW and they were all sat with their clients with few people on the dance floor. We weren’t about to disturb them in the middle of business so we moved back to Tru Carnivore. On the way out we saw a woman picking up a client…she was heavily pregnant - maybe 7 months. The CSW who was with us told us that she had been working the streets up until the day before she gave birth. I’d seen a couple of pregnant women that night but that really shocked me. One night she was selling herself - the next day she had a baby! What kind of man sleeps with a woman who is full term?! A wave of tiredness hit me as I walked through town. And then we saw something that made me sick to my stomach - a young girl, most probably late teens was walking along singing at the top of her voice, completely and utterly drunk. A young sex worker - with four men holding her and dragging her along. That girl will be raped tonight. They were headed for the darker parts of town - no street lights, no people, nobody will see. And when they’re done with her they won’t pay - she’ll be left with nothing at the end of the night. She’ll just have been used, time and time over. Everything inside me just wanted to run over and grab her - but this is lunacy as I know realistically there’s nothing I can do. NYM want to open a drop in centre and to encourage volunteers from the churches to form street teams to go to the streets at night for precisely this reason. If we had a street team, with men - we could have stepped into that situation, rescued the girl and taken her to the drop in centre so where she could sober up and be taken care of. Few people here believe a sex worker who says she has been raped - and there’s very little protection available for them. If I’m a Christian I can’t just sit by and do nothing whilst this kind of thing goes on. Tonight I had to watch that girl get dragged away. I never want to see anything like that again. If I know it is possible to do something positive here, to make a practical difference and to show people that I speak the truth when I say God loves CSWs - I need to allow myself to be used as a channel for that love, as an instrument for change. I sometimes think people think I’m a bit extreme when I babble on about Fuhomi, about NYM and about these things…but I really don’t care as this has made me bold. I know this team is in a position to implement change so I will be bold and speak until someone forces me to shut up. I can just imagine what might happen if the church here were to get over their judgement, to repent of their rejection of these women and end their separation from society. I’m just imagining what would happen if they were to get out of the church and into the clubs - to enjoy themselves, to show the CSWs and the clients that Christians are humans and can have fun without compromising their relationship with Jesus. I’m just imagining what would happening if Christians and CSWs became so comfortable in each others company that Christians could reach out to CSWs and CSWs could let them into their lives. I’m just imagining what would happen if Christians could go to the streets and show radical love by protecting women, caring for those on lonely street corners. I’m just imagining what would happen if each Christian in this town were to try help one sex worker to leave the sex trade. The Christ in “Christian” would begin to become evident…and once a person meets Christ - it’s difficult for your life not to be impacted. The team are giving a presentation in church on Sunday. Let’s hope these imaginings won’t remain imaginings for long.

Injustice

Tuesday morning I meet with the NYM interns for a Bible study. We’re supposed to be looking at poverty and justice but we start off with 1 John 4 talking about love…and 3 hours later we’re still on it! The idea of “agape” unconditional love is quite a tough concept to get your head round as it isn’t really a natural human emotion…so it gave us food for thought. In the evening we had a marathon meeting to talk about the future of NYM and Fuhomi given the past year’s performance and current financial challenges. We made some tough decisions which was good…although hard at the same time. I’m confident about the future if we can get the financial resources we need. I love how passionate the workers are and how committed to these women…it’s kind of novel to see so much love for women who can be, quite frankly, very frustrating and hard to work with. In the evening I was chatting to my host’s house help - I’ve been really moved by her. Her daughter is extremely physically disabled…she had celeberal malaria when she was a baby and now has very little control over her body. She can’t feed herself, walk or go to the toilet. She’s 10 years old. It’s heart wrenching really as she’s a prisoner in her own body but her mum can’t afford a wheelchair for her or to send her to special school so in the mornings, the poor girl is left on the sofa as her mum goes off to work. She’s locked in the house as both parents are out working. In the evening at around 6.30 her mum gets back - and then bathes her as she’s urinated on the sofa. She’s still using baby nappies as they can’t afford adult diapers. That family need some kind of miracle…you can see the love that lady has for her daughter when she talks about her… you see this little lady struggling to lift up her daughter who is now getting quite big and you feel something is wrong with the world. Something is so wrong in a world where an intelligent young girl is forced to lie in her own urine all day whilst her mother is out working hard all day, a mother who cares for her so much - simply because there are no systems to support her. If this isn’t injustice I don’t know what is.

endless safari

Monday was a journey from hell! I left my friend’s house in Nairobi and we caught a matatu into town. I then got a taxi to my bus stop in River Road. Unfortunately my driver didn’t know where the stop was so I was given a grand tour of River Road, in nose to tail traffic. I’m not a big fan of River Road or Tom Mboya Street as I was robbed there a few years ago so I got onto the matatu to Nairobi as soon as possible. We inched our way out of town and I asked myself for the zillionith time why the Kenyan government don’t have some strategic plan of dealing with traffic issues in Nairobi! The jam is just painful at times. Finally out of the city and the mat decides to take an alternative route to Naivasha - the back road via Mai Mahiu….which is much longer. It’s very scenic as you drive along the edge of a large valley….but I fail to appreciate it’s beauty as most of the time I’m clinging onto my seat in the vehicule….terrified of toppling over the edge and whispering prayers for safety under my breath as the matatu zips around corners at quite frankly unsafe speeds as we teeter on the edge of the drop into the valley. My nerves aren’t helped by us passing a lorry which has gone off the road and rolled down the drop into the valley. A tighter grip ensues…although this is obviously ridiculous as my gripping the car isn’t going to stop any accidents!

Tanzania

On Thursday I jumped on a plane to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It’s just 45 minutes flight from Nairobi so I thought it would be good to make the trip to see some friends that I stayed with whilst doing research for my dissertation two years ago. Tanzania somehow feels calmer, less rushed than Kenya. I like being able to return to relative anonymity as my white skin attracts much less attention than in Naivasha. Usually a 5 minute walk down the street will attract at least 3 “how are yous” from kids or even adults…but this isn’t really the case in Tz…it happens from time to time but not nearly as much - which is a relief! I’ve never understood why any European would possibly like being greeted a zillion times by strangers in the street…as these people are only saying hi because you’re white - not because they actually want to greet you as a human being. It’s very fake, pretty irritating and occasionally embarrassing. But anyways, the few days I spent in Kilimanjaro were nice and slow. There was lots of sleeping involved…lots of eating quite simply stupendous food (with plenty of bananas as they are the staple in the region) and watching Micheal Jackson videos on TV as he passed away on Thursday. I’ve noticed Tanzanian TV has a ridiculous number of religious TV channels with televangelists breathing hell, fire and water. There must have been channels in at least 5 different languages but it all looked strangely similar. The type of TV that makes your skin crrrrraaaaaawwwwwl! Theres also lots of Mexican soaps with synthesiser soundtracks, long broody stares and funny English voiceovers! The family I stayed with are beautiful people - Invo is a head teacher of a local secondary school and his wife Joyce works as Head of Education at a local street kids rehabilation centre. Tudi their son is a small explosion of energy. Purity their daughter is a lot quieter but mainly because she’s been very sick of late. We spent a lot of time in the house as Purity is still recovering surgery a few weeks ago. She’s very weak and was vomiting a lot so I thought it best to stick close by the house and just spend time with the family. Their house was right at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro so in the evenings as the clouds lifted I could see the mountain rearing up in front of me with it’s snowy peaks emerging in the dusk. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word glorious apart from when talking about God but I think that would be a fairly accurate description of what I was seeing from the garden gate.

Naaiirrrroooobi!

On Tuesday I decided to learn how to make the beaded scarves that the Fuhomi women make. It’s actually quite complex - Shiko - one of the ex - CSWs showed me as she’s a bit of an expert. It took me aggggggeees to get even halfway down the scarf after which I’m ashamed to say I gave up…Shiko finished it off! We were quite excited to get a visit from the wife of the US ambassador who was looking for a present for Mrs Obama! She had a really thick accent and was wearing what looked like half a shop full of make up.

On Wednesday I headed to Nairobi and met my friend in Nairobi’s equivalent of the Bullring - the Sarit Centre. Rarely has pizza tasted so good! In the afternoon I met with Christian Aid’s East African manager and picked his brain about Christian Aid’s work in the region. It was actually really inspiring to hear about some of the work we support - particularly the Kenyan Human Rights Commission. Being an activist can be a case of life and death here - especially if you are challenging an issue which could cause politicians or big business people to lose money.