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.