Sunday 5 September 2010

28th Aug

28th Aug

Odongo our Kenyan look-after-us-man has gone to a three day church event. Where he says, I quote, ‘we stand and pray for three days’, without eating or sleeping. No comment.

We, me and Helen are alone in the house and much to the disapproval of morris and Odongo, we went all by ourselves to Kisumu today. Kisumu is the closest town to Siaya and is about an hour away on the matatu. Ive been to and driven from Kisumu many a times, but despite this we have been told that its not a trip for two British women. I cant be told shit like that. Not only have I been here for 5 weeks now, I live in bloody London. Ive got the Kenyan way sussed now. I am no longer rip off able, I am no longer intimidated by Kenyan men, I understand basic Swahili, I allow people to think im Luo and to be honest I can navigate around quiet easily without fear and with confidence. Helen has full trust in me and I told Odongo that if he thinks that we were gonna sit in the house whilst he praises the lord for three days, he could think again. And so we woke up earlier and got the matautu to Kisumiu and had a day out of sight-seeing and food.

Nothing much to report except, the road to Kisumi is looked after by Kenyan police. Usually by a Kenyan policeman every now and then the matatu is stopped by a Kenyan police women. Def something so inspiring to see a Kenyan women in uniform and acting unlike her village counterparts, in a strong and confident way. Not at all intimidated by men and commanding their respect, love watching the matatu men cower and beg not to be reprimanded for speeding.

At the shopping centre, I saw two Kenyan women in army uniform holding fuck off machine guns, with ease and authority. Such a turn on, but couldn’t let on cos they would shoot my head off.

Right I’m off to bed, ive got an almighty headache and am sweating like a fucker. I reckon heat stroke, im kinda hoping not malaria, tomo we shall see. Apologies for the profanities in this blog –not gonna remove them thou. Lol

Oh yeah, as we were walking to the big ole shopping centre in Kisumu (its called Nakumart or something and is like the big malls in the US) we noticed that a women was kinds following us. Turns out this women was psychotic, she was crying but also shouting to an invisible person in Swahili. She was very unkempt and dirty and passers by were ignoring her, laughing or crossing the road. One women stopped and was talking to her kindly but eventually gave up. I was not afraid of the women but I wanted to be cautious as being with a ‘mazungo’ creates unwanted attention and I was certain that this women may create some disturbance. As we were walking away, some men yelled at us for our attention. They were shouting, ‘is she bothering you? I replied, ‘NO!’. Despite my answer, the men continued to talk (as Kenyan men seem to do despite the conversation being over), they were suggesting that if we wanted they would beat the women –ey? I was like ‘er, NO!’ she dosnt need beating she needs help. Anyhow, has you have prob guessed they didnt listen to the Luo looking women but kept shouting at Helen and asking for her approval in the matter. FRUSTRATING, this whole lets not listen to the Kenyan women but seek (almost beg) for a response from the white women (who by the way looked terrified) is pissing me off. All in all Kenyan men are egotistical chauvinist pigs and frankly the constitution aint gonna change an ingrained gender problem.
Ok so I figured that nothing I said, or Helen didnt say was gonna change anything. We walked away.
At the end of the day, on our way home, we encountered the women again, this time she was crying, ah, I wanted to give her some money, but Helen rightly stopped me, as giving money to a rejected member of society in public, isn’t like in Britain where you can put some money in a homeless persons paper cup, or buy them a meal. Here if ya seen doing that people think that you have money to throw away and ya can guess what happens next. I was sad. This women, must have had something so bloody horrible happen to her, cause the women here are tough, really tough and don’t break down unless, something fucks them up big time. I felt for her and felt helpless.

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