Through Mabati

Mwende

Mwende lives in the third room in the makeshift mabati structure in Ghetto, just up the road from the Sagret Hotel.
She is destitute as all her neighbors. The bag of maize that she had been hoarding was all but gone.
Gunter turned up just before Christmas.
He was an HIV/AIDS doctor who came to Kenya every few months working for an NGO.
They had met at RK’s, the new hangout for Buffalo Bill graduates. Mwende had been sharing him with three other girls, but this time he wants only her.

He cries like a baby (“mzungus love to cry” says Mwende), vows eternal love, sleeps with her at the Fairview for a week, and goes home to his wife and children in Germany for Christmas. To ease his conscience, he buys her some new clothes and leaves her 20,000 shillings to remain chaste until his next scheduled visit.

Mwende uses the money to pay the rent, school fees for the children, and to pay back a loan from a friend the last time she was in hospital. With the rest of the money she buys a few kilos of goat meat, unga and some cases of beer.
She invites all her neighbors to Christmas lunch.
They choma the meat, made chapatis for all, and drink the beer.

Mwende looks around at her neighbors.
The mabati structure had eight single rooms housing 14 women and countless children. Many of the girls had completed Form Four. Some had even completed their A Levels, and had gone on to college.

Quite drunk, Mwende stands up, and said,
“Look at you, all you educated people.
You have no jobs, no money and no husbands.
I am a Standard Four leaver, and I am feeding you all for Christmas.”

Aida

It is raining heavily and the mabati structure is far from watertight.
Owino wakes up Aida, and orderes her to keep the small room dry. Water is pouring in under the makeshift door and through the roof and walls.
Except for a cheap mattress and an expensive radio-tape, the room is completely bare.
“I have to go search for work tomorrow” he tells Aida
“so I must get a full night’s sleep. Go mop up the water and do not let a single drop reach my mattress”.

Aida is seventeen, an orphan, and heavily pregnant. The day before she had cooked the last of the beans, and was hungry again. She asks Owino what he had brought for dinner.
“You have not had to go to the choo since yesterday, so why are you asking me about dinner?” he responds.

The next morning, after struggling all night at keeping the water away from the mattress, Aida goes into labour. She cries out in pain.

Owino orders her to shut up so that he could think over his problems.
“I will beat you if you are not silent” he says and turns up his radio to full blast so the neighbours cannot not hear her cries through the thin mabati walls.

By noon, the pains are more frequent.
Aida knows that she is about to give birth.
Owino grudgingly agrees to take her to the clinic but insists on walking.
“It is not very far”, he says.
Fully clothed, but with no extra kangas, they set out on foot to the clinic.

Ten minutes later Aida has to sit down.
She and her unborn daughter die there in the mud.

Esther

Sometimes, on Saturdays, when she has some money, she goes to the Boulevard Hotel to watch the wedding processions.
She sits at the poolside way at the back, and nurses a 70-shilling coke all day.
She watches the brides walk by, and imagines herself in the white dress, surrounded by Her people all smartly dressed, photographers dancing around for better angles.
Would she be relaxed, or would she look as tense as all those other brides?
She promises herself to stop drinking, to lose weight, to gain weight, to stop selling her body.
But she knows that she will never be a bride.
At 28 with two children, one an obvious half-caste, and with her reputation she knows that she will never be photographed at the Boulevard on the way to Church.

“I would even marry a cripple”, she says to herself, “as long as he would offer me a Church wedding and ceremony”.

She cries briefly, and walks across to the Casino Roundabout to catch a matatu to town.

Maria

Maria lives in the corner room of the mabati structure.
She has a part-time job in a hairdressing salon and keeps mainly to herself, caring for her ten year old half-caste son who is brown, with shocking blue eyes.
She always appears to have money and is very discreet about her benefactor, the Italian Priest. She had met The Priest when she went for Mass at the Catholic Church. At the confessional he whispered instructions for her to go that afternoon to room 628 at the Grand Regency Hotel. He was booked in the adjoining room. They have been meeting in the same two rooms for the past twelve years, where The Priest, in true Italian style, prefers taking her from behind.

About a year after they first met, The Priest surprised her with a return air-ticket to Mombasa. She was booked at the Diani Beach Hotel in South Coast. After checking in, she goes down to the lounge where she sees The Priest with another man dressed in red robes. The Priest did not acknowledge her presence but when the other man glanced her way she could not help noticing his blue eyes. One of the waiters tells her that he was a visiting Bishop kubwa from the Vatican.

She has dinner alone, retiring early to her room, and leaving the door to the adjoining room unlocked. Tired from the excitement of her first ever flight she falls asleep almost immediately.

Later, she hears the door open softly.

Half asleep she turns onto her stomach and pushes up her buttocks, but the man gently turns her over on her back, and makes love to her, as she continues to doze.

Later, as he gets up to leave, she notices in the moonlight, his blue eyes.

Judy and Julie

You always know when they are home.
They are always laughing and you could hear laughter through the thin mabati walls.
Judy and Julie, the Kalenjin twins from Kericho.
They just cannot stop laughing.
They find men so funny, actually ridiculous.
They laugh as they tell each other for the hundredth time, of the man who goes into a cheap joint on River Road to buy some chips and a sausage, for mbau mbili, only to leave with a toothpick in his mouth so that people will think that he has eaten mbuzi choma.

They continue laughing, repeating the story of how they were lured into a car, and abducted by five men who wanted to enjoy them all night.
Judy was able to persuade the men that they had not eaten all day, and therefore, could not adequately perform their duties. So, they all stopped at a joint in Mlolongo, on the way to Athi River, and ordered a kuku choma.
“Eat well,” the men urged them ”you have a hard night’s work ahead”.
They escape laughing, through the choo.
Judy hid at the nearby Petrol Station giving a “job” to the night watchman for his silence.
Julie ended up in the luxury of the Silver Springs Hotel with another man who happened to pass by.
“Eat well, you have a hard night’s work ahead” became their motto.

Judy goes full-blown in February.

A week later Julie too becomes sick.

They both stop laughing.

Albert the Great

Albert is a friend of the Kalenjin twins.
He can never remember their names, so he takes to calling them both “darling”.

Albert has not been seen around town for over two years. He had been off working in Saudi Arabia where he could not drink alcohol in public or enjoy women.
Just off the plane, hands shaking in anticipation, he has difficulty in deciding which to go for first, women or alcohol.
He decides to start by checking out all the bars, which he used to frequent. After bar hopping all afternoon, he is recognized by an old acquaintance, who comes up to greet him.
In his stride, feeling a bit expansive, and expecting another drink, he replies:
“If you really want to greet me properly, go talk to the waiter”.
Albert the Great.

Just before daybreak Albert decides to pay the twins a visit. Walking towards the makeshift mabati structure he chews some mkombera roots planning to take them both on to make up for the long drought he suffered in Saudi Arabia. Their room was dark, so he spit in his hand and struck the spittle with his forefinger to let the spittle help him find the right door.
No, he was not wrong, he had come to the right place, but the door was ajar and the room was empty.

The neighbors tell him that his “darlings” have been taken home to Kericho for burial the week before.

Honourable Joe

Joe was Albert’s best friend since childhood.
Since his election to parliament, everyone calls him “The Honourable Joe”.  He is now an Assistant Minister.
On Friday, after Albert’s return, they go out for their customary all-night drinking spree, just like in the good old days, before Saudi and before Parliament.
After midnight, they turn up at Simmers, where four girls clutching a dictionary join them.
The girls cannot speak a word of English, but make good use of the dictionary. They pour drinks for the men, and are quick to light a cigarette for Honourable Joe.
They all end up spending the weekend at the Intercontinental, each in a suite with two girls, putting to good use the additional funds recently voted by Parliament to its own.

Back at Parliament on Monday, Honourable Joe held forth in the cafeteria about the merits of the newly elected government, in that booming voice that got him elected. He explains that the Kenyan economy is now opening up to globalization and that the good times for all are just around the corner.

Challenged by a member of the opposition, to cite a single example the emergence of globalization, he immediately retorts

“we now have Chinese malayas at Simmers”.

Wanjiru

Wanjiru shares a room in the mabati structure with Kagene. She is short, with a small pretty face, slightly slanted eyes and a huge bum. She remembers Honourable Joe from long before he became “Honourable” and loves telling everyone how they had met.

She had been standing at her “duty station”, along the bar at Buffalo Bill’s, just opposite the “Jail House”. Three regular customers were crowding around buying her drinks, when Joe passed by.

“I am not a man, I am a woman, why don’t you look at me?” Wanjiru challenged him.
“I cannot comment on a lady until I have seen the size of her thutha and the circumference of her legs” he answered.
Wanjiru turned her back to him, bent over, and wiggled her glorious buttocks.
“Sweet,” he commented.
“Everything sweet has a hole in the middle” she retorted.

He bought her a small bottle of brandy, and she went upstairs with him, not before making arrangements to meet another customer later on.

Well experienced in handling difficult timing, she told Joe that she lives in Zimmerman, and must be home before midnight.

“Do it quickly,” she said “They are closing the gates”.

Gladys Kagene

Gladys Kagene has class.
Tall and slim with tight hips she is preferred by muzungu and disdained Africans.
You would never believe she shares the same mabati structure with Wanjiru.
She hangs around the Intercontinental picking up airline crew and businessmen convincing them she is a medical student. She has good taste, expensive, and really knows how to dress. She becomes an expert in conning the gullible mzungu, teasing money out of them.
She tells them that her ambition is to become a pilot and that she is saving up for the course.
No one could resist her request especially after experiencing her specialty – blowjobs.
She has mastered her technique turning it into an art form.
She meets David in the lobby of the Intercontinental.
She did not realize until later, that he was not a guest, but had only stopped by to use the choo.
He was a volunteer for a UN agency working in Kakamega. They went dancing and back to his friend’s flat, which he used when visiting Nairobi.
Gladys decides to give it her best shot.
She tells David that she has fallen madly in love with him and will dump her fiancé, a Captain at KLM, for him, if only David would cover her school fees.
She goes to great lengths in describing the wonderful time she has had with the Captain and the champagne breakfast he had ordered to the room.

“Imagine, he drank champagne from my kuma” she braggs.

“Me, I’m a simple man from Western,” remarked David, “I prefer ugali” and sends her packing.

Ann

Ann’s stomach starts to bloat.
At first she thinks it was something she ate, but soon, it becomes so large people start to wonder.
She tells the doctor that she is a born-again evangelist and has not had sex for ages.
He says that she is not pregnant.
She has a large tumor in her stomach, a few kilos in size that will kill her, if it is not surgically removed.
The cost of the operation will be KSh150,000.
Her chances for survival are only 50%.

Ann begs for financial support from family and friends.
All rejected her, telling in as many words, that it would be a bad investment since she will probably die soon anyway.
She puts up a notice describing her plight at the restaurant where she works, asking for harambee.
Two weeks later the bulge was huge and only, some KSh2,000 was collected.

Ann uses the all the money collected to buy candles, and sends word to all her neighbors and friends to assemble at her room in the mabati structure.

Everyone comes.
The waiters and the cooks from the restaurant;
Her neighbors from the mabati structure,
Esther, Mwende and Wanjiru;
Gladys arrives in simple but elegant jeans;
Maria sits quietly in the corner;
Albert the Great and Honourable Joe arrive in a flashy car;
Even Owino grudgingly turns up.

Ann lights the candles and leads the prayers.
After three hours shouting to the Lord she collapses on the mattress and Joe takes over with his strong, warm voice.
They pray until the last of the candles is exhausted.
Just after sunrise they wake her up, and Maria urges her to drink some tea.
When Ann stands up they all witness the miracle.
The bulge in her stomach is gone.
Completely.

Auntie Rosie

Auntie Rosie is the owner of the mabati structure that was home to all. Unlike so many other landlords in the slums of Nairobi, she is loved and respected by her tenants.

After Ann’s miraculous recovery she tells them her story.
“After school I got a job as accountant in a petrol station in Lodwar”.
At the station she had many suitors, but she finally succumbed to George, who was strong, handsome, outgoing, and assertive.
They were married soon after, and were considered by all the most handsome couple in the entire district.
“After two years of marriage and no children, the beatings started”.

“My sister Anna, who was working for mzungus had a baby, which she could not keep, as the crying disturbed Madame”. Rosie kept her sister’s baby, loved it dearly, and cared for it as if it were her own.
Somehow, the beatings subsided.
After a few months, the baby developed a growth on its shoulder, and within a year it died.
“That was when the beatings got worse”.

“I felt lonely, and asked my younger sister Priscilla to come and stay with me”.
Priscilla at 17 was even more beautiful than Rosie.
She was shy, introverted, and had a figure that flowed like poetry.
Some weeks after Priscilla arrived, George returned home drunk, beat Rosie senseless for not being able to conceive, and brutally raped Priscilla.
“The next morning I found her in the choo, dead.
My sweet baby sister had committed suicide”.

“George deserted me with my grief and my memories of my dead baby and my dead sister”.
The suitors from the petrol station too, disappeared.
After all, who would want to get involved with a barren woman who brought such bad luck?

A year later Simon, the Samburu Vet turned up.
He was moved by Rosie’s sad beauty and ignored the wagging tongues. “We have been together ever since, and I am now the proud mother of six”.

Nanjala

Nanjala was slight, slim and pretty.
At school she looked too much like a boy and was derisively nicknamed Joy.
Joy Mboya thereafter became her role model, but the closest she managed was to shave her hair on both sides a bit like a Turkana. Later her breasts started to fill out and she featured the most perfect bum of her entire age set.
She was married at 18 to her schoolmate who came from the same village near Kakamega town.

By the time she is 28 she has five gorgeous daughters spaced almost exactly two years apart. She retains her lovely slim body and perfect bum with only her matiti going chapati.

Throughout the long period of pregnancies she is able to work steadily for a major fast-food organization, first in the stillroom, onwards to the kitchen slowly but surely rising to the position of chef.
She has a quick mind, an incredible sense for the aesthetics and superb managerial capabilities. This enables her to leave the chain and to work as a chef for a top a-la-carte restaurant in town. She could single-handedly deliver 30 a-la-carte dinners to perfection.

Although a woman in a typically mans’ profession she earns the respect of all due to her superb sense of timing. She is able to maintain her home household with five babies as well as to manage the large commercial kitchen at the restaurant.
In fact, she is quite content with her achievement.

Arriving home well past midnight, from the day’s work at the restaurant she finds her husband waiting for her at the door. Without a word he beats her with his cane.
When he is done with the beating he pushes her out of the house into the street.
“My mother has sent me a new wife from the village,” he informed her “one who could have boys”.

Emily

Emily knows how to make money.
It is easy.
All you need is a quick business sense and some good friends.
She goes to Malindi, spends a few months there buying fresh prawns directly from the fishermen and sends them daily packed with ice to Nairobi restaurants with her friends the airline pilots sharing the profits.
She travels to TZ pick up some tanzanite and smuggle it across at Namanga.
No problem at all.

Emily never knows how to keep money.
Ever since she discovered her father’s body after his houseboy murdered him as he opened the safe she refuses to keep money.
As soon as she acquires some she is quick to spend it.
She invites all her friends and they party for days on end until the money is exhausted.

Emily knows how to take care of herself.
During her years of partying she always keeps a clear head with men and stocks enough CDs for any eventuality. She will not go High Voltage as so many others.

She decides that the best way to avoid The Disease is to marry a muzungu and to leave Kenya forever.
She meets Nigel in Malindi.
He comes down for a two-week vacation, first time in Africa.
They hit it off and he promises to return on condition that she undergoes comprehensive testing to determine that she is AIDS free.

She tests negative, of course, and asks Nigel if he too has been tested. “I am a Briton, a man” he replied,”I cannot be infected” and takes her to Mzunguland where they are married.

Emily settles into her new surroundings surprisingly well.
She keeps very much to herself and remains completely faithful to Nigel. She is so thankful for the chance he gave her to leave Kenya and its’ harsh realities.

A year later she becomes pregnant.
She goes for a routine checkup at the local hospital near London only to discover that she has gone “High Voltage”.
Nigel too was forced to take the test.
He had known all along, even before traveling to Kenya, that he was infected.

More Albert the Great

Albert the Great is car-jacked just after dark as he leaves Hyde Park off Ngong Road. The jackers speak bad Swahili, call him a dog and push him on to the floor of the car, after relieving him of his suit, mobile phone, wallet and keys.
He tries to argue with them but they only keep insulting him calling him a dog.

They shove him out of the car nearby, on Wood Avenue clad only in his shorts. Un-phased by being left with only his shorts, but offended at being called a dog, he marched in to the shop at the nearby petrol station, accosts the girl behind the counter and says:
“I am a man, you are a mere woman, don’t act like a muhebe, quickly give me 50 shillings to make a phone call”.

Nanjala II

Having lost her children and all her belongings Nanjala moves into the small room with Anne.
Just after she receives her monthly salary from the restaurant George calls.
“I expect you to pay for the upkeep of the children as well as for their schooling,” he says and hungs up.

Unable to earn enough to support her children she takes to stealing small sums at the restaurant. At first this is extremely difficult but not being caught, it becomes easier and soon she is pocketing large sums. Before long, she is caught and summarily fired.

Being well known in the restaurant business she finds another job. However, as her children grow up she needs more money for school fees, uniforms, and schoolbooks.
Soon, she starts stealing from her new employer.
She is caught of course, and fired.

After being fired from four restaurants she can no longer find a job in Nairobi. She takes huge loans from friends to tide her over and when she is unable to repay these loans, Albert the Great introduces her to his cousin Leo the Loan-Shark.

She becomes hooked in a vicious circle.
She now has to earn double the amount she had been earning previously.
She signs a contract with a catering agency in the Dadaab refugee camps just to get out of town. After three months the agency of course, pays only a fraction of the agreed sum conditional on her signing on for another three months in the bush.
And so it continues.
She is trapped into working for the agency, getting deeper in debt with Leo as the “advances” from her job were never enough to cover the “interest” on the loans.
Confrontations with Leo become the mainstay of her brief visits to Nairobi. Finally, she made it known that she would no longer pay Leo.

One night, three men dressed in expensive suits knock on the door of the mabati structure. They shove Anne aside and ask Nanjala to join them for a ride.
As she enters the car, she turns and cried out
“tell my babies I love them”.
Her body is never found.

Wanjiru II

Albert the Great and Honourable Joe pick up Wanjiru and decid to crash the opening night of the newly renovated restaurant at the Heron Court Hotel, where Buffalo Bill’s had once flourished.

“I have lost twenty of my best friends during this year” she tells them “even The Customers have started to die”.

“Terry, South Africa, was the first to go” she continues.
“I gave her a going away fuck” says Joe, “just after she tested positive. She was still looking slim and fresh”.

“I forgot why she was names South Africa” says Albert “she came from a prominent Lou family”.

“Maggie matiti (hakuna matiti) is safely married in the U.S.” continues Wanjiu, “when she comes to visit she stays at the Grand Regency”

"Jane spaghetti, and her crazy sister are both safe married to muzungus, Florence too, and Helen were clever enough to get out of the game early, but Marion, the classy mukamba, died only last week"
Wanjiru starts to cry, “she always insisted that I get out, marry and start my own business. She was my mentor”.

Albert the Great sighs, “who will remember those good times with everybody dying on us"? he asks.
“Maybe you could pass a Bill in Parliament making it a crime to die” he says, turning to Joe.

“We should get UNESCO to proclaim Buffalo Bill’s a World Heritage Site” responds Hounorable Joe.

Mbili – two
Mbuzi – goat
Mkombera – a natural root from Kakamega forest, better than Viagra
Malaya – (Sheng) prostitute
Thutha – (Sheng) bum
Ugali – stiff porridge from white maize
Harambee – fund raising
Matiti – tits
Muhebe – very slow animal
Nini – “thing”
Kuma – pussy

Buffalo Bill’s – a notorious bar in Nairobi
Mabati – sheet metal
Muzungu – white man
Unga – flour
Choma – roast
Chapati – pancake
Choo – toilet
Kanga – cloth
Matatu – public service van
Kubwa – big/great
Mbau – (Kikuyu) a pound or twenty shillings
High Voltage – HIV-AIDS