Returning to Kenya was a very important reason for our visit to East Africa. Katharine made 2 visits in consecutive years to Kenya to volunteer at a children’s home run by the then US / UK- based charity “Kids Alive”. The trips in 2009 and 2010 were an important for Katharine in a number of ways: they sewed the seed of her desire to pursue humanitarian / human rights work as a career and she also cemented a long lasting friendship with her maid of honour, Anji who also went on both trips. She also built a strong bond with one of the girls from the home, Deborah (or Debbie) who was 13 / 14 at the time. Deborah (now 22 and a single mum with 2 kids) who Kat had recently reconnected on Facebook and we promised to ourselves and to Debbie we would visit her during our travels in East Africa.
Nyeri is a small but bustling market town in the central highlands of Kenya and near Mt. Kenya. It is in the heartlands of the Kikuyu tribe – the biggest tribe in Kenya that has also dominated the political leadership of the country. Entering by bus from Arusha, an overnight stop in Nairobi was essential – both to break up the journey and to give us a flavour of the capital.
We arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon of the 17th December. Both the border and the roads had been fine but a ~1h traffic jam entering Nairobi gave us our first sence of the craziness of this overcrowded city. We used the last remnants of George’s points to stay in the Hilton in central Nairobi – this was both free (turns out accommodation in Nairobi is not cheap), but also a fantastic luxury for us having just camped for 4 nights in the wilderness.
Upon arriving, we got down to our now usual routine of arriving in a country: sourcing snacks and a local sim card. George then went hunting for a “matatu” (local, often cramped minivan buses) to take us to Nyeri the next day. Nairobi city centre is an interesting but very hectic mix of city workers going about their daily business in the offices around the CBD, and buses – SO MANY buses of differing shapes and sizes. What they all have in common is that they are all old and smelly and all are fighting for space to park, leave or manoeuvre. Nairobi has very clearly outgrown itself – with now millions of people living here, demand for transport is sky high, the bus stations full and the roads just get absolutely rammed and stuck with the hundreds of overflowing large vehicles that use any pavement or roadside space they can find as makeshift bus terminals.
Having found where the Nyeri-bound matatus depart from, we met Pauline, who used to work at Kids Alive – someone Katharine had also recently reconnected with, for dinner. We had a pleasant evening at a local Kenyan diner (we ordered pilau which was effectively a fairly plain, spiced biryani). We learnt about the important work Pauline was now doing with 27,000 children impacted by HIV in the slums of Nairobi and also talked about Kids Alive and the children’s home since Katharine last visited in 2010.
The next morning we grabbed some samosas for breakfast and went to the matatu area. Conveniently, we were able to leave our big back-packs at the Hilton and travel light for our overnight trip to Nyeri. We were quickly ushered into a matatu for Nyeri and were reassured we would be leaving in 10 minutes. 1 hour + later we had discovered how matatus work: they wait until they are full and then go. At least we had some incredible “urban gospel” music videos on the TV by esteemed local artists including DJ JOB to entertain us while we waited. The matatu eventually filled up and we were on our way. The countryside en route was lusciously green with locals selling fruit or other produce at many points.
Arriving in Nyeri’s hectic matatu zone, we attracted a lot interest among the local touts (Nyeri is not particularly a tourist hotspot) and were called all sorts of random English names in the hope one of them was correct. We easily enough found a room in a guesthouse run by the local nyama choma (barbeque restsurant), and sent the message to Debbie that we had arrived.
The next day or so we spent with Debbie and her kids was genuinely lovely, good fun and really quite emotional. We first met her at the nyama choma restaurant where we were based and had lunch. It was one of those memorable and powerful reunions for Katharine and Debbie as they hugged and exchanged the highlights since they had last met 9 years ago. We learnt about the challenges Debbie had faced since becoming pregnant, inexplicably forcing her out of the children’s home to stay with distant and at times abusive relatives (due to the closing of the home during parts of the year and her subseqent request for maternity leave from school which was refused, forcing her to quit a year before graduation). Through her early adulthood she has fought hard to provide for her 2 little boys (Charles and Raymond) as a single mum, despite disinterested, irresponsible and on occasion abusive men previously in her life. Debbie is highly enterprising and entrepreneurial but had also recently suffered some really hard luck with her Mandazi (local dough balls she had been selling)-making kit being stolen and also getting duped on a bulk purchase of children’s clothes she intended to sell. Despite these hardships, Debbie comes across as bubbly, positive and fiercely independent.
After lunch, Debbie took us on a “tour” of the town, where she introduced us to a number of her friends as well as, hilariously, one of her exes… Our walk wound around the various workshops (including a blacksmiths that looked like it could have come out of the medieval Britain) and ended in Debbie’s house. Debbie lives in the poorer end of town in a set of very basic but newish and relatively sturdy-looking wooden rooms. She has no electricity or running water but occasionally pays for a neighbour’s power to charge her phone. The hut itself is tiny. Despite all this Debbie has created a place that feels like a loving, cozy homely place for her 2 little boys. There is a sheet dividing the space between a bed area and a living space with a small sofa and kitchen space. There is also matting down on what would otherwise be an earth floor. Most importantly, Debbie has a small radio that pumps out tunes. She is a great singer and dancer and her little ones also already clearly feel the rhythm like no other toddlers we have seen in Europe. From just outside Debbie’s house, you can see the enormous, snow-peaked Mt. Kenya dominating the landscape – a really incredible sight.
Within minutes of arriving at Debbie’s home, her little ones turned up (she didn’t know where they were but child care is almost guaranteed in these trusting communities where there is only so far the kids can go and everybody knows everybody). At first the boys were absolutely bewildered by us. Raymond the eldest (3) was deadly silent and wide eyed as if in shock. He gradually reluctantly got closer towards us and became comfortable with touching hands. Charles (2) was genuinely terrified. It was as if our white skin was so bright it was blinding to look at and burning to touch (we joked)! Eventually, both relaxed, after a combination of playing on George’s phone and playing a coin-hiding / passing game. By the early evening, both boys were having an absolute blast with us both and calling us “auntie” and “uncle”. It was absolutely adorable. While Debbie cooked a “porridge” of ugali (from maize flour) and milk for the kids, Katharine had her first go at nappie changing and petroleum-gelly rubbing. George kept it to feeding and entertaining. It was a really lovely and genuine afternoon and evening.
While reconnecting with an old friend was very much the primary purpose of our trip to Nyeri, we were also keen to do what we could while we were there to help Debbie become more sustainably financially independent. We talked through her plans and options for income-generation and eventually landed on relaunching her mandazi business as the best way forward. We agreed to help buy her all the equipment she would need (stove, storage, spoons etc) as well as cooking supplies for one week. We also agreed to do a general shop of essentials she was lacking (nappies, food etc.) as well as a couple of “Christmas treats” we were more than happy to buy for her and the boys (incuding a new hair piece and tinsel!). All in all we saw this as a start up investment for Debbie’s new business and the general shop would enable Debbie to save a little more for her aim of moving to a bigger home. It came to a grand total of £68. Debbie was absolutely delighted and obviously a little overwhelmed / emotional amout this all – she had at no point asked us for anything.
That evening called for celebration. After Debbie delivered our purchases home and we had freshened up at our hotel, we joined Debbie for some local street food and went to the local night club / karaoke bar. We ended up staying until about 2am after many beers, and Debbie singing 2 kikuyu songs. We sang “September” as a duet and George, he acclaimed, “brought Britpop to Kenya” by singing Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back in Anger”.
The next day, feeling a little worse for ware, we took Debbie and the kids to Trout Tree Farm – a really fascinating restaurant north of Nyeri near Nanyuki. Katharine had been to Trout Tree on her previous visit and was keen to go back. We were delighted Debbie was up for joining – it was a great day out for her and the kids (certainly not like anything they had done before). We took a matatu for the 45 minute drive from Nyeri. The restaurant is literally built on a platform in an enormous old fig tree. All below are the trout farms where your dinner comes from – very fresh…! We all had some variant of chargrilled trout, with the kids having their first taste of fish fingers. Debbie was highly suspicious of the various vegetables that were on the table… it was a reminder of the largely ugali, rice and meat-based diet locals mostly have. As well as enjoying some delicious food and revisiting memories, it was a really beautiful and peaceful place to hang out away from the bustle of Nyeri. The kids also clearly had a great time and we were able to enjoy the local play ground just by the trout farms.
Conscious of our need to get back to Nairobi, we caught a taxi back to Nyeri and checked out from the Nyama Choma hotel. Debbie’s brother Samson also joined to meet us there and he had baked us pizza to take away with us!! Katharine had also met Samson on her previous visits so this was another emotional if brief encounter. He is a genuinely nice man who clearly cares dearly for his sister and nephews. He also works for a mandazi-making company and is determined to expand his own business selling pizzas in Nyeri (based on what he cooked for us we are very confident for him)!
We walked to the matatus for Nairobi and made our emotional fair wells before speeding off back to the capital. It had been a really beautiful 2 days, if at times intense with the strength of emotion and new information. It felt like a really important life event for all involved (both Debbie and Sam were incredibly grateful for our visit). We left determined to stay in touch and confident our paths would cross again at some point!
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