Seize the moment

Picture Wayaki Way, the main road running from the coast and freight port, through Nairobi, to Uganda, Rwanda and points west. Intercontinental petrol tankers, buses, lorries, big loaders with heavy machinery (we once overtook 12 lorries pulling massive pipes for a sugar refinery).  Matatus, men pulling handcarts, bikes, tentative commuter traffic. Presidential outriders. Major roadworks. Everyone changing lanes wildly, overtaking, undertaking. Speeds alternating from 40 mph to slower than a snail. Bedlam. Now picture it in full rush hour as it passes through the Central Business District at 715 am this morning.

D and I were travelling in together this morning. He buys newspapers on his way to work.  I sense his favourite redjacketed hawkers tensing their muscles as the car alternatively inches towards them or whizzes past. Where, for me on my own, they poke an enthusiastic copy of Hello under my nose, for D they, gender typecasting, proffer Harvard Business Review and the full range of local papers. Huh.

Then up runs an old acquaintance, the hawker at the third roundabout, whom D says has been away for two months. 'Hello, hello.' We're in the middle lane. The traffic IS at a standstill, but he has maximum a minute to make his sale, give the change, and leap back to the safety of the hard shoulder before the traffic roars on again. But that's Western thinking.

Instead of pushing his papers through the window and grabbing the money he shakes hands with us both. Asks of our health. Tells of the exam results of his oldest daughter, who got good enough primary school leaving grades to be accepted into a good regional school. Relates that he's taken out a business loan of 30,000 KSh to pay the first year's school fees. Asks whether we would infact step in instead? Gracefully accepts our rejection that we are already paying school fees for 8 children, and really feel that is more than enough. And leaps back onto the hard shoulder 60 seconds later, having shared lots of his life, but without enough time to make his sale.

Over the last 18 months, I, through D, have learnt various bits of his life. In 60 second gobbets he has requested a business loan to expand his range of papers; a job at D's work; and then, more achievably, during last year's long rains, drenched, he asked for a coat, which we gave.  And then one for his wife, which D carried round in the boot for months when the traffic failed to stop next to him.

60 seconds on Wayaki Way isn't long. It isn't long enough for us to respond in depth or detail. I know newspaper hawkers, if daily sales are good, earn around 250 KSh/day, around £2.  I wonder, and worry, how he will repay the business loan at 1000% of his likely daily income. Fear he has chosen not to face the fact that school fees are recurring, each year. Pray that his daughter will squeak through the financial challenges to complete all four years of high school.

Giving loans to our gardener/handyman has required 10 minute conversations on each occasion to discuss repayment  and how he wants to phase it.  He's bright, but always needs help to think through that in January he'll be paying off the aftermath of Christmas and time spent in the village, but he might be able to pay off a bigger chunk in February.  I always feel ill at ease during these conversations. It's not something I feel I can discuss with a stranger, in a very brief chat, myself sitting in a car while he risks his safety in the traffic outside.  I've got subjects I'm in denial on too. I wouldn't welcome a complete stranger quizzing me on my pension plans or asking on our fallback strategy for when rising sea levels flood our Hertfordshire home. But it matters. And it's difficult to arguably have more information on looming danger and to fail to share it with those it will impact most.