If you open your eyes Kenya's poverty is evident all around, even in our prosperous Nairobi suburb. The barefoot, tattered men with large sacks who come and sort through our rubbish before the binmen arrive. The orphan asking passers-by to donate towards his school uniform so he too may go to school. The carrots stolen from our guineapigs to feed the children of our guards. But for me its in the throw-away comments in conversation that yawning chasms of circumstance are disclosed.
Things weren't working out with Bright-eyed, the part-time cook. So on the eighth day of her trial, after several warnings, I sat her down and let her go. She was downcast but not all that surprised, and cheered to be paid to the end of the month and given matatu fare home. So I was surprised to hear from her again three days later.
'I left my other pair of underwear behind. Can I come and get it?'
Bright-eyed lives in Ngong, 15 miles away. She doesn't have a post-box or means to receive post. So she's coming 15 miles, - walking? - back to a house from which she was sacked, to pick up her other pair of knickers which had been drying behind the door of her room. Embarrassing. Time consuming. And a sign of how much it matters to have a change of underwear she otherwise wouldn't have.
Interviewing for Bright-eye's Replacement, feisty women let out details of their circumstances.
'And what about you, do you have children too?' I ask to try and equalise the conversation, rather than just talking about our lives. Of the six women interviewed, one had two children who had died, another's daughter in law had died, leaving her, the grandmother to adopt a further two younger children. Simple icebreakers become tearful minefields.
The grandmother-cum-new mum had been unemployed for 15 months, since her last expat family departed. 'But I've been busy,' she noted. 'I've been visiting people in prison through my church.'
I brightened. Prison visiting is a big thing for Quakers too, since the historical inititatives by Elizabeth Fry and the like which led to UK prison reform. I had fascinating conversations over the summer with a UK prison chaplain who spoke of her efforts to support bereaved, depressed prisoners on lockdown 23 hours of 24 through art and peer counselling, of how isolated and undersupported UK prisoners can be.
'So you and your church go and listen to the prisoners?'
'Oh no, we don't listen. We go and preach to them, tell them to repent, to mend their ways or else.'
Oh.
To have two pairs of knickers or a sole pair of shoes is a luxury in this world. To have children, healthy, for children to have parents, alive, is to know great good fortune.
Things weren't working out with Bright-eyed, the part-time cook. So on the eighth day of her trial, after several warnings, I sat her down and let her go. She was downcast but not all that surprised, and cheered to be paid to the end of the month and given matatu fare home. So I was surprised to hear from her again three days later.
'I left my other pair of underwear behind. Can I come and get it?'
Bright-eyed lives in Ngong, 15 miles away. She doesn't have a post-box or means to receive post. So she's coming 15 miles, - walking? - back to a house from which she was sacked, to pick up her other pair of knickers which had been drying behind the door of her room. Embarrassing. Time consuming. And a sign of how much it matters to have a change of underwear she otherwise wouldn't have.
Interviewing for Bright-eye's Replacement, feisty women let out details of their circumstances.
'And what about you, do you have children too?' I ask to try and equalise the conversation, rather than just talking about our lives. Of the six women interviewed, one had two children who had died, another's daughter in law had died, leaving her, the grandmother to adopt a further two younger children. Simple icebreakers become tearful minefields.
The grandmother-cum-new mum had been unemployed for 15 months, since her last expat family departed. 'But I've been busy,' she noted. 'I've been visiting people in prison through my church.'
I brightened. Prison visiting is a big thing for Quakers too, since the historical inititatives by Elizabeth Fry and the like which led to UK prison reform. I had fascinating conversations over the summer with a UK prison chaplain who spoke of her efforts to support bereaved, depressed prisoners on lockdown 23 hours of 24 through art and peer counselling, of how isolated and undersupported UK prisoners can be.
'So you and your church go and listen to the prisoners?'
'Oh no, we don't listen. We go and preach to them, tell them to repent, to mend their ways or else.'
Oh.
To have two pairs of knickers or a sole pair of shoes is a luxury in this world. To have children, healthy, for children to have parents, alive, is to know great good fortune.
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