Esther

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Jambo

I am going to talk about Esther today, a wonderful kind, generous, intelligent lady who works for the same company as me. Esther has lived in Nairobi all of her life and can only speak highly of it, she loves it and could not think of anywhere else she would rather live and I love her attitude about her own country.

Esther works hard, she is a marketing assistant who works Monday - friday 9-5 like most of us and then she goes to college straight from work every single day until 8pm and then comes home and cooks for herself. At weekends she travels to Mombassa where he Husband lives as this is where he has a job, she leaves after college at 8pm and returns very early on a Monday morning. I said to her this must be very hard for you - she said that god gives her strength and that she must do it, it is the only way that she and her husband can live a comfortable life.

At lunchtime today she offered to take me to a market which of course I accepted, I love shopping. so we got into her car and off we went to a market on the side of the private airstrip. I purchased a necklace made from newspaper (its prettier than it sounds) and some stone coasters and Esther very kindly bought me a pair of sandals, she bartered everything down better than I ever could - she was great.

On the way back we drove past a slum area, an area which had been mentioned in a book I had been reading, it was called Kibera. "during the elections the people living there threw stones at the houses it was very scary" she told me, but her house is on the end so she was ok. I told her these slums were in my book and that it had said the government denied their existence but she said no this is not correct infact this area is getting alot of money and some of these people are being homed. There are many people in the slums that have aids and HIV and there are care workers involved in educating them and helping them. it has a good schooling system and although many people come from the countryside to Kibera Esther really didnt understand why, she said that life is better in the country as you can farm and have bigger homes, but I guess the idea of earing money in the "big city" draws people in.

Esther is very passionate about the poorer people in her country, she said that in England people say they are poor and have nothing but they have a house with electric and a fridge, if you are poor here you build your own mud hut and get nothing - people here really are poor - The poor do not see your donations that you make to your comic relief that she has heard about, but our government take it as they are corrupt.

I hope that hasnt left you completely depressed but Esther has really made an impact on me

My next blog will be from Uganda so all the best till then

Kwaheri

Lisa

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