The homestead gate opens. A man holding a small boy’s hand walks through. The man has the little boy’s colorful backpack in his…
I need to skip ahead to Saturday evening and go back to the neighborhood walk later. Jane, the kids’ mother, called to say that she would be…
In the small mud-floored kitchen, around the kitchen fire bordered by 3 large stones (to put the pots on), the middle son is home with his 8 year-old for a visit. The three adults discuss life, the city, work — or lack-thereof. The 2 grandsons that live on the…
‘So he is your husband?’ I ask. She nods yes.
First she peels them, and then she grates them. She is *Faith the “house help”. Kenyans don’t like skins, she explains. Actually, she…
Esther washes all the clothes on Saturdays. “I don’t have help come in, so Saturday is the only day that I can wash everything.” Almost…
*Wanjiru doesn’t like to cook, but she has been cooking her whole life, she tells me bluntly as she picks through the red mung bean (a bean that…
In Nairobi, you can make time stand still. I’m contemplating the stationary second hand on the watch of the woman next to me. She quietly stares at the people who are not frozen; the men with wide gaits moving swiftly, and the women passing us less hurriedly in pairs or groups of three…
