Visiting Lilian

Yesterday, I went to visit Lilian, who worked for us on my first visit with HATW.    She cooked and did our washing, which meant when we returned each afternoon to the flat, there was food and clean clothes waiting for us !

She greeted me like a long lost sister, brought out the Fanta, and we ate peanuts while we drank the rather lurid orange liquid !   She is living with her husband and three children in a small house in Nyamasaria ... when I say 'house' .... we'd call it a small shed ....

 

This is a row of four houses, each with one room, about 12 ft by 12 ft inside.   In most that I've visited, the room is divided by a curtain, behind which is a bed on which the family all sleep, and the other half is used for cooking, living, and sewing in Lilians case.   Most life takes place outside.   No water laid on and the 'facilities' would be a pit latrine and a similar sized cubicle of tin sheets, to wash in.

 

 

All the women who live in these houses love lace curtains, and decorate their houses freely with them !   I had taken her a lot of children's clothes and some English shortbread, and a  nice Per Una top for her, and a football shirt for her husband who pedals a boda-boda to make a few shillings.   Lilian makes clothes for people, and she is a very good seamstress. 

Lilians son two year old Davis had been in hospital last week, for a whole week, with cerebral malaria, very dangerous indeed for a small child, but he survived.   The whole of Nyamasaria is pot holes full of stagnant water, and like so much of Kenya, there is rubbish just everywhere.   Perfect breeding grounds for mosquitos.