I Met a Girl In Kibera

I met this girl in Kibera

Tall, dark, lean, dark eyes and long hair

Elsewhere, she could have been a model

Strutting before hungry cameras and eyes

Making a living by being who she is

 But here, tucked in houses of mud

Under a roof that leaks

Living in a place of open sewers and flying toilets

Her beauty was hushed, intimidated

By this squalid place

Still, it shone through fake make up

And cheap, old, torn mitumba that she wore

She said I wasn’t a regular

But she still had a good deal for me, for it

“Just two hundred shillings for the night

I’ll be yours, to do as you please.”

Noting my surprise, she added:

“I may look young, but I know it all

Most of us around here do!”

I said lets have tea first

And she dragged me to the nearest makeshift hotel

Sipping tea as her red painted lips fluttered like leaves in a storm

She told me endless stories of things in store for me

Her face assumed the dead seriousness of a kanjo

While her lips the deadness of a bank safe

When I told her I wasn’t there for that

“What do you want?” Screamed her

Banging the table, standing and sitting

All in one moment.

Told her I was just checking in

That I wanted to see for myself

What life in Kibish really is like

She told me of her younger days

Walking to and from school, jumping

A ditch of running murk to step into another

“It was hard but fun nonetheless!”

There, on a hard bench biting my bottom

I knew of her mother who like her now

Worked especially during the night

She was sick now, so was her baby brother

“I had no choice, you see, so don’t judge me!”

I gave her a hundred and fifty, for its all I had

And walked home, thinking of this girl I had met

In her eyes, I saw her poor mother in bed

Wriggling in pain, cursing her life

I saw her little brother, small sad eyes

Popping out of his thin frame

Waiting for his sister to bring him peremende

Karani Kelvin