SLUM BUSSINESSES

WATER VENDERS’ CRY OVER DECREASED WATER DEMAND

For some time now, water has created a lot of employment opportunities to the jobless among them being water vendors. Patrick wachira ventured into the water vending business three years ago and has had no regrets because since then, the business has clothed, rented a house and fed his family. He had really tarmacked looking for a job without success not knowing that he too could employ himself.
Before the onset of the rainy season, there were constant water shortages and disconnections almost every where except some few places which were very much flocked with people in search of the precious commodity. Because of the congestion in such areas, people opted to getting water supplies from water vendors. During this period, the business was really booming because a twenty-litre jerrican of water could cost up to Kshs 50. “Business was good I would make up to Kshs 1500 a day which most of the people working in offices don’t get in one day” says Patrick.

Inset: most of the carts parked due to lack of business

Due to the onset of the rainy season and the rains being experienced all over the country, there is water in most of the places that we used to supply water and this has greatly affected the demand thus leading to decrease in prices. Samuel Otieno who is also a water vendor says that because of the decreased demand, the amount charged on a twenty litre jerrican depends on the distance to carry to the customer, “for now we have to negotiate the price with my customer because I may end up not selling the whole day and maybe go back home with my water which wont benefit me at all, so I can take to as low as kshs15 or 20 per jerrican: says Samuel.
At this moment that their business is not favorable, they are at least guaranteed of kshs600 after a long day of hard work which they say has forced them to reduce their expenditure most of which is spent on food. This is evident from their healthy and very muscular bodies as Patrick says that because the job entails pulling of a hand cart loaded with about thirty or more jerricans full of water on the bumpy muddy road in between the estates and wait for the customers in need of the commodity to show up. “It is very tiresome sometimes because you may only go for that one round in one day and maybe adds on some few jerricans to pay the water source man,” says Patrick.
In this job one has to maintain his body because it is the one to do the job and therefore before they start working, a heavy and energetic breakfast is taken that will keep them going until lunch. “Despite the fact that the job is hard and very tiresome, it keeps me physically fit and I don’t need to see a doctor often for ailments,” says Patrick but he is quick to add that he doest want to grow old being a water vendor and he has been saving his earnings to open up a business of his own. “We still have a generation that is targeting this job and it is waiting for us to quite for them to take over” he says
They say that if at all the water disconnections and shortages would resume, they would really make a fortune thus it is no longer secret that some people rejoice at the expense of other peoples miseries.
The water vending business is an encouragement to those who are unemployed and still think that being employed to work in offices pays better but there are various inexhaustible ways of making clean money that earns far much beyond what those working in the offices earn.
The support that this kind of business requires is the need for the installation of a water meter by the city council in various places around the city residential areas so that they can provide the youth with employment opportunities using the precious commodity that life cannot exist without.

PROSTITUTION

SURVIVING AS A COMMERCIAL SEX WORKER AFTER DIVORCE

L ooking at it from out side, one cannot tell what usually goes on inside, it is like washing a cup outside but leaving the inside dirty. Commonly known as Sabina joy, the club has been in the limelight because of its ‘dealings’ since independence.
 Originally chances of finding a woman in a bar almost slimed to null but currently especially in this club, the number of young girls and middle aged women is three times that of men.
Upon your entrance, it is like a bell is rung to signify your presence, every single lady who is not yet booked cranes her neck and makes very suggestive facial expressions including gestures perhaps to capture your attention. Again as you enter your pockets to leash out some bank notes to order for a drink, the balance that the waitress is going to give back, they count all that with their eyes at very strategic angles. Any wrong move you make especially with your hand may make some think that you called for them.

Sabina Joy board hanging outside ambassador

 building

As I sip a drink at a corner in the innermost room, I cannot fail to notice the smoking habit in all of them with cigarette going round in chain and before it is finished almost six ladies by headcount  have smocked it. Within some few minutes one of them comes and sits next to me and takes sometime before she talks. Finally, she introduces herself as Elizabeth Njeri probably after realizing that am not paying any attention to her. We begin to chat and I later come to realize that they are usually very good at keeping people company. I decide to buy her a drink after which she becomes more open to talk about how she was introduced in to the business.
Elizabeth had been married for nine years and had two children a boy and a girl. During her marriage, she used to have a secret affair with a friend to her husband which eventually led to her husband divorcing her. After getting divorced, her husband took the children with him and has never seen them since the incident three years ago. Her husbands’ friend took her in for some weeks then introduced her to her current business. She was not learned so chances of her securing a job proved futile.
During the first stages of her new found ‘Job’ Elizabeth found it very hard to get used to it
“I would sob silently because of having sex for money and my sex partner would foolishly think that I was enjoying the sex or that he was good in bed”,
she say. Elizabeth adds that one cheap room houses up to even five sex partners at once who don’t know each other if the man refused to rent a more comfortable room and she felt quite uneasy undressing in the presence of strangers. The cheap brothels are very smelly, rarely cleaned and people can easily contract skin related diseases. “We usually charge ksh250 per ejaculation commonly referred to as a ‘shot’ in the club”, she says
Since her divorce, she has not had a single chance to see her children because her husband vowed never to allow her see the children not to mention her mother-in law who had threatened to bewitch her because she was against her sons marriage to her in the first place but she is happy that her children are having a better life that she cannot provide them with.
Despite the fact that she knows she is risking her life to sexually transmitted diseases, she is quick to defend herself that there is nothing she can do and strictly insists on using of protection during sexual intercose which doesn’t guarantee a hundred percent protection as there may be certain risks as condom bursting as well as the temptation from those sex partners who don’t want to use condoms but instead offer to pay more money to have sex with her without knowing their status.
For Elizabeth she is fed up with living this kind of life and wants to move on with her life but then how does she feed herself, pay her rent and clothe herself. These are some of the questions that keep ringing in her mind every time she thinks of quitting this business.