More edited extracts from comedy critic Kate Copstick‘s diary

She is currently in Kenya, working for her Mama Biashara charity.

Around her, life goes on as normal.

SUNDAY

We are supposed to be doing a big medical in Kibera this afternoon but I am feeling ghastly. I postpone, hopefully till tomorrow. And stay in bed till noon. When I still feel shit, but slightly less so.

I have Things To Do.

I must sort things out with Evans the Soapstone, the Great Mustard Oil Search continues and I am sure there are other things but, in my befuddled state, I cannot remember. I visit the loo and leave. And go back to visit the loo again. And leave again.

I walk up to where I can get a matatu all the way to Yaya and find myself walking past the unedifying sight of a tall, drunk Rastaman kicking a sitting boy in the head. With some force.

He stops to hurl abuse and then starts kicking again.

The boy does this thing which I have seen here over and over again. He does nothing. He just sits there and lets himself be punched and kicked.

I view the watching crowd. I walk closer (although not much) to the Ninja Rastaman and shout at him to stop. He looks up, sees the crazy old lady and then simply continues.

But at least I have stirred the others into doing something.

A couple of young guys go over to break up the beating. It takes three of them to get the Rastaman off the boy. Who is ushered away. Unfortunately the first thing that happens when both of them are released is that the boy flips Ninja Rasta the finger. They both hare off up the middle of the main road.

The matatu I get gives up as soon as we get into traffic and dumps its passengers. I get another and finally find mustard oil at Chandarana. But stupidly expensive.

I see Evans the Soapstone, meander round the rooftop soco and make VERY full use of the facilities the place offers. Doris is not answering, so I go home to sleep and poo. Not at the same time, I hasten to add. First I call Kemo to see about tomorrow in Kibera.

Wednesday is better, I am told. We have a short chat about our catering to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses etc and the marginalised communities. And I discover there are no gay people in Kibera. No. Because if there were, they would be killed. I guess my Gender Identity and Politics seminar will have to wait.

MONDAY

I feel ridiculously guilty at my time-wasting. Given the enthusiasm of the lovely people who contributed to our Emergency Fund I feel the least I could do is be a blur of achievement.

I buy some goodies for Linda, the bedbound sister of our marvellous volunteer Sonja. They are in the process of selling their erstwhile family home, so anyone who fancies seven and a half sun soaked acres in Langatta, form an orderly queue.

Linda knows lots of posh white people here and, up around Laikipia, towards Samburu and Pokot where the drought is horrific and the pastoralists count their wealth and status entirely in cattle, said pastoralists are invading the farms, estates and wildlife conservancies looking for pasture for their bank account.

And these Bank Accounts are HUGE.

Thousands of starving, thirsty cattlepounds. And the pastoralists (sounds so nice, doesn’t it ? Now add a large gun, intellectual blinkers, anger, stupidity and utter lack of empathy…) are simply driving the bank accounts on and across the land, killing people who get in their way and burning whole farms to the ground. Encouraged by the local MP. And they are doing terrible things to their own people. Of course, most of the dead are their own. I am all for respecting culture. But this is just fucked up.

Pausing only for me to snap some flowery photos for Sonja, we essay a trip to Eastleigh.

Just as we bounce down the main street (I love the smell of concrete dust in the morning), all hell breaks loose.

Suddenly, from everywhere, hordes of men are running, wielding lumps of wood the size of Cricket Bats (long cricket bats) in what can only be described as an unfriendly manner.

I was about to get out of the car, but decide against it.

They run past the car and on up the main street. There is violence up ahead. What is happening is that Eastleigh shop owners have hired a small army of large thugs to beat up anyone who is hawking in the area.

Eastleigh used to be thick with hawkers. They were everywhere. And sold some great stuff for some great prices. But the city council cracked down on the stall holders, who now have been made to go a bit official and pay tax. These are stalls in the street. And now that they have to do that, they do not want the hawkers, who are mobile and undocumented and so untaxed, undercutting them and taking their business.

This, the City Council cannot be arsed to do anything about.

So the stallholders have done it their way. The avalanche of young bad boys is over in a flash, carrying on down the street. And they are not remotely interested in us. They are paid per badly injured hawker.

We pootle around a bit to make sure it is all over.

But there must be something in the air because, about five minutes later, two fully ninja’d up ladies start a fight. A physical fight. It takes three guys to separate them.