More edited extracts from comedy critic Kate Copstick’s diary. Full versions on her Facebook page. She is in Kenya where her Mama Biashara charity is based.

Mama Biashara (‘Business Mother’) gives small sums to impoverished individuals and small groups to help them start self-supporting small businesses.

Yesterday, she posted on her Facebook page: “So sorry not been in touch. Bit poorly.”

Below are her last two diary entries posted before that.

Tuesday 7th November

Still in stalemate regarding the Kisii refugees. Things have worsened there and the local Big Bad Boys have come in and done the refugees some serious bodily harm. So now they are scattered. We await an update from Vicky, but I am losing confidence that we can do much good for this community.

I hit the market and get the usual collection of people looking shocked (“Today? Was it not next week?”), sleekit (“Er, it got lost on the way coming…”) or, in the case of Oscar The Soapstone, just having got the order wrong.

However I do get some fab huge cow horns (my new Christmas campaign “Give Someone You Love The Horn For Christmas” will be kicking off as soon as I get back to the UK).

I chat to Mrs Mwangi about her making some gift bags and tote bags for Mama Biashara. They are not that cheap, but I am so impressed with Kenya’s ‘no plastic bags’ thing that I want to try and reduce the number we use in the shop in London.

I meet Doris and a group of eighteen young people who have been trained by our mechanic boys. They have a sliver of a shack out of which they work repairing cars and trucks. What they need from me is a bit of a budget for widgets and brake pads and fan belts so that they do not need to be buying piecemeal from their immediate competition.

As soon as they are able, they will expand and train more young people. They are absolutely admirable.

Doris and I repair to a local hostelry where we are joined by David. Tusker beer is drunk, and we dance. We dance quite a lot. I have not danced for a long time. My ability to move, despite my advanced age and total lack of bottom, is remarked upon by a table of men next to the dance floor. I dance with one of them. He invites me back to his house and I decline gracefully. Either I look particularly desperate or courtship is turbocharged in Uthiru.

Wednesday 8th November

David is in recalcitrant mode. He is moody because Doris has successfully taken her ex-husband to court and forced him to help with school fees and other things he has failed to do for seven years.

This is unacceptable in David’s eyes.

This is not really surprising, given that he is A Real Kikkuyu Man.

When coming back from Dagoretti market on Monday, we bought a big chunk of pumpkin. David likes pumpkin. We stopped on the road close to where his house is. He wanted to drop it off. I handed it to him and he just looked at me.

He called his wife who schlepped her way through the mud from the house to collect it and take it back while David sat with me. Kikkuyu men do not carry fruit or vegetables. That is a woman’s work. Kikkuyu men MIGHT allow themselves to be seen to carry meat. But nothing else. All else is for the woman to carry. True.

Anyway, he is not happy that a Kikkuyu man is being forced to pay for his children’s anything. He takes a wrong turning and Doris and I have to get out into ankle-deep black slime. I would say mud but I do not think it is mere mud.

I drag Doris around the labyrinth of Kamkunji where prices have shot up. We get what we can – eight dozen mugs and six tea urns – and call David. He has parked a considerable distance away. And orders us to come there. I say something down the phone which turns heads up and down the hill we are ascending.

I get a mkokoteni (porter) and I tell David we will be outside the police station. There is the usual minor stand-off and delay and then he calls to say we have to go across to the other side of the main road. We do. We wait. He calls to say he is at the police station. We say we have crossed the road. He wants to know why.

Eventually, he rolls up and refuses to put anything in the boot, so I am in the back seat under our purchases.

The news from Kisii just gets worse. Now there has been some raping. We are not sure of whom, by whom, but that has set off more violence and it looks like my plans for Peace and Harmony in Kisii will not be bearing fruit.

First thing in the morning, we had our Big Meeting with the group of mothers whose little girls have been raped and are currently staying with Joan. The mothers are almost as traumatised as the girls. And, despite the fact that child rape is endemic in the slum villages and beyond, the stigma attached to the Mother is dreadful. They barely show their faces. Plus they are dealing with the knowledge that their husband / father/ boyfriend / brother has raped their child.

What we are trying to do is remake the mother/child bond and enable them to go back out into the world. So this means counselling (sort of) for both, group talks, mutual support, a place to go with problems, medical help where necessary and a way for the women to build a new life. A business.

The mother of Susan, the girl who has now been raped twice in quick succession is there. She looks haunted. Most of the other mums do not even speak. But they are positive about the project. And about being the first group.

It is a challenging couple of hours but I think we need to go very gently forward. Obviously that is out of my comfort zone. But Joan is great at it and has been doing it for a long time. The ladies decide, variously, on tea and coffee businesses, egg selling and we agree that our next meeting will be on Monday, when I will bring all the business kit.

Joan has bad news about the child she was called to see early this morning.

Three years old, raped by her father and left in the Ngong Forest in the rain.

She is dead.

The mothers nod resignedly. At least they still have their girls.