Fabric Shopping in Nairobi

We get off the matatu and find our way to Shalom church. That’s where we’re meeting Clemence. Clay-monce. She doesn’t speak English or French, and her Swahili is just so-so. Even Joan needs a translator, so Clemence’s friend Elizabeth comes along to translate. In fact, it’s Elizabeth we meet first and Elizabeth who negotiates a price for our order. She’s really more like Clemence’s business manager.

Who is Clemence, you ask? She’s a seamstress… recommended by one of the Kenyan Sisters as someone who does good work and needs the business. Both Clemence and Elizabeth are refugees from Rwanda and working to support families here in  Nairobi. Kenya has, in its short history as an independent nation, been very welcoming to refugees.

Joan and I have a plan to fill my suitcase with locally-made items which I can use for a fundraiser for one of the Sisters’ projects when I get back. Clemence is going to make us some handbags. Joan and I want to choose the fabric, so after we pick the designs and negotiate a price, the four of us head off to the market to go fabric shopping. “Negotiate” might be a bit of an overstatement… neither Joan nor I like bargaining, and after all we chose Clemence because we want to give her some business so we’re not very motivated to whittle her down in price. The $10 we might save as tough bargainers means a lot more to her than it does to us. After a respectable amount of discussion, we agree on 20 bags at full price.  Nobody says it that way, but that’s what the final number breaks down to. The advantage we gain, rather than getting a discount, is that we get to choose the fabric.

“It is a short way to the market,” Elizabeth tells us. “Ten bob.”

Ten bob refers to the bus fare… 10 Kenyan shillings – about 12 cents. It’s the fare you pay when you’re only going a stop or two. Elizabeth and Clemence start walking and we follow them. At first I recognize where we are – to get here from the convent, we took the bus along Ngong Road from Karen and got off just before Junction. For those who like maps, this is an excellent one showing the various areas of greater Nairobi:

http://mapkibera.org

Karen is West-Southwest of the city center. Junction is about half way from Karen to the center. I have a vague notion that Kibera is somewhere to the Southeast of where we are, but I’m not totally sure. Kibera is the biggest slum in Africa. I’ve caught glimpses of it from the bus when we take the other way, along Langata Road. If you follow the Kenya news, it’s where a train derailed a couple of days ago and toppled into several shanty homes that had been built right up to the tracks. Fortunately, that happened during the day when people were out at school or working and not home sleeping. A lot of people who live in the slum do have jobs, and some study at the local colleges. I think about my own college students back home… imagine how difficult it is to write a research paper for a college class when the 12’x12’ mud shack you share with six other people has no electricity (nor water nor toilet for that matter). Walking at night is not recommended anywhere in Nairobi, especially so in Kibera, and since Nairobi is near the equator the sun sets around 6pm, give or take some minutes, all year round. Hanging out at the campus library til 10:00 or 11:00 pm to do homework, like students routinely do on my campus, would literally mean a life-threatening walk home. It’s hard to work your way out of the slum but lots of good people live there who are earnestly trying to do that. 

Still, I’m hoping that this market we’re going to is to the left, away from the Kibera slum, rather than toward it.

At first, Elizabeth seems to be leading us along Ngong Road to the bus stop. Suddenly, Clemence says something to her. We turn a corner. “This way,” Elizabeth says. “It is shorter.” The badly potholed pavement of Ngong Road quickly gives way to equally uneven dirt as we make our way up a side street. Well, it’s to the left, at least, but the part of me that likes to be in control is on high alert. So far, everyone I’ve met today has been incredibly nice… the matatu driver who told us where our stop was, the guys weaving baskets who showed me how to turn off an obnoxious feature of my new phone while Joan was buying some minutes at a kiosk, Elizabeth and Clemence themselves – nobody has given me the least reason to feel unsafe. Still… the part of me that knows I don’t know what I don’t know can’t help but notice, as we wend our way along narrow dirt roads through a warren of faded structures, walls made of salvaged wood or cracking concrete, roofs of rusty corrugated metal, that we are absolutely the only European-descended foreigners here. More than that, I can feel by the way people look at us as we try to keep up with Elizabeth that we don’t really belong here. That’s not a feeling I’ve had in other places so far on this trip. Not to say we’re not welcome, but it seems like we’re not a normal sight. That’s OK, I tell my controlling self, Joan knows how to stay safe here. I ask her how much farther it is to the bus stop. “I have no idea,” she says. “I don’t know where we are.”

Oh.

“Walk behind me, will you?” she adds. “Keep an eye on my backpack.”

“Mmhmm.” Joan’s backpack is always massive. Every nook, cranny and pocket is stuffed full and looks temptingly as though it would burst open and pour its contents into the street at the slightest provocation. Sometimes it makes her start to tip over. I’m not sure exactly what is in there but at the moment, in combination with the uneven dirt road, it is slowing her down a bit. I try to dutifully stay behind her and keep an eye on it but we’ve already lost Clemence and Elizabeth is pulling ahead... my instinct leads me to pass Joan and instead sidle up to Elizabeth. I let her know when she needs to slow down and let Joan catch up.

“Go faster,” is all she says. She doesn't seem to think we belong here either.

OK. I form an uneasy bridge between Joan and Elizabeth until we emerge from the maze. Clemence is long gone. It’s a short wait for the bus and a short ride. So short I don’t even have time to get my coins out to pay for it. Elizabeth pays for us. I give her 20 shillings and she looks confused. It turns out Joan already reimbursed her. I only owe her 10. She cites a Rwandan French proverb as she gives me 10 shillings in change: “Good accounts make good friends.”

It is clear to me by now that Elizabeth is our friend and protectress. Even though the market we now enter is closer, taller, more labyrinthine than the neighborhood we just passed through, I am less guarded. Elizabeth walks us by several fabric stalls until we find one that has some patterns we think people back in California will like. Along the way, we pass stalls selling everything from undergarments to small appliances. I am tempted to stop our small group so I can buy a chapati (Kenyan flat bread) but we keep moving. We also pass a woman selling wooden spoons – I want to bring some of those home, too – but out of respect for Elizabeth’s time I stay focused on the mission: fabric.

While we’re at it, I do buy an extra piece of fabric to use as a skirt for myself. I need at least one appropriate piece of clothing to wear when we go up-country in a few days where, I'm told, it is very uncommon to see women in anything other than African skirts. I find a piece I like and we take an extra few minutes to find a market seamstress who will hem it for me. Her stall abuts the food area. Fresh local fruit hangs temptingly in the nearby stalls. Guys walking by with handfuls of live Christmas chickens brush against us while we wait. Clemence re-appears and scrutinizes our fabric selections. She approves.

Skirt hemmed (60 cents), Elizabeth leads us out the other side of the market and shows us where to catch the bus to get into town. We still don’t know exactly where we are, but we trust that she’s put us in the right place and, as it turns out, she has.

Clemence, Joan and Elizabeth at the market.