Evening Stroll

It's six o'clock in the evening, the sun is fading away, the air cooling. We decide to take a stroll around our neighbourhood. Ossian is intent on finding the source of the mooing noise, and we end up walking down a footpath near our house, a trail of small children behind us.

A lady calls out to me from her garden, and I recognise her as Anne, who has a kiosk in her front garden selling vegetables and milk. She calls us over to meet her cows, who are standing in her back garden eating hay from a makeshift wooden feeder.

While Ossian inspects the cows Anne tells us how she was widowed when her husband died of cancer, how she struggles to get by working in the local hospital at night and opening her shop during the day.

A group of children have gathered in the garden, sitting on the wooden fence and giggling as they stare at us. A girl carrying a young boy brings him over to meet Ossian. They are of a similar age. While Ossian is wearing a long-sleeved top and a pair of shorts, the young boy is wearing fleece trousers, several jumpers and two woolly hats. I am told it's to protect him from the cold and the risk of pneumonia. Even during the heat of mid afternoon, young children and babies are dressed like this. By Kenyan standards, Iten is considered a cold place to live.

The night is coming on quickly now, and we walk back out onto the path. Anne waves us off, 'Goodbye' she shouts, 'leave me to my struggle'. Lila and Uma are playing chase with the children in the lane, stumbling over the stones and rubbish as they run after each other. As the sky darkens, the game becomes rougher, the children start to push and hit each other, playfully at first, but it soon turns to self-defence.

In the semi-darkness we walk back up the path, waving goodbye to the children as they disappear into doorways, into the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of crickets, dogs barking. The kerosene lamp is lit in the shop near our gate, a few figures sit on the wooden counter, gazing at the people walking home from town.

Alex (our night watchman) is outside our gate in his uniform, patrolling up and down to let people know he's there. It suddenly seems ridiculous that we are employing someone to guard us.