Kapsoi

Adharanand and I are walking home from the Mitumba. We step off the tarmac road onto the the dirt road that leads to our neighbourhood, Kapsoi. There are people walking, familiar faces, a boy with a stick herding two cows, an old man. We great each other as we pass.

At the end of the dirt road is the kiosk selling milk and sweets. Lila is sitting behind the counter with a young baby, Mercy, on her lap, while Mercy’s mother serves a customer.

Just outside the door to the kiosk, Uma has set up shop on rickety bamboo table, usually used for selling cabbages and spinach. She is selling a selection of stones. A few children are gathered in front of her stall, pretending to buy them.

A neighbor, Sarah, stops to talk. I tell her we are leaving Iten in a few days time. She asks about my house in England. “Do you own a cow there?”

“No”

“Why not?” she looks at me with a mixture of disbelief and pity, “You must buy one when you get home”.

Back at our house, there are voices coming from the vegetable patch. Ossian and Flora emerge from the tangle of vines with pockets full of passion fruit and tree tomatoes.

We sit on the grassy slope in the garden eating them, watching mousebirds flying in and out of the vines. A neighbours' cow is mooing, a baby crying.

As the sky darkens Adharanand goes to look for Lila an Uma. He finds them down a narrow pathway, inside a small wooden shack, drinking sweet milky Kenyan tea and watching Kalenjin music videos with their friends.