Custom-Made

There are aspects of life here that become normal, and yet would be difficult to replicate at home in the UK, unless of course you happened to be wealthy. Having someone clean my house and do the ironing isn’t something that would ever have occurred to me in Horsham. Yet, here I am in Nairobi, living on a rather reduced income, and Esther comes to clean and iron 2 mornings a week. Having a househelp isn’t so much a luxury (though it is very nice indeed to have all that side of things done!), as an expectation, providing employment and therefore an income to someone, and thereby, to their family as well. Another aspect is having furniture custom-made. Again, not something I’d ever have contemplated in the UK. However, here, there aren’t the Ikeas, Homebases, John Lewis etc etc. What you do have however are lots of ‘jua kali’ (literally, hot sun, as the furniture is generally made on the side of the road) small businesses, with people making a living using their carpentry and / or metalwork skills. There are of course a range of standards, and getting what you want isn’t always a given, though I’ve so far at least, been happy with the various bookshelves, armchairs, chests of drawers and bedside tables that I’ve had made.
I wound up a couple of weeks before Christmas in need of a new guest bed, having purchased a nice new sprung mattress to replace the thin foam one I’d had, only to discover that it was 3” longer than the bedframe, and that the bed couldn’t quite tolerate those extra few inches – all the joints came apart! With all the rain that we’ve had, I didn’t quite fancy trudging through the mud looking at the various bedframes on display on Ngong Road, nor did I reckon much to their likely state, having been completely open to the elements. Instead, I went to Don Bosco Boys’ Town in Karen, as recommended by friends who live out that way. This is a centre that was set up in 1985 by the Salesians of Don Bosco, to train young people from poor areas in technical skills. These include welding, secretarial, motor vehicle mechanics, electrical, masonry, plumbing, and tailoring, as well as carpentry. All that I provided was a quick sketch of the sort of design I was looking for, the dimensions of the mattress (pretty important that this one was the right size!), and a choice of wood (cypress or mahogany was the choice). Just over 2 weeks later, I drove out to pick the bedframe up (which thankfully could be disassembled so that it fit in my car!), and that night I was sleeping in my new, very comfortable, bed (my parents being in my bed!).