Finding Love of the Dark Streets of Nairobi
The Greek say there are two types of love: Agape and Eros. The former has to do with emotions and admiration while the latter is purely sexual. By virtue of our work, eros perhaps should dominate our love lives. However that is not the case. Just like a million other women, the things that make us love, have less to do with sex . We fall for the simplicity of a listening ear, a caring heart and an assuring caress . And after all that, the eros follows to make the love whole. This applies to both friend and client . But how do we manage to fall in love considering in our business we are supposed to be tough and devoid of any real feelings other than those to do with money? The truth is, deep inside, we are still puppies who want to spend every minute knowing there is someone thinking fondly of us.
Like I mentioned previously, a number of us are in relationships with men living in the estates or the villages where we came from . More often than not such relations are based on lies and mind games as the girl tries to hide her night escapades . The self proclaimed Love Doctors who patronize mid morning radio shows often say “If you want Finding Love of the Dark Streets of Nairobi to kill your love then tell lies “. Yet sometimes a pinch or bucketful of lies is what is needed to protect ‘ Love ‘. See, though Love is famed for being blind to imperfections, too many shortcomings in a lover, triggers Love to open its eyes, not to look beyond the flaws but to another more perfect version.
So the girl continues to lie about her character and what she does for a living until the day by hook or crook she wiggles out of the situation . That day she tells her lover “You know what! I have quit my low paying waitress job. I plan to start selling cosmetics “ . Despite such a triumph the girl can never be at ease . The world is a small place, and this city even smaller. A former client might move in next door, or turn out to be the man’s relative. There is always the danger that her past could be discovered and her genuine love for the man be trashed using such words as “gold digger” .
What to do then? Nothing. Simply live, give her all to the lover, do all she can to protect them, and hope that her past does not come to crumble her love .
Still it can’t always be perfect . The relationship fails sometimes for reasons beyond the girl’s control. The man is abusive or, as ironic as it may seem, unfaithful. Also, if the economic times are too hard, the girl may be tempted to take one for the team and sneak in with a neighbour in order to pay the bills. When the relationship is over, many former girls of the night rather than cry all day, troop back here to the street where life just goes on. We also fall for our clients although ‘Don’t fall in love with a client’ is our eleventh commandment. Love in our kind of business, compromises many things including the ability to negotiate higher prices and to send off a man when there is a another offering a better deal . Nevertheless, we remain human beings: a client who listens to a girl, buys her gifts and looks beyond her eros, touches our hearts.
Hence we find ourselves in that immediate moment after the humpty dumpty opening our mouths and saying “ I love you”. “What did you say?” the bewildered client asks . “I love you”.
The reaction is usually a smirk and a sarcastic laugh . The client wondering how can a girl say she is in love when in a few minutes, after getting her pay and combing her hair ,she will be back out in the cold looking for another man.
What the man cannot understand is that although in this city, sex has become synonymous with love, for us there is a thick line between the two .
Despite the clients doubts we don’t just give up . When he appears again we restate our feelings and give him more than his money’s worth. We keep loving knowing there are those who will also keep loving us.
By Susan Kahumbura
