Casglwyd a golygwyd yr hanes llafar hwn gan Ganolfan Adrodd Storïau George Ewart Evans fel rhan o brosiect Straeon Bawso.

Mae prosiect Storiau Bawso yn brosiect partneriaeth arloesol rhwng Canolfan Adrodd Storïau George Ewart Evans (Prifysgol De Cymru), sefydliad cymorth arbenigol Bawso ac Amgueddfa Cymru. Ariannwyd y prosiect hwn gan Gronfa Dreftadaeth y Loteri Genedlaethol.

Mae caniatâd wedi'i roi i'r stori hon gael ei rhannu

a. Yn archifau a chasgliadau Amgueddfa Cymru
b. Ar wefannau, e.e. Casgliad y Werin Cymru, Bawso, Prifysgol De Cymru, Amgueddfa Cymru, etc.
c. Ar gyfryngau cymdeithasol, e.e. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, ac ati.
d. Mewn cyhoeddiadau ysgrifenedig, e.e. adroddiadau prosiect, erthyglau cyfnodolion, ac ati.
e. Mewn unrhyw ddefnydd arall yn unol â nodau ac amcanion y prosiect

[Trawsgrifiad ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig]

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Cyfweliad gydag Annie (Storiau Bawso)

Hyd: 0055:56

Okay, thank you again for coming in today.

You are welcome.

Really looking forward to speaking to you.  So, my first question is, can you tell me about your experience of coming to Wales?

When I came to Wales, it’s not like the way it is now.  It is so… there is not too much people and I found it quite silent and loneliness.  We were not many, where I was posted, or where I was taken and now, it’s a bit easier for me to communicate with people for the last few years.  There are people coming from all other countries, all over the world and I found it easier for me now to communicate and to interact with various people.  But before it was not good for me.

When did you come to Wales?

I came to Wales in 2010.  I came from England.  Though I came to UK in 2007 and when I was in England, I got sick and I was admitted in the hospital for about four months and since I was an immigrant, I had to be brought here to Wales, after getting better, and after I came to Wales, I was placed in hotel and regardless of my illness which was very serious, because it was cancer, I had to be kept in a hotel.  But after that, I was considered and I was given a home in somewhere in Wales and I felt, yeah, I was able to attend my hospital appointments. So, this… I came to Wales in 2011, but I landed in England when I came from my country in 2007. 

Is there anything more about those journeys or that time in your life that you’d like to share?

Yeah.  It was not easy for me when I came to England because when I landed, I went through a lot.  I was so much stressed.  I was a teacher back in my country and when I just decided to come to United Kingdom, to get away from what I was going through, I came here and found it very hard, because I was used to my family.  I left my… my first born was big enough to look after the young ones, but the last one was just nine years, and I left her, just like that because I was in a hurry to get away from what I was going through with my life.  It was just horrible.  So, when I came here, it was too hard for me.  As a teacher, you have started from nowhere in this country, you don’t know anybody.  You don’t know where to start.  Nobody can recognise your qualifications.  So, I had to start all over again and it was so, so hard for me and it took some years. So, that stressed me, 2007.  I was misused by so many people, come and work for me, I’ll give you food, come and do this for me and I’ll give you food.  Like, two years without knowing where to go until 2009 when I got sick, and I was admitted to the hospital.  That is where I stayed for four months, after operation, a lot of things was going on. 

When I came from the hospital, I found myself in Wales, because immigration came in and I had nowhere to go.  So, according to human rights, they had to take me where to do with me, and that is how I landed in Wales.  I journeyed from England to Wales. I stayed there like some weeks.  They were unable to [unclear 04:23] me because of my disadvantage, when I was given a house. Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, and when I was in the hospital, I was mistreated.  I have the record.  I forgot that book, but I was writing everything what was happening for the day.  I still have that notebook.  Everything is there, according to what was going through the day. There was a time I was not given any food.  They could serve all the other patients and then me, I was left… because I was the only… there was a lot of racism.  So, yeah. When I came back to Wales, it was very like, how I am reading it.  There are not so many people, but the hotel people are very friendly, here in Wales, everybody, even if they’re not speaking to you, you find someone just smiling like that. Unlike England. I found it’s a home in Wales, my home, yeah. 

That’s nice. You said that things have changed a bit since you came to Wales in terms of your relationship with it.  Could you tell me a bit more about that, how things have changed, and how your relationship with Wales has changed?

Yeah, comparing from 2010/2011/2012 through 2013 there, let me say 2012, what I’m seeing is changing, because I was… back in my mind, I just want to go back to being myself, a professional, whereby, you know. And although I was going to chemotherapy, everything, here in Wales.  I just thought that I want to be somebody.  So, I joined College and that is 2012. I just was fascinated by it.  I saw it and I say that, I miss my life back in my country.  I miss it.  I was in a college.  I became a teacher, the same with the college in Wales, so I need to start doing about it.  So, I just come in and I told them, how can I join the… how to go about it, and they told me how to start from the basic, you have to start to ESOL, English for non-speakers.  That is how I started interacting with people.  I found people with different opinions from this country, from all over.  I just started my life again.  My life was so nice, I am in the classroom again, seeing somebody teaching me.  I just started comparing my life with… I was the one who was teaching, now I am the one who is like a child, we started being told things like, this is a table, those things that I was teaching young, young children in my country, but I had to persevere.  I had to take it.  I had to respect what they are saying, what they are telling me, until they see that I am beyond that, because I was telling the others, no, this, this and this.  You can put them in one word, furniture. And then the teachers were saying, Annie, how we are teaching, and they are telling us more than what we are teaching them.  I told them. Because I was a teacher, they told me, you don’t belong here. 

So, they advised me to go to the next level, but I couldn’t.  So, what they did, they said I could do a diploma in business. I told them yes. So, I did the diploma in business, which was all out of what I know, because it was not my career.  I just do it, and I pass in 2012 and 2013, and that is how my life started. And from there, about a few months, I was moved from house to house, house to house. Then I had to bring my two children who were adult, and they came and joined me.  After that, regardless of my condition, because the cancer was too much for me… it had spread to the tummy… they had to put a condition… so, I have a condition.  I have a stoma bag.  Which I am needing up to now. So, from that, I thought, I just want to go to school again. 

That is when I applied for university and still, I could not be a teacher.  I felt that is too much for me, so I told them, I just want to do something to do with the community, something where I mix with the community and meet… because I was a special needs teacher back in my country.  I want to do some things to do with vulnerable people.  That is when I was offered to do health and social care management.  I did my first degree.  I passed very well and to come outside is not the way I expected.  There is no job like that.  So, I had to do care jobs, support workers.  Although I felt it’s okay, because in my job I was helping those old women, I could go to their classes, sit down, start a meeting with them, give them a companion, chatting and I felt that at least I’m giving to the community, still doing the support worker.  Then that was when I could start to see life had changed.  Then all of a sudden, my mind again tells me, Annie, you are a teacher.  I felt that, yes, I was a teacher. They told me you can’t do classroom setting unless you do Masters in something. They told me which area were you in Kenya? I told them I was dealing with children with autism. I was offered a place again to do the master’s for additional needs.  I did my one-year masters, and I passed.  I started volunteering in a classroom setting and I felt it was not what I wanted. I left it and I started then community working as a support worker, sometimes care. That is my life here now.  Then I got this one, the project.  That is how I found that Wales is changing, because I’m doing this, I’m mixing with people.  I know I am giving to the community.  Before I was frightened, and I came with nothing.  But when I first started with college, and mixed with people, we talk about Kenya is this and Kenya is this.  And now I’ve built up myself.  Now I am at a level where I am not afraid of anybody.  I can approach anybody.  Given a chance to approach King, I will go up to him, because things have changed.

Great story, thank you.  Would you be able to tell me a bit about what home means to you now?

My home?  Although there is ups and downs, because of the system, economic, everything.  It is affecting everybody.  To call it a home again, it’s not a home to me because back in my country, a home meant that I could go to my garden, pick some food, milk my cows, have my own fresh things.  But nowadays I stand in my house and see it’s not anymore like it was.  Even it changed to how I came in this country, it’s a bit hard, and now as a single mum, bringing the two young adults, it’s not easy because in my country, although it has now changed you could say stop and they will stop.  Nowadays, as a single mum, if you tell them stop, they have their right to do what they want.  So, when you are at home, you don’t know how you will react to it because of the system in here.  So, it’s a home, but on the other side, you have to put the boundaries to call it a home.  You have to use your own techniques.

How old are your children now?

The only girl is 25 and the boy is 29 now, but I have two more back in Africa.  One is 39, the other is 35.

Big family.

It’s a big family and it’s hard too because some are here, some are there. 

How often… do you go back at all?

The first time I went home was about… after twelve years in this country.  I went two years ago, to see them.  Then I came back and then I lost two of my sisters.  I had to go back and yeah, and then recently I lost another one here, my sister.  So, yeah.

I’m sorry to hear that.

No, it’s alright.  Yeah. 

Thank you for sharing all of that.  Really generously.  I wonder, can you tell me a bit about a place or a time in your life that is important to you?

Is when my children changed me when I was sick, and I was waiting for another operation.  I had about five operations, and that one was the worst.  So horrible.  They came in and after two months, I was told you have another major operation.  So, my daughter was 14 by then, but she was there for me.  My son was there for me.  Comparing with previous, when I came here, and I had nobody.  I knew nobody.  I stayed in the hospital, depending on the hospital food, depending on whoever will spread their messy things as someone who is from this country. But when my children came in.  My first operation, I thought at least if I lose my life, my children are here with me.  So, that operation, I was told it was going to be 50/50 and it was true. So, when it was done, it start the other way around, I became very sick, and I remember my daughter with me.  They had to find a way of hiding her, because they didn’t expect what they saw.  So, they put her somewhere and I was told I will go another emergency, after three days, I was told I would have to have another major emergency. They had reversed my stoma, but it didn’t work.  So, they told me we had to take it back together and put back the stoma bag, because it’s not working, and you are getting worse.  So, I was told, inform your family, but don’t tell your daughter, because it will not be easy.  It is 50/50.  We don’t know whether it will succeed.  But when I was operated on, when I wake up, I found myself back with the stoma bag, and I was like, what is happening, they told me, nothing is working for you.  But now, this will be permanent, we don’t need to risk again, and I told them, yeah, I’m happy.  If it will save my life, I’m happy.  I’m happy.  My family is here.  I can tell them, and they can pass the message before… if I will die, there are some people to send the message.  Why I am saying this is that that one was a happiest day or something that made me happy because my family was there when I needed them. 

Thank you for sharing that.

OK, thank you. You’re welcome.

Is there anything else you want to tell me about that time in your life?

I don’t think there is anything else, yeah.

I wonder if you would like to tell me about your childhood or growing up in Kenya?

Okay. All I can remember, I was born in 1965, and we are a family of ten, seven girls, three boys.  But they are now all gone.  We are left with three girls and two boys now, and I’ve grown up in a village whereby we do a lot of work, fetching water, fetching firewood.  Village life, and we were brought up with my siblings, the one who I lost last year, we are seven and I’m the fourth from the last.  So, I have lost two under me and I have lost two, five of them have gone of them have gone, no, four of them have gone. I went to school back in 1974, primary school.  We could carry them my mother was a businesswoman, and we could take there, bananas you know, bananas?  Before we got to school, we had to take the bananas to the town, city centre, all of us, each with one, each with one, leave them there and my mum because she was having a problem with her legs, she could go to sell during the day. So we are taking every day and go off to school.  Then in the evening we could fetch firewood. We could fetch water. And it was a happy life, because you and the children share everything, like the way I remember when we were in the museum, and somebody talked about sitting, in Waterfront, somebody who said about sitting. We've been discussing sitting down and you, if you were sitting unproperly, your mom could do throw to you. You knew that it was fun and everything, and our parents were communicating by hitting you, not like now. So I finished my primary school that way. The secondary school I went to, a day school. I had to do the same thing, helping my mom to take some stuff to the market, going back to school, coming in the evening, the work is waiting for you, fetching by firewood, if there is anything to do, fetching water, doing all sort of the things. Then you sleep. The same thing repeating itself. 

Then after that, after my secondary school, I just do some like cash work before I get married, getting I got married, and I got my children, and I get married, whereby it's not that it was yet time, but because others are doing that, my age meant I get married. So I got married that day, and it's not a forced marriage, it's just from just because my friend is doing it. Nobody forced me to do it. So, and I got my four children, and after my, the third born, that is how the life started. Although I went through the college, through as a teacher, living my career. I went through a lot. But the thing is, you could, I could not go back to my parents. Whenever I go back to my parents, I was told you have to go back.  Marriage was very respected by them, your parents, you are scared to disagree, they come they will see, go back, every time you go back until I found it, enough is enough. I have to leave my children, maybe they will join me later. Maybe somebody will take care of them. I left them and I made my decision to come to UK. So that is how my life was, a bit of, the bits of my life. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for sharing all of that.  I wonder if you could tell me about a you have told me about one important moment with your with your children coming to be with you. But is there another? Maybe a magic moment when something changed for you?

Here in UK?

Yeah, it can also be previously. It can be any time in your life, just something that felt magic, that felt something was something was changing.

Yeah, to me, let me see, when, as I said before, I had no voice. But after mixing with people, after talking like here in Bawso, it gave me more confident when I started this project. This is my first project I started. It's like, very low. I didn't know where to do sometimes I was like, where am I? What is this? Although I was, I had raised a lot of projects during my courses and during my whatever. It's not like this one, this is my first one to work for it for money. So, but there is a time I can say that I feel that I thought I have the confidence to speak. I have confidence to say, no, I can't do it. I have confident to say this day I'm doing the project, to tell some people, when I say that it's succeeding, is that I'm getting what is going on. I will, now I have the courage to tell people I'm up, I'm doing a project! And I told some people, some people try if you go to Bawso you will see their jobs. If it is something to do, the project, to pick it, it's not, it's not a big, big like multi, it's something you can do it. And that moment make me feel that I'm somebody, I can talk. I feel even now. That is why I'm talking to you before, I was like, no, I can’t face anybody. I can talk to any group. Before I was tiptoeing to come to Bawso.  Now I open the door, it’s my right to be open the door for me, I am doing something.  That is some of the magic. This is like a magic to me, that I can face another one and another project, and I feel that I had told people apply, some applied and got the jobs. Yeah, not in the project, but in some areas, yeah, because they are seeing this, if it's not something they can be able to do. I'm telling them, don't sit, go, try. They'll help you. It's always like magic myself. It's like a magic, yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

That's fantastic. That does really sound magical, yeah.  Okay, could you tell me about your hopes for the future? What are your hopes for the future?

Um … One, I have no permanent job. It's something I was doing it on a piece of paper last night in my house. I was like, where am I heading? So in future, unless I volunteer, I don't feel like I can do any stressful job, and I just want to do like volunteering things. If I don't get like something for myself, I think I have done enough. Back in my country, I worked for 18 years as a teacher. I had so much in my head with the children. Here, here I am working with the grownups, vulnerable people, sometimes too much for me, but I feel it, I'm passionate about it. I feel I have to do it, but in future I just want to have something just for me, but to do with vulnerable people, but not somebody over me to tell me there is a deadline, there is a deadline. I need my peace of life, and something I can do with two or three people, if at all, I will get the Council to give me just three vulnerable people, old or those with disabilities and sit with them in their houses, house accommodation, sit with them, do paperwork for them, me, myself, send it to the council, see this one, do the care plan, everything, assessment, if it would be something like that. In fact, if it will not work, I give it to somebody else, but I know I have something which is going on. Yeah.

Is it you’d like to have your own organisation or company?

It's a company, yeah, like a company, yeah, just for accommodation, accommodated really, supported living.  Yeah, get, in fact, them, they are here, you talk. They want to go somewhere that certain things, or a house with just three old women, you know. And some people like to be just to sit with them. We need, we talk, we do the various thing, [inaudible 29:30] everything, things like that, yeah.

So you'd like to support them in in their accommodation.

Yeah.

Sounds great.

Yeah, that is it, yeah. In future, not in future, that’s why I say that my time is like happy now, yeah, something which I'm thinking of now. Yeah.

You said you want, like, peace, your peace of life. You know, peaceful times.

Yeah.

Is there anything else that makes you helps you to feel at peace that you enjoy doing that helps you feel peaceful?

Gardening. When in my house I plant my own vegetables, that's most of time I'm in my compound. Then from there I either walk and wait for, I walk and I like walking the bushes, whereby I hear the bird sound, those things, but I don't like mixing with so many people. For one lesson is the condition, my condition. If I sit for a long time with the people in our group, I have to tell them, if you hear my sound, my tummy, making this, doing like this,  I have a condition. I don't want that. So that's why I say that I just want to quiet life, just two or three women. I have this, if you hear something, it's my tummy, but a large crowd is very hard to explain. Yeah.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  That sounds a great idea for a future.

Yeah.

So is there anything else you'd like to tell me or share that you feel is important for people to know about you and your life.

Important?

Yeah, is there anything else that you'd like to tell us about your life that you think is important for people to know you know to have on this record of you of your life. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us.

To take each day at a time, people should not, that, me I always say that take a day, that day you are there. You either do something for yourself or for other people. If you don't do something for yourself, do it for other people. And let it be something which will be remembered in future, and say that, yes, Annie did this for us. And if you feel there is something which is inside, you take it out, let people know. And … yeah, that is it.

That's beautiful.  Thank you. So that's it for the questions for the interview. I thought now we could just go over the museum visits again, and if you wanted to tell any of those stories again or add anything, you know, what are the things you saw? What are the memories you had, just make sure we've got that properly on the on the audio.

When we are visiting the museum for the first time at Waterfront. You know, I was saying that, like, I am going there to take the women to see the museum. Then the…when we went there, I was like, oh, so even me, there is some things I'm learning from there. I started to get the interest of the museum. What is there, what is happening? And when the lady started telling about the things, I became more and more interested. The first thing which caught my eyes is the typewriter. When I saw that typewriter, it gave me a memory back in my years when I finished the secondary school. And I remember when I finished my secondary school, the first thing I told my parents that I want to be a secretary. Then I was there, I went to a college called Pitman in Nairobi. I went there, and there was a road, and when I saw there that computer, I remember, they are the ones we are using. They were using some ink long, long time ago. That is about 20 or 30, that is about 45 years ago. They were using their ink, and I was that gave me a nice memory. However, was going to Nairobi Street. Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya. I was going to the street, just, you know, it was making some noise that, tat, tat, when you are typing, yeah, that gave me a very nice memory. And I was like, so I can then see something like this here in UK. And I remember asking you whether this is the same with Pitman, whether it is the same in my country Nairobi? And you give me the feedback, and you told me it's the same and that things, it made me to be proud that I started for 12 years ago, and now I can see it somewhere. In Kenya they were disposed of. You can’t get them or see them anywhere. But I was happy to see that one. Yeah, that is the Waterfront Museum.

Can you tell me a bit more about how it felt to type on it this. What did it feel like? Just wait for this noise to stop now. Gosh, it's very noisy here today, isn't it?

I don’t know why.  The one which was here all the way I was doing it.

The one you could remember.

Yeah, it was, it was nice because even when you are in a very, very low mood, you know, it was, maybe there I have told it was making that noise, tat, tat, tat, you know, it's like giving you some, even if you come home and you feel that what can go into the college, and you felt that you cannot do it the way everybody was doing it is you are making fun of each other. It's like a keyboard, you know? And so that gave me a memory of the happiness, giving back your sense, giving back your happiness, yeah, it was nice. And that is why, when I saw it here, I felt that, yeah, something which can give me the memories of my country and my childhood, not childhood, really that youth-ness, yeah.

Yeah, you mean feeling youthful?

Yeah,  yeah.

That's great. What else did you see that sparked memories for you?

Yeah, Waterfront, Waterfront Museum in Swansea, there’s also a locomotive.

Mhm, yeah.

It was there isn’t it?

Yeah, yeah.

And we are told that you are using the solar. Then I remember I asked them, What happens if they, like in back in Kenya, we put the solar, and there is no light. I mean, there is no sun. We are in darkness, although it's not full darkness, you cannot see enough, right? Because they are using the solar with the sun, like this is it. And I was thinking about it because they say that it was used to go and Google about it, that the sources it is here. But I can't do it. It is in my phone, yeah, this one.

Ahh, yeah.

Yeah, you see. Yeah.

So did you have solar in Kenya?

For the houses, for the light. Yeah, before there was electricity, we are using solar. Then I was thinking about this thing, if it was using solar to go all the way. What about if there, I was asking, if it is like the one we are using Kenya, and there is no sun like today, so we are using the like firewood to see through. What about this one? If it's on the way and it stops, what will happen to, will it be the end of the journey? I don't know. So I needed something to know more about it. Unfortunately, I didn't get in but to tell me what will happen. But then this, I like, I just copied with the journey with women who come to the Bawso. When coming from their country, they feel just, like me, I was like, is this the end of me? Now I have to start all over again. Some of them came to seek the refuge to the Bawso, whereby they have started their life again. Though up and down, they finally go to where they are supposed to be through Bawso.  So from the darkness to the light again. The same thing is with that this one, if it stopped, there must be something, because there is a lot of technologies in this country. There is a way to go through to the other side. So I was thinking of it that way.

That’s a lovely metaphor. Yeah, it’s a beautiful metaphor. You’re saying that there’s always more sunlight coming.

Yeah, they use the solar they see that, yeah.

So you feel like Bawso is the solar power.

Yeah, it's like the solar power to where, but it's not really, but yeah, it is because the women come here thinking that outside there, they don't think that their life will be the same. Maybe some of them going through domestic violence, FGM, and all sorts of things. But then they come to Bawso, they met that faces, that people who care for them, that people you tell them what to do. You can get the money, you can seek there, what you can do this, and their life start again, until then they leave the Bawso and start their life in a bright way, you see. So it's like this in a way, because they just can stop anywhere, and then they do their technology, and then the journey start again!

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

That's really beautiful. Yeah, thank you for that. That's great, because that a lot of people would walk past that, and they wouldn't really think about it.

Yeah, it’s not using the petrol, whereby you can learn and they, you have to use some things, of which I don’t know, solar system, something which is telling me to do with nature is it?

Solar power.

Solar power.

So it absorbs this, the rays of the sunlight.

Yes.

And then they have little cells, cells that can absorb that and convert the UV rays into electricity.

Okay.

That's how it works, yeah.

No sun rays.

No, it needs the sun rays, yeah.

There is no sun rays somewhere?

It stores it.

Yeah.

What will happen is it will store the energy or if it’s quite sort of basic technology, it will just run on what it has. So for example, if it's not sunny that day it won't work. But a lot of bigger technologies, they'll have it, the ability to store it.

Okay.

But it's your metaphor still works, because what you're saying is that if, even if the sunlight runs out, it always comes back, there's always a new beginning. There's always hope.

Yeah.

And places like Bawso provide that hope and that sunlight.

Yeah, that it is.

So that’s lovely.

Thank you.

I love that. Anything else from the museum?

From museum that was a typewriter from there. There's another one in this one from the St Fagans I think.

Yes.

Yeah, St Fagans, this is the type of fire we use, yeah.

Oh, can I see.

Yeah.

Ah, from the bakery.

Yeah, when I saw these I just remember how I was baking for my children.  Most of the food we could call for rich people, because I was a teacher. Students were coming to eat in my house, and they thought this chapati, you have heard of chapati, the flat bread? That thing was by then it was for rich people. The teachers and rich people they can cook that because it was so expensive. And this one I made, I was baking. I was rolling, I was doing the balls and keep them, I was counting, I have four children, this for my four children. This is for to take to school, for the children who will not be having some food. And this is taking for the morning. So this one reminded the ball, the way they put the bowls is not here. It's not showing, I think I printed one. There are some balls here. We were counting when cooking.

The dough?

The dough, yeah.  We are counting when cooking, you should make sure the dough you come like, according to the children, they have 1, 1, 1, and to give out like 5, 1, 1. So this one reminded me of how I was doing it. It was some memories which gave me and so I can see those children now which I was giving them because they were so poor. Now, they are the people with so many big, big things back in Kenya. They didn't go to secondary school. They need money to go to secondary school. Their parents had no money, but they managed to do the business to make them people, they are very, very rich. So when I saw this, I was like, doing the bit so that so it can fit for my children. If say, it's not fit, I started moving some the dough from here, here, here to make another dough so that I can cook in and there will be enough for the children for but if I got any people I can see there, even they have been better than me. Yeah.

So do you mean that you would, you'd have a ball and then you'd split it and just make it, just to make it go further.

Yeah, yeah.

So we call it a dough ball.

A dough ball, those balls, I have to cut it again until I get that round. If I finish it with some more, everybody will have a piece, a piece, yeah.

So why was chapati so expensive? Because I always thought that that was sort of an affordable food. Why was chapati so expensive?

It's because by then it was for the rich people. It was very expensive for that, it was only even if you hear the smell from afar, the students from the poor family, it could just pass by your house up and up, up and down, until we've told them come for the piece. It was for even us to get it when we are growing, it was a magic, yeah, it was very expensive. Very, very expensive. The wheat.

The flour?

The flour yeah.

And is there, is there any kind of fat in it as well, like a butter or an oil?

Oh, yeah, we cook with the oil. We fry with oil in the pan. You can go and see how, if you see it on Google, how to cook chapati, they do. You see it very nice. And I know I don't do it, because if you do it those, the wheat here is not like the wheat we are growing back in our country. I have to be careful if, if you have a cancer genes you need to be very careful with some of the things, yeah.

With some of the foods?

Yeah, some of the things like wheat, processed meat, like sausages, bacons, yeah? Those things not good for the cancer patient. Yeah, it's not good. Those are the things I was told to keep away.

Interesting, I used to have a housemate from Tanzania. She would make chapati.

Wow.

Yeah.

They know how to do it.

It was really good, really good with curries and everything.

Yeah, this is the Carmarthen, I just crossed this bridge for a purpose. This bridge was there from the museum building to go to, where our bus was, we crossed the bridge. I was thinking about it, and I had to call somebody from very far to take me a photo. I was thinking about the, I thought about how w were late coming to Carmarthen. You see we are very late. So we didn’t do much in the Carmarthen, you remember, and there was a lot of stuff, which one would in the morning, then the evening. We had not much to talk about it in Carmarthen if you remember very well. So when I was crossing this bridge, I just looked up at the water. I said that there was enough with, there was not much in that building. It's just to do the wool, but it can be a memory of the skirt. I…back then, the wool start, if a girl happened to wear woollen, it was expensive, so we are going to various centres like this here, call them charity. Ours was not a charity, it was like somewhere whereby clothes come from various and outside Kenya, and they were put somewhere people buy and sell it to the other people. So the charity here, so we were going every Saturday to check if you could get a woollen.  We don’t know where they are coming from. So when I saw that skirt, it was, I remembered the first time I bought a woollen. And it was my, I went to visit my boyfriend, and I was so happy, because I am wearing a woollen and whatever. Then when my mom's, my mom discovered that I went to see the boyfriend, I was in the secondary school. I was beaten and my mother threw that woollen skirt away and told me you never wear it again.  When I saw that smart woollen, in the Carmarthen and I was like this give me a memory. I went to see my boyfriend. My mother beat me and throw my woollen again, though I cannot get that one. It give me that memories. And yeah.

I was thinking about this earlier. I was thinking about when you told that story, you know, we were all laughing because it was so the idea of you being in a sort of dusty, you know, Nairobi street, yeah, with these woollen skirts you know, going around.

Yeah and it because it was woollen, somebody was like woollen skirt, woollen skirt! And that one was not like nowadays men were attracted by seeing something short, by our time it was the kind of dress, woollen, it was thought very nice, you see. 

So it strikes me as a mixed memory, because then you said your mom, your mother was, hurt you physically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Our parents were very strict. Yeah, comparing with nowadays it was discipline was there, but not anymore.  That I told you when we started the interview, at home you have to put a bridge, call it a home, when you are living with youth, or dealing with youth, yeah.  It can be, you can lose your home anytime, anytime you try to strike, he call the police, in one little, he call the police, you see, and you might lose your children, so you have to, there is a bridge whereby you can cross and where you cannot close. In our days after my mom threw my skirt away, just because it's the one which attracted the man to, yeah.  Because it was expensive, it was woollen, it was yeah, by then.

Why do you think wool was so attract- was so, you know, why was wool sexy?

I don’t know why, it’s like fashion, it was fashion the way you see something in fashion, but in the next few years, so woollen was on fashion, but when I was growing, it was very uncommon to find a woollen skirt and woollen things, yes.  So it was fashionable at that time.

Was it very hot, to wear it?

It was hot, but regardless, even when it's hot, you could wear is to tell people you are wearing a woollen coat or a woollen skirt and that is the most thing we could wear to go and get go to a boyfriend. Yeah, you are very expensive!

But is there anything else you wanted to share?

North Wales. North Wales. You know the Slate Museum, the street Museum, was marvellous. It was nice. The man was doing the slating there, they told us the rocks, or whatever they call them, it came from somewhere there, yeah, I thought when I went outside, I looked at the at the hill somewhere, this one. Then I was thinking about my, my life, yeah, I look at it, the edge. And the man told us, these things come from there. I was I, I just was like, the way he was cutting that thing, he got it like shapeless, you know, because when you get a rock, it’s something which you cannot admire, the rock, according to me. But that man, the way he was cutting it, he was making something things with, very beautiful this. He shaped that the rocks and the rocks, and it was so it looks something very nice.

I thought about it, about the life I started. I started my life very smoothly, then I was like a rock. Somebody put my life like this. Nobody could admire, admire me. Nobody could like, you know, because I had so much stress. Then I came to UK. You know, I had run away and come to UK with that shape, and I had to pick myself again. Then I got the problems. I started like I started I had cancer, and I was operated.  I was thinking about it when I came out from the museum, I was thinking about it. I want to take me a photo while facing that way my life, the way here. This is rocks, they are shapeless. I could see that life. That is my drive. This is driver, it was like. Then somebody came, that man, the rocks, was taken, and the man started shaping it and said something very nice. Although I had the stoma, I remember that although what I went through in my life, it didn't take my heart. I was given a heart! You see, I say this didn't break my heart.

That's so beautiful. Okay, yeah, thank you sharing that. Yeah.

Thank you.

Everyone, everyone really loved those, didn't they?

Yeah.

I think that was a really powerful gesture, wasn't it?

Yeah, the man doing it, you know, yeah, sometimes can be shaped, and they can be like rocks, and somebody can put it together, shape it. You can see, this is really learning. But when you see, oh, yeah, give it like this, I was like, then I look at the rocks where they see the rocks come from rockery. I could see those rocks. Then they take the rocks, they shape them. And, you know, it was so lovely, yeah, that is it, yeah.

Amazing.

 

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