Black Back Streets

Today I walk in town, the day time is for men nighttime for women
How weak is society, joblessness, lifelessness, and selfishness?
The search is for money to quench pleasures and addictions
Men make money to drink alcohol at night and pay for sex
Women sell sex at night to feed their children during the day
I walk these stress full of sorrow, lost hope, and a dead future

The men sit all day in the streets, the sun is hot, you can only survive if you are high
They work casual jobs once or twice a day, for a few hundred
Not only that, “Kukula Kwa macho” is part of the job
Call to all ladies passing by, checking bumbum and touching
They are always ready if you say yes, always pointing north
Fighting for “Mbao” or “Ashu” with brown teeth, cannot clean up just a sticking smoking odour
Reduce to nothing, deadbeat dads always running away from responsibility
You know these men, just walk the streets of Nairobi

You will see them in groups of three or four from 7 pm to 7 am
In short dress and minimum covering whether it raining or not
They believe men see and want sex all the time, we cannot blame them
They call to any man, “Mbao” “Ashu” come get some dear
If you are soft and weak, they hustle and robe you
It’s their life they can make a few hundred or thousands in a night
They cannot settle for a good man, they are used to five men in a night
Nairobi they say is “Shamba La Mawe” The tough always make money

“Chwani Chwani” ” Rwabe Rwabe” ” Ya Warembo” They call out
Individual moving markets, they hawk everything cheaply
Your walking path is their space, squeezing in but not loose
They only have one enemy, “Kanjo” it’s a fight they always lose
Note they will also rough you if they are running away from “Kanjo”
Hawkers are here to make money it’s tough with odd working hours
You cannot be sure if it’s illegal or not, but it’s Nairobi

Am in a matatu getting in town, slowing in traffic they knock
They are always male with a bottle sniffing in their mouth
“Boss uko na ashu sijahave breko” they beg,
Any coin they make is for drugs or to gamble
I wonder what the street girls turn into, they cannot all be born male
In streets of Nairobi and they will slice you with a penknife
When they are old enough, they do anything to live, its the life they know
Walk the black back streets of Nairobi in the dark you are dead