Stories from Kilifi, Kenya

You can tell I’m a footballer by my toes. They’re not soft, they’re not straight and most of them don’t even touch their neighbouring toe. They splay out like duck’s feet without the bit in between. They don’t look anything like the feet on the pedicure poster in my sister,…

Eliza was holding the baby. Our little baby brother, Gift. He was fast asleep, wrapped up in the quilted yellow shawl that mum bought the day before she went into hospital. We were sitting on a wooden bench, outside the cashier’s office, near the maternity ward. I was picking the…

I ran up the concrete stairs to our room and unlocked the rusting metal door. It rumbled as I pushed it open, scraping against the floor, its hinges giving a long, squeaky, thirsty cry for oil. I was late home from football practice and I needed to get back downstairs…

Every evening it’s the same. I go straight from football practice to selling beans and chapatti. I don’t even have time to change out of my football clothes. I always make a profit, every day, because I have what’s called a prime spot. It’s right outside my sister’s hair salon,…

It was hot. 32 degrees hot. The air was heavy. The sand on the football pitch was burning the soles of my feet. I was the only player without boots. I hopped from one foot to the other. I looked for a tuft of grass to stand on. The advert…