What does your child do at night?

Parents who wish the family goodnight after dinner would be frightened to death if they knew what some of their children do in town at night, writes Crazy Monday Correspondent

Some time back, a man who was confident that his 16-year-old son was in boarding school was shocked to learn that the Form Two student had been gunned down when police confronted armed thugs.

Like most parents, he had no idea that his son led a double life — part student, part gangster.

A look at entertainment in Nairobi spots reveals that many parents have no idea that their children are up to no good.

Cash and fun

It is 10pm. I make my way through Biashara Street as twilight girls strut to impress. Women as young as 16 are haggling over prices like seasoned veterans. A small girl tags onto my arm and smiles. I offer to buy her a drink. After a few bottles, she opens up.

“I am 18,” she says proudly, and to prove it, she produces her national ID.

She says she is a student at a city college and stays with her single mother in Donholm estate.

“So why do you do this?” I inquire innocently.

“I have to get extra cash. Most of my college mates have lots of money from their parents. I have to fit in,” she says.

She introduces me to her friend Aisha who is new and still learning the ropes. She’s only 17 so the older girls take advantage of her. She is in it for fun.

“Fun?” I ask, disbelief written all over my face.

“Yes! My friends told me it is cool and I can make some money,” she explains excitedly.

“Do you know the risks?” I ask, alarmed.

“Of course, but I carry my own pack of condoms. Furthermore, the government says AIDS has decreased, so the risks are lower,” she replies, while innocently jawing on a wad of gum.

Her parents know she leaves ‘very early for school’ so they can never tell whether she is in her room or not.

A middle-aged man comes in and they dive for him.

I walk to the washrooms and on the way out; I strike a conversation with a middle-aged security guard.

“Sometimes I sit here and watch these young girls and shudder. Some are my children’s age mates,” he says.

He points at a group of three girls and an old man seated at a table.

‘Those girls don’t even have IDs. They are not even 18. Not all are prostitutes. Some just want easy money, so they drug their clients. Like that old man has most likely been drugged. One will volunteer to take him to a room, where she will empty his pockets,” he says with the resignation of one who has seen it all.

Massages

I excuse myself and cross the street towards a big hotel where word has it that male ‘services’ are offered. Young men, barely out of their teens, are gathered in groups waiting for the exclusive women and men who need ‘massages’, never mind that most know nothing about massages.

I approach one young man sitting alone. He stands up.

“What goes?” I ask.

He thinks I’m a customer and quickly gives me the rates. They charge between Sh5,000 and 10,000. I say I am a journalist and he takes off with a look of fear in his face. He looks barely 20.

Another approaches. He looks stoned. He tells me he is 19, a university student who lives with his family in Kilimani. He is here because he has to pay gambling debts.

He says most of his ‘colleagues’ are students out to make money. Some are on drugs while others want to live large. It is, however, risky, since some male clients are violent, but on good outings, he makes as much as Sh50,000 a night. He says he now drives himself to college. His father thinks he deals in shares, so he doesn’t ask questions.

“How old are you guys generally?” I ask.

“Mostly between 16 and 30. Most clients prefer the young ones — not older than 20,” he says nonchalantly.

I decide to check out two other clubs. Here, most of the revelers are young women who don’t appear interested in men. The bartender lets on that most are not hookers. In fact, some are damn rich.

Run wild

‘They deal in women, and illegal gems,” he tells me.

He points at a group of six young women at a corner and says he knows them since he occasionally acts as their go-between. They are given fake gems to sell to unsuspecting clients, whom they drug and then steal the gems from, which they re-sell to other clients. They also ‘run wild’ on behalf of their owners, he says.

To run wild, I’m told, is to hook rich married women into lesbian sex, which is filmed for blackmail and extortion. They might be required to part with money or steal crucial information about their husbands’ jobs or businesses. He tells me they are mostly university or college students who do this.

“I bet their parents don’t know. I have seen one of them come here with her mum for lunch and they seemed like a happy family,” he adds.

Intern

Since none will talk to me, I decide to go for a striptease. I pay for a single strip and get a chance to talk to the girl. She tells me she is 18. She works as an intern during the day at a sales company. She has just finished college and is trying to move out of her parent’s home.

“What they pay me is peanuts. In fact, it only meets my transport and meals in the company cafeteria. Here I make ends meet,” she says.

I ask her whether it ends with stripping. At first she looks uneasy, then leans over her shoulder, just in case someone is listening.

“We strip and get paid for it, but we have ‘owners’ (pimps) here who watch over us and ensure we sleep with men for a fee. He pockets some of the money and the rest is mine,” she says.

“Do all you girls do this for money?” I ask.

“Well, not all. Like that one,” she says, pointing her mouth towards a girl, “lives with her parents in Kasarani and is a student. She is just here for the fun. In fact, her parents bought her a car when she turned 19,” she says as she walks off.

Gigolos

I decide to spend a part of my night at a club on Standard Street where I was told masculinity meets femininity. Here, the men are professional gigolos, but are they men?

“Very few are men,” says Mark, a fulltime gigolo at the club. “Most are young boys who have been introduced into it by their friends. They are what most mature women want.”

One clean-shaven woman offers me a drink, thinking I’m one of the boys. I accept and she sits next to me. She offers me Sh2,000 for a quick fling in her car. At this point, I disclose my identity. She is shaken.

“Will you put me in the press?” she asks

“No,” I lie.

She tells me her husband is a businessman in Uganda. She is a regular here.

“I love these hot 20-year-olds, though I would hate it if my son ever did the same,” she hisses viciously.

A young man walks over and she gives him a peck.

“Meet Maurice,” she says.

It is nearing 3am. I head home, and on my way to the bus stage, I meet all these young people struggling to get a matatu — maybe to make it home before their parents wake up.