Sophisticated and classy: Meet the new female pimps in Nairobi town

I was contemplating what to tackle this week when aWhatsApp beeped. It was a message from someone we’ll call Wendy, whom I have not seen around since 2011, when she was 30.

‘Wendy,’ I texted, wondering where she’d gotten my number ‘kwani ulifungwa massage parlor?’ As it turns out, Wendy is actually running a brothel full of whores in some rented apartment.

‘I have many girls,’ she texted, ‘Kenyan, Tanzanian, Indian, Ethiopians and Somalians (sic). I know you know many people. Please share this information with your networks.’

So here we are!
I was a bit perplexed why Wendy would imagine my ‘networks’ are the kind where I can recommend harlots to my homies, most of whom are either literary or watu wa mpira tuu. I tried to think back to when we’d hang out the odd Sunday with many other ‘rockers,’ but all I could see through the misty haze of memory was lots of colourless bottles of spirits, and almost zero kinky action with that crowd, high on hope and rock lyrics, back at the turn of the 2010s.
For sure, though, remembering Wendy, I felt sure most of those exotic ‘imports’ she’s touting will turn out to be mostly from Kamba-land, the ‘nimethoka njana Undies Ham Bamba  na He Thopia Hairlines.’

Why is Wendy running a brothel, though? I don’t know, but I did read a report earlier on in the week about how thanks to corona, poverty, idle time, sugar daddies (who still uses that word, siku hizi ni ‘sponsor’ ama budesko) and lack of sanitary towels, high school girls last year were trading their sexuality for money.

Hence, the high rate of school girl pregnancies that CS Magoha has vowed will not stop schooling under the trees!
Wendy, last I had heard of her, was a marketer hotelier. From her advertising poster with words like ‘serene and ample ambience,’ ‘wide assortment of drinks and snacks’ and ‘site visits with our international escorts,’ I suspect kazi yake ya hoteli ilikunywa maji, and hawking sexuality is her new way of making ends meet in this Narobi.

It immediately made me think of my 33-year old lady buddy we’ll call Lydia. Lydia ‘cleared’ from Kenya Mass a decade ago, and quickly got a job as a cub reporter in the media for a paltry sum, but said she was determined to ‘grow her brand’ and ‘blow up big.’ Two years later, the magazine she was working for was bought by South Africans, and the Kenyans got retrenched.

Being a fairly visually aesthetically pleasing young lady, after a year out just ‘smoking weed,’ Lydia landed a job as an anchor at a small TV station. ‘They said I will ‘expand the brand’ and be the next Lillian Muli,’ Lydia told us enthusiastically, and threw all her waking hours at the job.

After two years, she was replaced by a younger, hotter but lazier wannabe that she swore was ‘mdosi’s mistress.’
It was then that she joined a mainstream media company – until, at thirty, and with a newborn daughter, Lydia was laid off in ‘early retirement.’

‘Who is retired at 30?’ she said incredulously. ‘And where is my wheelbarrow, anyway?’ Three years down the line, Lydia runs mobile sex parties, which are also BYOB for ‘The Boyz.’ She gets a place for like 25K a night, gets like 10 guys paying 10K each, gets like ten college girls (who pretend they are just naughty erotic girls at the bash) but pays them 5 K each to ‘fall for/have sex’ with the excited guests – ‘and that’s how I make like 100 K a month.’

Cate, a 26-year old receptionist, simply does what she calls ‘tricks and (dick) deals.’ ‘Tricks’ are when she goes out herself on Fridays and Saturdays (in December, she ‘tricked’ a famous trade unionist, minor politician, Cameroonian and Depressed Married Dude at Bar), and gets on average five thao per trick.

Then she has recruited four other really young ladies into what she calls ‘deals.’ Where she basically pimps them out through social media for five thao too, but gets to keep two per ‘deal.’ ‘Salo yangu ni thirty thao,’ Cate says. ‘Na rent yangu ni thirty. Sasa Uhunye ana-expect tukule na tuzunguke aje Nairobi?’

It is a fair question to ask a chap who says Wannabe Mobutus are eating two BILLION bob daily.

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