Nairobi woke to a public holiday, but Nyayo Highrise Ward did not sleep in. Loudspeakers were scarce; purpose was not. Tujiamini SportPesa and ETCO set a simple agenda — touch soil, move rubbish, remember.
Matatus ran thinner; some shops stayed shut. In Nyayo Highrise the louder sound was shovel scrape, not street party — people choosing work over lounging because the ward still had to breathe.
Shovels bit into banks where plastic bottles gather like bad habits. Waterways that should carry rain away had narrowed to trickles; unclogging them is slow, filthy, necessary work — the kind cameras skip until the flood proves why it mattered.
Between trees and trenches, we paused for those lost to rising water — faces named in families, not headlines. Grief and planting share the same hands: both insist the future must be different.
Later, children lined up for the feeding programme; adults carried parcels home to empty cupboards. If you were there, you know — a holiday can be a headline, or it can be sweat, sap on your shirt, and rice steam in your face. We chose the second.
Come back when we call for the next ward day — bring gloves, not speeches.
