In old age, most women play with their grandchildren in the
evening. But at 64, Rosemary Johns is still counting the number of men
she has slept with to make ends meet and raise her children.
Born and partly raised in Tanzania, Rosemary came to Nairobi where
the city’s unforgiving life saw her trekking up ‘Hooker Avenue’ for the
better part of two decades in the famous Gikomba, an area synonymous
with the oldest profession: pr0stitution.
That was in 1984 when a friend told her how well-paying flesh peddling was. She has never looked back.
“I got married at 16, but after some time in marriage, my husband
started neglecting us after I gave birth to five children,” recalls the
now mother of eight (two have since died and the rest are adults in
Tanzania).
“I could have had 10 children were it not for two miscarriages,”
reveals Rosemary who parted ways with her husband and became a barmaid
in Musoma, Tanzania, before relocating to Nairobi where “I joined some
women along Digo Road where we would wait for clients day and night and
charged Sh5 for our services.”
The price remained the same for more than five years “until it rose
to Sh50 and finally over Sh100 in early 2000s, depending on the
location,” explains Rosemary who estimates that she could handle up to
40 men “on a good day” and “between five and 10 men on a bad day.”
Rosemary says she operated for a year on the top floor of a
building along Nairobi’s Luthuli Avenue “waiting for clients,” while at
Gikomba, most women owned cubicles where clients were restricted to less
than 20 minutes a session
Many things have changed in the last 30 years as “nowadays I see
young girls joining us here and within days, they would be driving their
own vehicles or running businesses. Unfortunately, some of them steal
from customers. They make quick money and invest well, but compared to
years back, they are now too extreme even in their dressing. We used to
dress nicely without exposing our breasts or butts to attract men.”
Rosemary, a staunch baptised Christian who never misses church on
Sunday, is considering retirement because “nowadays we depend on
long-term customers. In fact, I had started small leso business
after getting Sh70,000 loan from a local bank, but fire razed down my
house and shop in March. Even my baptismal card and other documents were
burnt. That and other problems pushed me back to the business.”
The arrival of condoms according to Rosemary, was a nightmare to
her and her colleagues in the business because forcing a man to use it
was akin to sending him to another hooker.
“That saw a rise in s’exually transmitted diseases. But we had
Casino Dispensary on Rive Road, where such cases were treated,” she
says.
She reveals that, “Sleeping with more than 10 men for Sh50 each was
a windfall because making Sh500 in a day was the equivalent of earning
about Sh5000 today.”
She adds that, “It has been a long journey and I’ve slept with more
than 5,000 men in more than 20 years. I’ve been in the field, even my
children know it, and used to visit but when they grew up and started
their families, they stopped frequenting Nairobi.”
At the moment Rosemary has temporarily hung her ‘b00ts’ since she
lives with two grandchildren, but she has a similar house elsewhere to
keep the business going. She discloses that her loyal clients are the
ones she started with way back.
“It’s the fire tragedy and raising these children that forced me to go back to it again. Before the fire, I was buying kangas from
Mombasa and selling them in Nairobi. I had borrowed more than Sh70,000
from a local bank. I hope that things will change one day and God will
intervene along the way”, she said.
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