Event at the Prison

This week I've been fairly quiet. I was in court again on Tues 22nd however due to the proc lawyer being ill my case has been put back until next Tues, 29th, same place, same time. Jerry will be there by then and it will be great to have his support and, as with Glenn, he is also someone in all of this that I can totally trust.
Today was interesting. Glenn has been working on a project to build a court at the Mombasa Prison - this means that remand prisoners can appear in court on the prison compound instead of busing them into the court in the centre of Mombasa and then having to keep them in those dreaded cells until 5pm when they get bused back. So today was the grand opening. Lots of important people where there - I met the British High Commissioner from Nairobi who introduced me to the Deputy Justice Minister - the Hon Richard Onyonka. Richard listened to my story with great interest and has promised to help - so all good.
I also saw an exhibition of 'goodies' taken from Somali Pirate Ships that had been boarded by Kenyan police off the coast of Kenya. Lots of rifles, small arms, etc. Kenya is working hard with the West to fight the Somali Piracy problem - Mombasa is losing millions of Kenyan Shilling per year as a result of cruise ships being reluctant to sail through Kenyan waters to berth in Mombasa - the tourist revenue is very important to the economy so they are very keen to work with the West to resolve/reduce the threat of piracy.
An interesting point was made that the root cause of Somali Piracy is political - Somalia is in a bad way politically and economically and individuals will do anything to survive. The pirates are just one part of a huge money laundering circle - I was amazed last week to see a group of Somalis on the street in Mombasa changing money - they need to get rid of this currency as soon as possible - so effectively changing dirty money into clean. Trainers - that's a wee story for your Financial Crime Session lol
What else? Grace and I bought some material in Mombasa last Saturday - the equivalent of 90p a meter - and we took it to a local fundi (tailor in this case) on Monday past. He took our measurement and we pick up the dresses today - how's that for service. He took fifteen pounds to make two dresses - Next and River Island eat your heart out!! Although I haven't tried it on yet so the proof of the pudding and all that.
I think I mentioned on FaceBook that I had a visit on Monday from the two boys Nixon and George (Lucky) that I hosted in 2007. George is called Lucky because apparently before he was born times in his family were particularly hard however improved around the time of his birth so his Grandma christened him Lucky. It was great to see them, Nixon boards and was home on half term, George goes to school locally.. George is a good footballer and plays for Shanzu, he is keen that Jerry come watch him play. I have a feeling it is going to cost us the price of new football boots but that's OK.
Nixon and I spent Tues together - we had a lovely time. We bought some things for school and he took me to meet his family. Nixon made me a lovely wooden boat out of a suger cane to take home. Nixon is an artist and very creative, he is a lovely boy who works hard at school and at looking after his mum and his two younger siblings. His father left some time ago and Nixon built his mum an adobe house - only three sides - on a small piece of land where his aunt and uncle live.

OK that's it for now. Waiting for Tuesday and wish this was finally all over.