Bisa curled up on the mattress and pulled the shawl around her to keep out the cold. She wanted to shut her mind and just sleep, but no matter how hard she tried, her memories like gremlins, continued to tease her and remind her of days gone by......... Bisa was one of the many dwellers of a shanty town in Kenya. Though this particular shanty town was located very close to the bustling city centre, life here was a different story to those who lived in the city. Despite the hardships, the shanty dwellers had learnt to cope with the bare necessities, their trained eyes could spot the scraps and leftovers miles away and nothing was ever allowed to go to waste. With unemployment rife, the shanty town dwellers who found a job were considered the lucky ones. They could afford a few extra luxuries that the others only dreamt about. As Bisa struggled to keep warm, sleep evaded her eyes and she remembered the scene when Doris had reluctantly handed her the shawl. Doris was the woman Bisa worked for. It took a lot for Doris to anything away easily, well, unless every nook and cranny in her house was clean, the food cooked and all her clothes ironed. Even then, her eyes would constantly scan the house for a new task for Bisa to do, money had to be earned, Doris thought and it definitely did not grow on trees. One day she mentioned to Bisa that she needed a new shawl and wanted to throw away the old one. Bisa, in a hesitant voice had asked if she could have it. Taken aback at this, Doris had shown her displeasure by saying, 'I give you enough as it is, and by the way the kitchen does not seem as clean as it should be'. She had walked away muttering to herself and Bisa had mechanically walked to the kitchen to check it again. Everything seemed to be as it should be but to keep Doris happy she went over all the surfaces again and mopped the floor until she could see her own reflection in it. Bisa recalled how she had felt when she saw the tired little face peering back at her, not the face of a twenty two year old woman but that of an old and tired woman. She had looked away quickly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Doris had walked in the kitchen afterwards, inspecting everything and though her face did not seem happy she had given her old shawl to Bisa. "This cost me nearly six hundred shillings when I bought it!" she had reminded Bisa, her voice rising as she spoke. This rare moment of generosity had taken Bisa by surprise and she kept repeating "Asante Mama, Asante Mama" until Doris had waved at her to leave her in irritation. For Bisa, the shawl meant a lot as she now had something to cover her body with on the cold nights that always took Kenya by surprise. Normally a hot country, the residents were never really prepared for the cold months with no heating or carpeting to ward off the cold. Bisa had thanked Doris and did an extra twenty minutes cleaning just in case Doris changed her mind and wanted her shawl back. As she pulled it around her, she could smell on it the perfume Doris sprayed around herself, usually this pungent smell put Bisa off but tonight she was too tired and cold to turn her nose away. She remembered the happy times with her husband and how their lives changed when she lost him. With him also went everything else they had possessed. Left alone to fend for herself she did not want to go back and live in her maternal village, where they already struggled to survive. The last thing they would want is another mouth to feed so Bisa stayed in her husband's shelter in the shanty town. Fate seemed to smile at her when she found a cleaning job with Doris and this had helped to pay for food and other necessities of day to day life. Working for Doris was never easy, being a difficult woman to please and there were times she would travel home and just fall into bed, exhausted and too tired to eat after the long day. She knew she had to start work early the next morning but her memories flitted in and out of her mind like a film being played. She remembered her life as a young child growing up in the slums, her teenage years when she had met her husband and his death a few years later with cholera. Her cold tears dried on her cheeks as she started succumbing to sleep. She recalled the warmth of his body lying next to hers and how comforting his arms were around her body. With this thought, Bisa finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. The next morning as the residents of the shanty awoke; they found Bisa's dead body, wrapped tight in her shawl. There was a smile on her face.