The day after leaving Motherly Care we had to be up very early as it was a day of Juliet's case in court. We were really tired from the move and the events that preceded it... However by 5am we were up and got ready. As we were in a new place I didn't even know where we needed to go to get the bus. Luckily the teacher here - Daniel offered to walk with us and to ensure we got on the correct bus. I was very grateful for that. We were supposed to arrive at the court by 7.30am (the court does not start until 9am but we needed time for Juliet to go through her statement as it has been quite few months since the case begun and we didn't even have the copies of her statements). Unfortunately, when we got on the bus after very short while we were stuck in terrible traffic jam... We were getting more and more stressed as the time was ticking by and we were moving very, very slowly... On top of that I forgot my mobile so couldn't communicate with John to let him know that we are delayed. But I had to get in touch with him somehow so I decided to act like a Kenyan and asked the guy sitting next to me to let me use his phone. I offered to pay for the call but he was really nice and helpful and did not want it - instead he was trying to explain me how we can get to the court, as we needed to take another bus once we arrived in town.
In the end we got to the court for around 9am but it all worked out quite well as Juliet's case was one of the last ones... But that's where the good luck stopped.
Once the magistrate arrived, she went through all the cases due for that day and postponed them all except for one. It was very disappointing for us as coming to court is really stressful for Juliet. What's even worse is that they moved the case back to 13th of April... So we have to wait another 3 months while the person we are trying to prosecute is walking free... The law in Kenya is really different than that in Europe - the guy just paid around £1000 bail (yes, he is quite rich for Kenyan standards) and he is free, nobody really cares he probably continues to do what we want him to be jailed for.
My Italian friend was also with us at the court as she is the one completing Juliet's documentary - she hid her camcorder to get some more material for the film but we didn't get anything. It was a complete waste of time coming all that way just to be told we have to come back in April.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by the prosecutor's attitude towards us (obviously we went to complain about postponing the case for such long time), he really took time to answer all of our questions (not sure of it was because he is really symphatising with Juliet's case or because we were 2 white women and he didn't want any problems). He also got us copies of all statements submitted to court which means now Juliet can prepare herself better for April.
I am really hoping that in April we will actually get the result we are looking for. By then the case will have been going for over 1 year and nothing really has been done so far...
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