Spend a penny in Kenya

(men's urinals were free of charge!) H. Lewis's Strange Story, mentions: "'Us girls,' she said, 'are going to spend a penny!' " Things changed after the price went up to two pence in the 1970’s.

Spending a penny is an old British saying from the 1850’s, as most women’s public toilets required a penny open the lock. Nowadays you need to spend about 8 cents if you want to ablute in the townships of Nairobi, Kenya. A clever African entrepreneur has spotted a gap and set up a ‘toilet mall’, enabling him to earn his bread and butter from other peoples waste. This is a giant step forward, as Nairobi had sadly become notorious for its famed ‘Kenyan Flying Toilets’. Residents would poo in a plastic shopping bag and swing it around their heads before releasing in their favourite neighbours direction. Fortunately this habit has not caught on locally, probably because our informal toilet needs are taken care of by Sannitree, who are still heavily involved in treating and disposing of waste in a more traditional manner. In fact some amazing opportunities were created for a couple of hard working entrepreneurs that live in the informal sector