A Jinn encounter in Nairobi

This happened around the last four months of 2019. I was a highschool student living with an aunt in an apartment, one of our neighbours had lived there for decades and she was so old, she lived there before I was born and still looks the same age and everyone thought she was a bit creepy and there were stories about how she's a "mchawi" or an evil witch in other words.... I've never believed in such stories and dismissed them as slander.

Our school system was kind of strict throughout the whole country and had to wake up at 5am so that I could catch the bus at 6am. But I used to be a performative jerk and set my alarm at 4am so that I could watch anime before classes....

That day I woke up a few minutes before the alarm and when I opened my eyes I just stared at the chair where I placed my school uniform and homework and saw a weird shape kind of like a shadow sitting on top of my clothes and books and it was shaped like a monkey sitting down with long ears that kind of looked like horns. It felt like it was staring at me. It was still dark so I thought I just saw my things arranged in a weird way, so I tried to look closer and that thing literally looked like it ran under my door and disappeared....

I was freaking out at that point and I scrambled to switch on the lights and there was nothing there so I got ready as usual and went to school. I tried telling people what I saw but everyone said that I was hallucinating, and I was convinced...

About a week later, I was late and the bus was waiting for me, my aunt wasn't around and she left with the keys and the gate is usually locked with a padlock. I had to go and ask a neighbour for the keys and I went to that creepy old woman's house for the keys, I only went there because her granddaughter is my friend. When she finally answered the door, I swear it was not a human being. It was a short wrinkly thing and the skin was pale pink and talons for nails and it stunk so bad with ears looking like horns, it reminded me of the figure I saw the week before.... I froze, I'm not the type of person to scream or run I just freeze. The thing that shocked me back into my senses was the hoot of the bus on the front gate. I don't know what was going through my mind so I asked for the keys and it gave me the keys, when I tried to grab it it kind of held my hand trying to pull me in but not with force so I yanked that creepy ass hand and ran to the gate...

I unlocked the gate and remembered that I have to go back and return the keys, I couldn't just leave them outside, so I went back knocked on the door again and this time , the creepy old lady answered the door, I said thanks for the keys and returned it and she did the same thing again, grabbed my hand like she's trying to pull me inside the house but not with force so I yanked it again and ran to the bus...

I tried telling people again but a few believed me , one of them said that it's a Jinn and it's common is the slum areas especially, he advised me to go and stay with my friend because I saw that shit twice and he said I might either go crazy or just die, so I tried convincing my aunt and mom because shit I don't want to go crazy, I'd rather die but not go crazy, but they refused so I asked the guy again for advice and he said, pretend you haven't seen anything at all and I agreed because what more choices did I have?

So I ignored and tried to forget about it and I never slept with my lights off again, and I started looking into spirituality because I thought it was the only solution and everything was great until like a month later when I was just meditating and felt a hand squeezing my legs , and I think that traumatised me for a bit because I think I passed out and I woke up the next day not feeling like myself at all...

I haven't had any encounters since but I wake up every day extremely early and it's always at 4am or 3am.

Posted May 7, 2026, 12:38 PM UTC

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