Kibera Reflection

September 24, 2008

Today I went to Kibera Slum with my fellow MSID students Meghann, Lindsey, Chelsey and Rebecca. As Meghann and I walked down the only road that leads into Kibera, she pointed out to me that the area in which we were walking had all been burned down in the post-election violence. We walked through a market called Toi Market that went on for blocks in densely constructed stands selling everything from cell phone minutes, winter coats, jeans, shirts, shoes, candy and much more. This market was completely destroyed in the post-election violence yet today there are few hints of what this area looked like just 8 months before. Kibera Slum is comprised primarily of people from the Luo ethnic group and the Nubian people who were brought by
the British out of the Sudan to fight instead of British troops in the days of colonization. Kibera as a slum has been around since the time of the First World War. The land in which Kibera Slum now lies was once an expansive forest. The Nubian people settled in Kibera because they were a people without a land of their own.

Over the years, Kibera Slum developed into an incredibly dense slum area consisting of people from a variety of ethnic groups. These ethnic groups have organized into "villages" within the congested slum. As a result of the post-election violence, many of the Kikuyus who lived in Kibera fled. Kenyan President Kibaki comes from the Kikuyu ethnic group. Prime Minister Odinga comes from the Luo ethnic group. In Kenya, elections do not simply bring changes in administration and policies, elections can mean the difference between life and death. Since independence, the presidents of Kenya have historically favored the land of their ethnic group. Resources are concentrated in this area and they get good roads, hospitals, schools and other luxuries. As one area of the country is favored, others are consequently neglected. These neglected areas often have very few schools, and the schools that do exist are under-funded. In the northern third of Kenya, there still remains less than 20 schools and even less secondary schools. 90 % of school-age girls do not attend
schools in a country where primary education has been made "free" and compulsory by the government. The education may be free but there are still building fees, teacher fees, uniforms, textbooks, mandatory field trips and other expenses that families struggle to afford. Kibera Slum today has anywhere from 1.4 to 1.9 million occupants. In a place like Kibera it is difficult to determine just how many people reside. Most estimates are derived from doing a sampling of some houses to see how many occupants live in a certain area and then multiplying that by the area. Most small houses that are no bigger than 15 ft by 15 ft often have five or more residents.

We arrived in Kibera around 2pm and met up with Meghann's friend and coworker Cartoon. We purchased a bag of beans and rice from a local vendor which we carried with us in our backpacks. We made a turn off the main road through a thin pathway that led down a rocky terrain. As we walked we were constantly greeted by young children playing in the streets or on their way home from school. "Mzungu!" could be heard in all directions and word spread quickly that a group of white people were walking around. Every time we encountered children they would say, "how are you!?" "How are you" is not a question but has become assimilated into the jargon of the children as a substitute for "mzungu" or white person. They would often repeat "How are you! How are you! How are you!" until we were well past them.

We stopped soon at a local shop of men who knew Cartoon. They welcomed us in as we approached from afar yelling "Karibuni!" (welcome). The one man Frederick welcomed us at the entrance with open arms and greeted all of us with a customary handshake. Frederick told us how this was a shop where they recycled bones. They receive the bones from the local butcher and then grind and polish them into shapes that they use to make jewelry. He showed us every step in the jewelry making process. There are three different machines they use to smooth the bones and shape them into round, square and custom shapes.
They boil the bone pieces which helps in the dyeing process. They dye the pieces in various designs and use them to make bracelets, necklaces, key chains and other pieces of jewelry. He brought out several of his finished pieces but insisted that each one of us take a bracelet as a gift from him. Two of the girls ended up buying other jewelry from him for very fair prices. Here is a man who lives in the second largest slum in the world, yet he insisted that we have a
bracelet. He also sold the other jewelry to the girls for the equivalent of less than $3 US. The jewelry they bought was beautifully handmade and decorated and would sell for no less than $30 in the US. We stopped to take pictures of our new friends and their business before continuing on our tour.

We walked around the railroad tracks that run through Kibera Slum encountering more children and more shouts of "How are you!" I asked if they were still in use and Cartoon told us that the tracks we were walking on are the only railroad tracks that link the coast to the central provinces. The railroad tracks were constructed by the British for the sole purpose of transporting tea and coffee from the Rift Valley to the coast for export. As a common theme in Kenya, the resources are exploited and exported out of the country with Kenya
receiving minimum return. We stopped to take pictures at a point that overlooked the majority of the slum. On the top of the hill were new developments that were built by the government as part of slum renovation projects. The developments lack proper sanitation but are an upgrade from the tin roof shanties that people live in. On the surface these developments seem like a great improvement until you speak with the people who live in Kibera. The government wants to charge people 5,000 KSH ($70 US) a month to live in the developments – a price that is out of reach for almost all of the residents of Kibera Slum.

Our next stop was the only "movie theater" in Kibera. We entered through a short doorway into a dark room. As our eyes adjusted we saw about 15 wooden benches. The walls of this movie theater consisted of tree branch cross beams and cut-up sacks. In the front of the room sat a small TV no larger than 30 inches on a stand with a DVD player and VCR. People pay 20 KSH (about 29 cents) to see a movie or football (soccer game) televised on TV. For a big football match people pay up to 40 KSH (about 57 cents) to watch. This kind of movie theater was vastly different than the typical movie theaters in the U.S. where
people pay close to $10 to see a movie in padded stadium seating on a gigantic screen with surround sound as they snack on their over-priced popcorn and 64 oz. soda.

Our next stop was to visit with a family. The woman welcomed us warmly and insisted that we enter her home and sit down and talk. The room was dark with no light except for the natural sunlight that came in through the doorway. The house was a one-room house no larger than 10 ft. by 10 ft. The woman wanted to know about each one of us and what we were doing in Kenya. She told us about her family and her life. She was born and raised in Kibera and has lived there her entire life. Her grandfather and all of the subsequent generations have lived in Kibera. Her family is Nubian – originally from Sudan and brought to
Kenya by the British. Her grandfather settled in Kibera when the Nubian people had nowhere else to live. The woman told us how Kibera was not always as congested and densely populated as it is today. When her family settled in Kibera, it was still a vast forest. Over the years, the area became populated by people with no other option than to live with next to nothing in a shanty. Most homes in Kibera have walls of stones mixed with mud and supported by a frame of sticks. The roofs are comprised of rusting tin sheets. For this particular woman, she shares a wall with the movie theater with only a cut-up sack between.

The woman we spoke with was Muslim and described her fasting during Ramadan. She showed us her Ramadan timetable of when she begins fasting each day and when she is allowed to break the fast. She told us that a part of Ramadan is giving money to the poor which is called Zakar. She told us how she saves money to give to the less fortunate. As she said this I sat there amazed at her words. This is a woman who lives in a one-room house in the middle of the second largest slum in the world and yet she donates money to give to those who are less fortunate than she is. How relative the perception of poverty is. Not one time during our conversation with the woman did she ever hint at
bitterness regarding her situation or living conditions. She reminded us that generations before her lived in Kibera and then told us how she has a young son who was born and will be raised in Kibera. She told us that she cannot leave because this is the only place she and her family have ever known. She encouraged us to pass by the cemetery on the outskirts of Kibera because she said that it will be the place where she will one day rest along with her relatives who have come before her. We said our good-byes and presented her with the bag of rice and beans that we purchased earlier. She was very gracious and insisted that we come back and visit with her so that she could cook us dinner.

On official government maps, the area of Kibera Slum is still shown as a forest – evidence of the fact that the Kenyan government refuses to recognize Kibera. The official government stance regarding Kibera is that the homes are illegal structures on government land in which the government can do whatever it wishes – and it does. It is a frequent occurrence that the government will come in and bulldoze homes or shops. When the developments were constructed, homes were demolished to make way.

The river that runs through Kibera was once plentiful with fish and was clean enough to drink from. Now the river is polluted with garbage. The fish are long gone and the water is no longer safe to drink. People have built latrines on the banks of the river and when the latrines overflow it empties into the river. Children can be seen picking through the garbage on the banks of the river looking for something valuable or edible. We crossed a bridge that Cartoon said
was built by a religious NGO as part of a peace building project to bring the different villages within Kibera together. We hiked up a very steep hill to one of the highest parts of Kibera. At this point we were near the new government developments. From this distance we could see that these developments remained vacant because none of the people who the program was targeting could afford to live in them. As we walked along the top of the hill, there was a large amount of unoccupied space which is a rarity in the congested slum. Cartoon said that the government had demolished these homes. People who lived in these homes rebuilt nearby but now use this land to have simple gardens on their old properties.

We made our way slowly down the hill to another bridge over the river. As we struggled to make it down the steep decline, we were greeted with giggles and more shouts of "how are you" by the young children. When we stood on the bridge to rest we looked up and saw about a dozen school kids running and jumping down the hill that just took us about 10 minutes to descend. From here our tour of Kibera was just about over. I stopped to take a picture of Flat Stanley who was given to me by one of my coworkers at CRS. Flat Stanley is part of a project that grade school kids participate in to learn more about the world and other cultures. At the end of our tour we came across a woman who Cartoon knows named Pamela. She greeted each of us and welcomed us into her shop. She told us that she is HIV positive and proud of her status. She works with several other HIV positive women in a self-sustaining business in which they make crafts and sell them. They use the money to fund HIV/AIDS awareness and education programs in Kibera. From the outside Pamela appears perfectly healthy. She has high spirits, is enthusiastic and is not ashamed to say that she has HIV. In fact, she showed us a public health poster encouraging people to find out their HIV status in which she is prominently featured. For many people who are HIV positive, they suffer from the stigma that is associated with having HIV. With Pamela, she is a woman who has embraced her status and is using it to educate others about HIV prevention and being aware of their status.

Our final stop in Kibera was at Tunza Children Center Kibera. The Tunza Center is an orphanage that houses approximately 80 children. The center serves over 200 orphans with the majority living with relatives. The Tunza Center provides a primary education for the children and has ten small classrooms. One of the teachers gave us a tour of the center and showed us the various classrooms, dormitories and facilities. In the dormitories, no bed has less than 2 children
sleeping in it. After one of the teachers showed us around, the girls went inside to watch TV with some of the children. I went outside and played football (soccer) with some of the little boys I found. Their soccer ball was a bunch of plastic bags bunched together and tied with string. We had a lot of fun regardless. I started kicking the ball around with one boy but by the time I had to leave there were 8 of us playing. Our "field" was no more than a 15 ft by 6 feet area with the door to the orphanage as our goal and a 3 year old boy as our goal
keeper.

One of the teachers walked us to the bus stop around 4:30pm. We had to leave before it started to get dark. All of us got on a matatu to Prestige Plaza. The four of us parted ways there each in our own direction towards our homes. Each one of us came away from Kibera seeing and noting different things. Each one of us was incredibly humbled and moved by what we saw. This experience is something I will never forget and I hope to go back to Kibera several other times while I am in Nairobi. Throughout the whole afternoon as we walked around Kibera, not one person ever asked us for money or tried to sell us something. Each person we encountered welcomed us warmly and seemed to genuinely appreciate our company. This experience has given me a lot to reflect on and I know that I will use what I have learned in Kibera throughout my life.