Week 3
in Nairobi and I still haven’t set foot in the heart of the city. Nor
have I been to the Museum. I console myself with the fact that the CBD is
rarely the most interesting part of any city – the quick drive I have done
through the centre of ‘town’, as it is called, revealed the kinds of tall
buildings, busy roads and even glittering casino one might expect in most
cities. Not that I don’t want to explore further - but I have just been
so busy exploring the other parts of Nairobi that I haven’t made it there yet!
Most
of my time so far has been spent walking or driving between interviews, of
which I have had many (but more on that later). One of the best things
about visiting lawyers, NGO workers, UNHCR and government officials is that
their offices – or alternatively, the cafes they suggest we meet in – are all
over Nairobi. I walk when I can – this is still a relative novelty after
being in Jo’burg. Nairobi definitely feels like a calmer safer to walk
around in, though I would still never go out at night. While security
abounds, I am told this is not due to general crime; rather it is largely a
response to the few terrorist bombings carried out in the city by Al-Shabab in
the last year or so. Perhaps I have been in Africa too long, but this
actually makes me feel safer. When it gets too hot I buy fruit salad from
a roadside stall and put up my umbrella as sun protection. When I get too
dusty and sweaty I look for a shopping centre with a Java House or Dormans café
to recuperate. And when the distances are longer, or I am not quite sure
where I am going, I travel with George, my taxi driver.
The
streets in Nairobi’s suburbs are lovely. At the risk of repeating myself,
they are so green! Huge old trees, grass, vines, hedges and
brightly coloured flowers everywhere. Many gardens still display a very
definitely British sensibility – the house just up the road from where I am staying
could be straight out of the Cotswolds. But a lot the greenery is wild
and sprawling, and it’s often hard to believe you are in a city at all.
The state of the roads themselves has the same effect. Many look like the
have not been attended to for decades, and the extent of the potholes, some of
them several feet deep, makes driving in a straight line nearly impossible.
Last
weekend I venture a little further afield, with a visit to Kibera. Even
if you have never heard of Kibera you will probably feel like you have seen it
a hundred times. It is the quintessential image of poor Africa – an inner
city slum full of dust, rubbish, open sewerage, barefoot children, makeshift
homes and a few animals. As well as being the largest slum in Africa, it
is apparently the most studied, owing to the fact that it is so close to the
CBD and UN-HABITAT’s office is nearby. Many of the homes here have
neither running water nor sewerage and unemployment is apparently somewhere
around 40%.
On the
one hand I think it is important to acknowledge and address the level of
poverty that many people in Africa live in. In fact, getting a better
understanding of what life is like under these circumstances is one of the main
reasons I have wanted to come here for so long. I’ve always believed (or
hoped) that if everyone in the world was forced to come face to face with these
realities they would not be allowed to continue. But having now spent
some time here and having visited Kibera, I feel less sure that perpetuating the
image of the poor, helpless Africa is very helpful at all.
Certainly
Kibera is a place of extreme poverty – there are single mothers there who spend
their days offering to wash other women’s clothes for a sum of about 100
shillings – less than a dollar. And there are children who will catch and
suffer from diseases that could be easily prevented or treated in better
conditions. But most of the people I saw during my visit were anything
but passive victims of their surroundings. Kibera is a hive of activity
and a vibrant breeding ground for small businesses and other entrepreneurial
activities. Many of the shanty-type homes in Kibera double as shopfronts,
selling everything from homemade soaps to pre-paid mobile credit to chapatis.
Kibera
is on the list of places to which both the Lonely Planet and Australian
government advise against travel. This is ironic – according to my guide
Frankie (and verified with others I have spoken to since) Kibera is one of the
safest places in Nairobi, due to the local community’s ‘people power’.
‘People power’ is a slightly euphemistic term for describing the fact that
anyone caught stealing in Kibera will be set upon by a group of locals and,
more often than not, killed for their crime. This is apparently a
result of the community’s impatience and frustration with local police and
justice mechanisms. Unsurprisingly, it has vastly reduced the amount of
crime, at least during the day.
The
other thing that struck me about my visit to Kibera is the fact that so much of
Nairobi is not like Kibera. In many ways, it is a booming
city. There are good universities here, a growing economy and lots of
development – those given the opportunity could really make a go of it.
In fact my guide Frankie grew up and still lives in Kibera. He was
sponsored by an NGO to attend school and is now studying towards an accounting
degree at the University of Nairobi – he shows people around his home town as a
part time job to help him through his studies. No doubt, education is
key. That’s why on Friday I plan to return to Kibera and spend the day
volunteering at one of the local primary schools. I might just have to
teach them how to sing Happy Birthday!
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| One of the lovely suburban roads where I spend my days walking. |
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| Entrance to the British Institute of East Africa, my Nairobi home. |
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| Bus stop in Karen, the suburb named after Karen Blixen (Out of Africa) |
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| Tree signs are one of my favourite features of the African urban landscape. |
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There is every kind of religion in Kenya - in the morning I wake alternatively
to church bells and the call to prayer at the nearby mosque |
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Kibera - Africa's largest slum. The apartments behind are being built as part of the
upgrade/development program, but Frankie explained to me that they are unaffordable for most
Kibera residents, costing about $30 a month (between 2 and 6 times the costs of rent in Kibera itself). |
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| The railway line through Kibera is still used by passenger and freight trains. |
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This is Modest, who works with women in Kibera to make
jewellery and other handicrafts for sale at Pam's curio shop |
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| Homemade soaps for sale - these soaps are made by people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS |
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I now understand why everyone returns from Africa with photos of children - they love having
their photo taken! Kibera Tours, through whom I arranged my visit, have a quite strict photo
policy, only allowing photos at certain stops during the visit. Frankie made an exception
in this case, after the kids begged for me to take their photos! |
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The kids love being photographed, but they love even
more seeing their images on the camera view screen afterwards. |
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| I think this little fella saw himself as our mini security guide - here he is chasing off some of the bigger kids. |
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| The view from inside a Kibera home - the mzungu lady is an intriguing sight in Kibera.. |
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| Women doing their washing together at a community water source. |
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Almost every second wall or fence in Kibera has an NGO's logo on it. There are
apparently over 800 NGOs working in this area, only some of the working well. |
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| The Bead Factory. This factory buys cow, goat and camel bones from butchers and slaughterhouses and turns them into jewellery. It's a remarkable use of limited resources, though the dust and smell of bones is a bit overwhelming! |
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| It's not only the kids who love having their photo taken! |
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What would Workcover say about this.... The head of the factory proudly showed me the scars
on his hand, suggesting they are some kind of mark of achievement for workers. I'm not so sure...
This worker is making little turtle shapes from the bone - you can see a pile forming on the floor. |
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| And this is the end result! |
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| Toi Market - this market is all that separates Kibera from one of Nairobi's expensive, middle-class suburbs/ |
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| Toi Market |
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| Coal is sold here for about ten cents a bucket. It will be used for heating and cooking. |
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| I don't know about you, but this sign somehow just doesn't inspire confidence in me.... |
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Most of the dogs I see or hear in Nairobi are guard dogs. Judging by
this fella's wagging tail, he is not very good at his job. |
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| The road home to my guesthouse at the end of the day... |
