The rainy season

We went to Kibera a couple of days after the new session of Parliament began. I think KJ wanted to remind us that the deal brokered between Kibaki and Raila doesn't mean that everything has gone back to normal for Kenyans.

Kibera is an informal settlement about the size of Central Park which wraps across the southern edge of Nairobi. It's the oldest slum in the world and remains the largest in Africa. There are many other slums built on the periphery Nairobi, but none really compares to Kibera. Nobody is particularly sure how many people live there, as the government hardly recognizes the existence of its residents. Most reliable estimates put the population over one million at this point.

Kibera residents represent about ¼ of the population of Nairobi, a ratio that continues to grow as families and young girls migrate from rural areas in search of work and are forced to settle in slums when they can't afford the scarce housing in the city proper. Half of Kibera's residents live below the poverty line, but there isn't really the misery and squalor you would expect under such conditions. Many people commute downtown and work regular jobs as shopkeepers, security guards, hawkers, matatu drivers, construction workers, tailors, and domestic workers. Whether people live in small concrete structures or tiny huts made of mud or corrugated tin, they keep their living space extremely clean. This does not change the fact that living conditions in Kibera are some of the worst in the world; there is a severe shortage of space, shelter, jobs, food, sanitation, schools, and healthcare. It wouldn't be a huge exaggeration to say that this is what led me to study development and brought me to Nairobi. The slums represent a huge violation of human rights, but continue to be overlooked by national governments as well as the international community. It's the paradigmatic example of environmental injustice, where economics and anthropology meet.

Kibera is heavily populated by Luos and thus an ODM stronghold. It was the location of the worst incidents of violence against Kikuyus in Nairobi following the election (the video clips of burning cars and demolished houses in Nairobi were all taken in Kibera). Somewhere near two hundred people were killed there. At the beginning of the semester, KJ introduced us to Miriam, the Kikuyu headmistress of a nursery school called St. Vincent dePaul where AU students had interned in the past. She had fled Kibera in the middle of the night just after the violence started, as her neighbors were burning down Kikuyu houses on all sides of her home. St. Vincent's reopened in February and Miriam was recently able to return to work, although she doesn't intend to ever move back to Kibera.

The walls and fences on the road to Kibera were covered in graffiti. Half was political, and the other half called on Kenyans to stop the violence and asked for “amani na umoja” (peace and unity). Behind the shops along the side of the road, houses stretched off into the distance, and there were burned out churches and building with broken windows on both sides of the street. The narrow streets and tiny sewage ditches running between houses reminded me of Lamu, in a very creepy and distorted sense.

When we arrived at our matatu stage, neither KJ nor the students from last semester recognized it, though they'd visited St. Vincent's many times. I thought the slabs of cement along the road were uneven pieces of sidewalk until I realized the gray dust on top of the slabs was a mixture of red dirt and ash. The shops along the road had been burned down on the entire block, leaving just cement foundations. A group of men stopped us as we walked to St. Vincent's with Miriam, asking what we were doing and where we were going. They accepted Miriam's explanation and let us go, but it scared all of us. KJ has told us we can't go back to Kibera or St. Vincent's anytime soon. The school is at a high risk of being looted or vandalized because we were there, not to mention the possibility of violence against us. Miriam told KJ she wasn't sure how she would get home that evening, because the men would likely find her and question her about us. She's already targeted for being a Kikuyu and doesn't need the extra attention.

Most of the students have returned to St. Vincent's by now, but quite a few of the non-Luos are still missing. The children who are there seemed extremely happy to be back and were overjoyed to have visitors to play with. Miriam said most had come back significantly thinner and psychologically shaken up, drawing pictures in art class of burning houses and policemen with guns. Most have gained back some of the weight they lost, but many have sores on their faces and patches of white hair from malnutrition. It was weird to think that the candy we brought them represented about half of their calories that day. Miriam took us to the kitchen and explained that their supply of bananas and eggs has been cut off since the violence, so the students are eating nothing but starch, beans on occasion, kale, cabbage, and, one day per week, vitamin powder mixed with sardines. When the kids get their only meal of the day at school, the lack of fruit and protein makes a big difference.

There's a free clinic in the neighborhood where the HIV-positive kids from St. Vincent's were able to get treatment before the violence started. Lea Toto is actually the organization I had wanted to work with, but all of the Kibera internships were scrapped for the semester. I can't imagine the clinic could be getting the supplies it needs if St. Vincent's can't get bananas for lunch twice a week. If KJ lets us go back into Kibera before the end of the semester, I'd like to visit Lea Toto to see what kind of resources they're working with, if any.

On the walk back to the matatu stage, we passed dozens more ash-covered foundations and the skeleton of a small shopping center that had been looted and burned out. There were strange burn patterns on the ground in the parking lot which I eventually realized were marks from burning tires. The mobs that looted and burned Kikuyu houses had pushed the families' cars to the parking lot of the shopping center to burn them.

The nephew of one of the administrators at St. Vincent's had taken videos and pictures in the days after the election. It was weird to watch a slide show of the photos and listen to the children singing and laughing in the classrooms around us. We spent our first few weeks in Nairobi complaining that we couldn't leave Westlands, and these kids were fleeing their homes in the middle of the night and watching their neighborhood go up in flames. I don't think I've ever felt so stupid.

Last Friday, KJ took us to Naivasha for class. It’s a lake town about two hours outside Nairobi famous for its animals and miles of greenhouses growing flowers for export to Europe. We also passed a huge IDP camp, which was surprising… there’s been so much talk of the good things that are happening, I hadn’t considered how many families were still living in tents. KJ said buses were going into the camp and taking refugees to work in the greenhouses. Makes you wonder how they’re being treated.

The rainy season is starting… it's been raining a bit every day and getting very muddy. I’m now getting my comeuppance for all the beautiful tropical weather we’ve had. Tomorrow, though, I’m headed off to India for a week. Tickets were cheap, and I decided I shouldn’t waste the opportunity (in case I don’t get another), so I’ll be spending Easter in Mumbai! I’ll be in touch after that. Hope everyone has had a safe and happy spring break.