Wednesday May 18th
Location: Nairobi
As usual we started of the day the same...lol. In Swahili, we went over our numbers. the only one I can remember of the top pf my head is Ishirini which means 20. Dr. Wamai reviewed his lesson yesterday and spoke additionally about a 10/20 policy introduced the 2003 Minister of Health Charity Ngilu. Later we had a lecture by an health economist Joseph Wang'ombe, who also happened to be our host at UoN. He utilized numerous graphs and data tables to illustrate how poor the health economy is compared to others. Did you know that 46.6% of the country live below the poverty line on 107 Ksh or $1.25 a day? One of the major issues with the health care system in Kenya is that it relies alot on Foreign Aid instead of government who spends less than donors and Kenyans. I then went to the Ministry of Health also known as the Afya House for an interview with someone on my appear. She was wealth of knowledge and she even emailed me tons of pertinent resources. We talked so much that I missed lunch and would be late for the next afternoon trip.
In the afternoon we would go o a transect walk to Kibera which is currently the largest slum in Africa. The amount of people living there is unknown; the speculated population is about 400,000. Kibera is a Nubian Sudanese word mean "jungle". The first settlers were Sudanese soldiers from the first World War. Within Kibera there is eight different villages. It is known to be multi-ethnic which results in alot of tribal conflicts at times. Kibera has seen such an increase in population because it lies on the outskirts of the city center and many people migrated there for opportunities that they could not get anymore as pastoralist or farmers in upcountry.
While driving there, many thoughts began to run through my mind. Should I take pictures or would that be intrusive and exploitative? How would people receive us since we were just coming to observe them and their community. Someone on the us brought up this term Poverty tourism which I looked up. One of the articles I found was written by a Kenyan on the first slum tour that she saw (Click Here). When did this idea of poverty tourism start? Is it humane to walk through and see such things and then go back to our privileged lives filled with luxury? I did not know what to expect.
Driving into Kibear, we were greeted y all sorts of businesses. The first stop on our walk was Stawi Youth and Adult Center whih is ran by a remarkable women, Agneta Oluoch. The center is a 10X10 one room facility decorated with educational and health posters hosts 4 major activities. These activities are: A Post Test Club (PTC) which consists of 12 men and 8 women who support each other through group therapy, a youth group that educates on HIV/AIDS and the stigma through street theater, singing, and poetry, an informal pre-school, and a Saturday meal program for orphans and vulnerable children. She told us about herself and what inspired her to start this center. Agneta who is HIV positive started the center when her his and passed away in 1995 of AIDS leaving her with 4 children and the stigma of HIV. We followed her outside after the introductions where we saw these messages in person; they performed a skit for us and then they sang for us. It was excellent!
Our tour started right after. I was walking with two women Benta and Lilian. While walking we were greeted by children singing "How are you? How are you?" as if on queue. On the streets there were tons and tons of children of all ages in their uniforms walking home. I saw a little girl around the age of 4 and i held her hand because it pained me to see children so young walking unchaperoned but they had no choice as their parents were out trying to make money to maintain their well-being. I heard that due to this many young girls were molested in Kibera which broke my heart. The walkways were paved with trash and excretion. Kibera is known for something called a Flying Toilet. Since many of the homes do not have a toilet. People will use the bathroom in newspapers or plastic bags and then toss it out the window. There were many open ditches and the drainage was filled with all sorts of garbage and backed up water which created a foul odor. Like I stated above, despite all this Kibera is like it's own country packed with tons of businesses from food stands with mandazis to hotels (which seemed to be 10x10 facility as well) to signs on port-a-potties that people had to pay to use. The homes were one rooms made of wither mud or tin and covered with zinc. Typically a family of 4-6 occupied this small home. It contains no water or electricity, just a bed, clothes and a section divided off for the kitchen utensils. We did see many schools so children whose parents could afford it went to school outside Kibera but many went to informal school hosted by churches or ex-teachers.
Many of the people did not seem sad, they were happy. I couldn't help but praise their resilience because as rugged as I am I don't know if I could live under these circumstances. While walking we saw some high rises which reminded of the same thing that occurred in Chicago during the 40s. In response to the amount of African-Americans who migrated to Chicago and started ghettos that contained violence they created high rises like the Robert Taylor homes which made them more impoverished and worsened the violence. The high rises just displace the slum because in many of them people are sharing apartments. The last stop on the tour was Agneta home where we said our sad farewells. The people all made an impact on my life that day. The only thing I could think about is how to do something for Kibera.
"Originally designed for just 200,000 inhabitants, Nairobi now holds 4–4.5 million. It has more than
doubled in size in the past five years, giving it one of the highest growth rates of any African city.
That growth consists almost entirely of the poor, whose shacks have filled what were the green spaces in
a network of loosely connected satellite settlements. Nearly two out of three of the capital’s inhabitants occupy the two hundred resulting slums, a steady source of income for City Council officials, too busy levelling fantasy ‘taxes’ on the unauthorized dwellings to want to alter the status quo. Among the most squalid the continent has to offer, these settlements nuzzle against well-heeled residential areas in provocative intimacy. ‘What’s striking about Nairobi is that each wealthy neighborhood lies cheek by jowl with a slum,’ remarks former MP Paul Muite. ‘It’s almost like a twinning arrangement. Poverty and wealth stare each other in the face. And that’s simply untenable. Those slum-dwellers know what they’re missing, they’re educated now. I tell my wife: “There’s no way, long term, those guys are going to accept to die of hunger when the smell of your chapattis is wafting over the wall.”’ " -from the book It's Our Turn To Eat pg. 148
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