Jan 2007

I've got some photos at the bottom of this on my visit to the elephant orphanage to cheer you up.

But first, I'll update you on our slum demolishion which Christina has likened to 'cleansing' activities in her country before world war 2.

Sunday things were quite as lots of people tried to salvage what they could.. either from the wreckage or from the houses which hadn't been knocked down. Sarah came and did our laundry. We gave her a little extra which she used to get a 'cube' in another slum 45 minutes away... until that one gets knocked down.

Tuesday night the demolishers came back. This time the slum-dwellers were ready for them and built a fire in the driveway up to the slum between two walls so nobody could pass. The fire was at least 10 feet high. Some shouting. Some things thrown. The demolishers left.

Wednesday, I got home from work and saw some Black guys in Suits and Indian/White guys in T-shirts standing in the middle together. I went down to see what was going on and the World Social Forum organisers were holding a press conference. A guy was talking quietly to the journalists, saying that there were clear international guidelines on how these things should be done and they had not been followed... and he would be making this clear to the Kenyan government in his report. I found out later he was the UN special Raporteur for The Right to Adequate Housing. It was good to know that people were taking an interest and trying to help (even if it was only because thousands of activists were in town for the world social forum). They were going to court the next morning to get an injunction to get it stopped.

Then about 11pm last night we heard noises again. Looking out the window, the fire was back. People were throwing things again.. but this time the demolishers thugs got through. Lots of men with big sticks. More shouting. More screaming. An american started yelling insults out of his hotel window. Then the lights came from the other side of the slum. The bulldozer had found another entrance. It was crushing the remaining houses. The battle for their homes was over. The land cleared. 500 people homeless. The court hearing useless.

Why do they come at night? ....darkness hides bad things
Why did they want it demolished .. had somebody bought the land? Was it because its an election year and the government doesn't want people living in squalour close to the city centre?
Was it because the slum was close to the President's house?
Nobody seems to know.

It is true that the land did not belong to the slum dwellers, but to somebody else. What should that person do with the land that they have spent money on purchasing? If he/she wants to develop or use their land then people will lose their homes, but they shouldn't have to lose them like this.

It brings back to me some comments from the activists at the World Social Forum last weekend. In Indian lady, Vandana... something... said that capitlism and commercialism are destroying our world and preventing development for the poor. Now there are many people who believe that the private sector can help development in African countries. And perhaps, yes, there is a role.. you believe this when you see how government officials or civil servants have no interest in doing their job effectively to help people because they don't personally gain anything from it.

However, Vandana ranted about how the policy of putting a dollar price to everything- be it land, water, air, food, grazing rights, fishing rights, right to pollute (carbon trading) damages poor communities. Now you're considered poor if you live on less than a dollar a day. But 40 years ago, you could live on 50 cents but get your water, housing and feed your cattle on common land. Not any longer. You may have 2 or 3 or 10 dollars a day and be far worse off.

Should the land on which these people live have ever had a price attached to it? Should it have belonged to the owner? Can there be justice in a capitalist world?
Perhaps... Perhaps not.

Ok, enough thinking. Time for photos!

21st January 2007

It’s 1 am and I feel despair for those around me combined with a slightly sick feeling in my stomach that I can sit here in the comfort of my apartment and write about it.

I’ve had such a range of experiences the last few days, each of which worthy of a blog entry, that I don’t really know where to begin.

I would start with my high powered meeting at the US embassy on Wednesday, rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful who ‘seem’ to want to do good in this country. Then there is the a posh press conference breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel on Friday, again meeting the US players, and also directors of important agriculture NGO’s, journalists, MP’s, The Minister for Education, Science and Technology.

But those memories become very quickly eclipsed by four happenings that all occurred today. First, the opening of the World Social Forum: an event bringing people together from far and wide under the banner ‘Another World is Possible’. Gazillions of NGO’s, charities, left-wing groups and interested people dancing about before a stage that hosted charismatic speeches interspersed with sensual and exciting music.

Had to leave the party early for experience number 2: to attend my German flatmate’s farewell bash. Her project had been mapping the pit latrines in Africa’s largest slum (Kibera) so she wanted her party to include those friends and a few of us travelled down to the slum to drink beer and eat Nyama Choma (roasted goat meat). I had not seen an African slum before, close up, and only now got to see the very edge of this place which is home to over 1 million people. The dirt; the rubbish heaps; the foul smelling ditch with what might have been sewerage running down the middle of the track; the people looking up to smile as we walked by; the community all living on top of each other. Banter was fun in our part room and Patrick (secretary to the local resident’s committee) explained to us something of what life was like. Crime was almost non-existent. Community life was too strong to allow theft. Two middle class African girls laughed at their naivety as teenagers. Not knowing, properly, till their twenties about the facts of life. Children in the slums apparently grow up knowing these from an early age since there is no privacy, but they still don’t know real facts. Nor get good HIV education. He told us enthusiastically of how David Miliband (UK Environment Secretary and wildly tipped to become Prime Minister one day) had visited him in November. Patrick thought that he had been very sensitive and sharp, asking clever questions and seeming to genuinely care.

It was dark as we left the slum, but Patrick and friends had us under their official protection we weren’t worried or expecting experience number 3. We found our way back to the main road and started walking along to where our Taxi Driver was waiting. Then I heard screaming! Coming from somewhere… in front… right… down. Mita (my Dutch/Indonesian flatmate) had stepped off the tarmac and fallen down a 3 metre hole. I couldn’t even see her at the bottom in the dark, but Patrick and his friend Francis leapt down into the shit at the bottom to pick up the whimpering girl and drag her out. Shaking and wet we bundled her into a taxi and took her to Nairobi Hospital. After a few hours she was joking and laughing again but still delicate as we got her back in the taxi to arrive home shortly after midnight, not expecting experience number 4.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before but my flat is within the Kenya Comfort Hotel Suites that is literally spitting distance from a small slum. The slum has shops, businesses, a pub, a church and a very annoying cockerel that wakes us up at 5 am each morning. I’ve been meaning to venture into for weeks now. I know several people who live there including our laundry lady, Sarah, and the ladies who run our corner shops.

But when we arrived back home we could see something wasn’t right. Lots of people milling around on the main street. We went up to our flat and looking out the window could see a bulldozer ploughing through our neighbourhood slum! Just rolling through the corrugated iron contractions that people call home. Happily squashing everything in site. People could be seen ducking in and out of the rubble carrying chairs out of their houses. The city council have declared it an illegitimate settlement (complete with water and electricity) and it must go.

See how close the slum is to our swimming pool.

I just felt sick. What could I do? The middle class Brit inside me thought about running down and standing in solidarity with the slum dwellers, blocking the way of the bulldozer. I thought cynically about the World Social Forum and how at least 50 delegates were staying in our Comfort Hotel Suites. Probably looking out the window… doing nothing. But what could anybody do? Apparently the bulldozer had come with an armed escort. And you don’t want to mess with the police in this country

They've rescued some belongings and all there is left to do is drink.

I had to help Mita get to bed after returning from hospital and after a while the noise stopped. Looking out again, half the slum was in carnage, half remaining and the bulldozer stationary. A bit braver, I ventured down to enter my second African slum that day. I didn’t really know what to do. I wanted to offer support. I wanted to say something comforting. I didn’t want to invade a community in which I didn’t belong. I didn’t want to appear like a western voyeur of poverty. I got chatting to a group of guys. They said that the bulldozer had broken down. As Mr Obed Anjele Ochuacho took me over the ruins of what had been his small shop (a green grocers) we talked. The demolition had begun at 10 pm on Saturday night. Some families were in bed. Some people were out. He had not heard that this would happen although others said they were informed yesterday. He showed me where his still-standing house was. To be knocked down as soon as the City Council found a spare bulldozer. Some people were madly scrambling through the rubble trying to save things. Others were just standing there in bewilderment. Looking lost. “Why rescue things? Where will we take them? We have nowhere else to go.”

I called Sarah, our laundry lady, and asked if she wanted some money. Not now, she said. She had to wait with her belongings. She could not leave them.

I’m back in my flat now; 2.15 am; the bulldozer has just begun again; and the shouting. I feel sick. Sad. Helpless.

My German flatmate, Christina, says

“You come here wanting to help, but you can’t.
Not when the government doesn’t care.
These people. They had nothing. And now even that has been taken away from them. It’s so cruel. People are losing their houses.
The place I got my cold tusker beer; it’s gone.
The place I got my veg; it’s gone.
The place I got my meat when I cooked; it’s gone.”

US warplane rains death on Somalia

Subheading

27 People and several animals killed in raid on remote village

my italics.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
But I don't think that British newspapers would comment on the loss of animals. However, not many British people would lose their entire food supply if their animals died.

Over lunch today at the UN I was chatting with some of my colleagues and apparently a friend from a large powerful country was due to visit the area near the border of a local failed state in November but received many calls from her embassy telling her she musn't because it was unsafe.

She went anyway and saw huge numbers of marines from her country operating out of the village in the border town. No hiding them.

Really interesting that not a single national newspaper or television programme reported on their presence or activities.

I will say no more, for fear of ....

Blog 2007jan Christianity in Kenya and HIV/AIDS

I find I am getting annoyed by the Christianity here in Kenya. In the UK, some people yearn for a faith that is constantly present and visible and active in society, but seeing it in Kenya I am pleased we have moved past that.

Overly established Christianity leaves itself so open to arrogance, superiority, abuse, corruption, rigidity and intolerance of difference. This is a constant problem of a religion that was originally inspired by a man who came to challenge the arrogance of an established order of his day.

In church on Sunday, the sermon was about how Christians should reach out to the foreigners and never return insult with insult, but instead love – but then in the same service the prayers (given by a parishioner and not a priest) were petitioning god to protect us from the wave of Islam that is threatening the country. You will not be surprised that I didn’t yell out “Amen to that!” but I was disappointed to hear this in an Anglican church.

Easy-listening music in supermarkets in Britain is never a beautiful experience, but transfer that to the Christian easy-listening genre in Kenya and UUGGGGHHH! I just don’t want to listen to threats/promises about how Jesus will change my life as I’m choosing my Dijon mustard. I don’t know what the head scarfed lady beside me was thinking.

Not all of the songs are that bad as songs and some are perfectly nice in the home (Michael Row the Boat a Shore being one of the better ones and didn’t contain any threats), but what really annoys me is that most of them are European/Western creations. I had hoped Africa would be full of African Gospel songs of the type sung by the black slaves in America… or vibrant multipart ones, like those sung by South Africans who visited Scotland, but NO. There are very few of these. The same is true of the two churches I’ve visited here.

Matatu music is also too often Christian. Yesterday I had to listen to Zion Express FM on my way to work. Sometimes you get reggae Christian music instead, which is definitely preferable.

Faith here isn’t all bad. Annike (who I wrote about earlier) said that there are churches all over the slums and while Annike is a dedicated atheist, she truly believes that they have an amazingly positive impact on the people they serve. Also, that Pentecostal church I visited had an HIV testing clinic one Sunday. The pastor had apparently encouraged the whole congregation to be tested and receive counselling if necessary. Nobody was to judge anybody for being uncertain about their status (one reason being that everybody had a past before they were born again).

And nicely linked into HIV. I’ve found it very encouraging how much HIV/AIDS is talked about here. Unlike India (which has recently been designated the country with the most HIV+ people in the world) where AIDS is denied, hidden, stigmatised against and unknown I have had a conversation everyday here in Africa about the condition – and very few of them have I initiated. People talk about it. They are aware and concerned. While some are still confused about protection, thinking that condoms don’t work and so there’s little point using them.

Blog 2007jan6 Saturday

Good Morning!

You know, one thing I hate is how during the week I get up at 6:45 (ish) and then it comes to Saturday morning, and no matter how late I’ve been out, I still wake up at 6:45.

So, this week has been more getting used to Nairobi. I’m beginning to know my way around (the areas I visit) and know how to get to town, work, couple of pubs etc. So in a way the excitement of NEW PLACE is fading and I’m in that middle slightly time between adrenaline newness and really settled in and know what to do with my time, my weekends, having made friendships with people who I can hang out with whenever I want.

I was chatting with my flatmate Mita, who’s been here for 4 months now, about how I’m still always overly aware about my personal security. Who is sitting beside me on the bus or matatu? (A matatu is a small minibus used for public transport that smells badly, is crammed full of people and plays bad music). Where are their hands? Near my pockets? What’s in my pockets? How open are they? Or as I walk down a street… Who are the people walking towards me? What are their intentions? Which side of the street feels safer? I think I’m still affected by those horror stories you hear about Nairobi. It’s not really that bad and Mita says that this excessive awareness fades with time. Or maybe you still remain aware, but are no longer consciously processing it all the time. Although, many of the real UN staff would never take public transport or walk anywhere… but then UN benefits allow for this.

These security issues and my lack of knowledge of the city also mean that I don’t feel as free as I would like. I miss having a bicycle, but that’s impossible here (my matatu knocked a cyclist over pretty badly yesterday). The 7 UN interns upstairs from my flat have moved out and I’m missing them, but now they’re half way across town near the UN complex… not sensible/possible to get to by public transport at night and pricey (15 euros return) for unshared taxis – doable, but not everyday.

All these security concerns have a knock-on effect on my exercise, which I miss. I do not walk/cycle around here and I’m determined to find some way of getting fit.

I’m also aware that I only know a bit of Nairobi… the nice bit. And as home to the largest slum in Africa and with 70% of the population living in slums I feel that I’m quite sheltered from a major part of the city. However, several of the interns I’m friends with have done their projects in the slums. One Dutch girl (Annike) is an architect making a plan to improve the two sports fields in a slum that houses 1 million people. At present, they’re both just mud and she’s trying to re-design them so they are safe with good lines of sight, and light (sponsored by a mobile phone company) and flat etc. Another German flatmate (Christine) is mapping the pit latrines in the slum and recording the quality and state of the sewers, drains: an official map shows adequate sewerage for the slum, but her photographic evidence reveals otherwise… sewers broken, toilets that flood when it rains and wash past open rubbish dumps down hills into schools, churches and houses. Then Mita (half Dutch, half Indonesian) is assessing the capability of clinics/labs around the slum to test for TB. Cristian (from Colombia) assesses the impact of a bicycle and cart project for waste collection that was hoped would be used for income generation within the slum.

I’d like these other interns to show me the slum sometime so that I can get an insight into how many of the people in this city live – although as I ask them, I’m reminded of a comment by an Indian friend that I’ve heard some white people come to India to see poverty – if that’s true, then they are just there for a peep-show on poverty, which is sick.