Now that the students have returned home, there’s time at last to gather up my notes on the past three intense weeks and prepare some blog entries. I will post several more in the next few days—and (unlike this one) they will be short. I know the world has been waiting breathlessly for this blog to take shape. Or at least its two or three potential readers. Our hope is both to keep a record for our future reference—far from complete, but highlighting the most important events and reflections—and to keep family and friends informed of our progress here.
After our grueling air journey—nearly 30 hours in all from our rendezvous at the Grand Rapids airport til we landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport here at 6:30 am on Sunday 10 January—the twelve Calvin students in my January Interim course (IDIS W-41: “Building Communities in Kenya”) settled into cramped quarters at the YMCA, right next to the University of Nairobi campus in the center of the city. (We had 13 enrolled, but one withdrew at the last minute for urgent personal and family reasons.) Susan and I moved right into our lovely flat at Daystar University’s downtown campus, which is only about 3 km from the center. Getting back and forth each day has been expensive by taxi—that’s been a shock, that taxis cost nearly as much as in major US cities, even after we have learned the prevailing fares so we can bargain more effectively. And depending on traffic it can be quicker to walk (35 minutes, we learned last week on a day when we had a later departure). We’ve usually returned home after dark, when walking is not an option.
Nairobi is a city with an alarmingly high crime rate, but we have found—taking our cue from both Kenyan and American friends—that in many areas of the city walking is safe in daytime. There are two large and well-stocked supermarkets just a mile or so from our flat, and we’ve made that walk many times already, our backpacks heavily laden for the return trip. On the whole, living in Nairobi feels a lot like living in a South African city or in a major urban area in the US. We don’t carry a lot of cash around, lock car and bus doors and windows when stalled in traffic, and keep a close eye on our surroundings. And so far, having no car, we haven’t ventured out at all at night, to restaurants or cinemas or cultural events. But it certainly isn’t necessary to live in fear.
Our first day was lightly scheduled: just a trip to a cultural center where we ate lunch, took a walking tour of reconstructed village houses of Kenya’s major ethnic groups, and saw a lively demonstration of traditional dances. Saw them, that is, if our eyes were open—few of us could stay awake for the entire show. It was a good chance for Susan and the students to get acquainted with Chikka Yambo, our CRWRC coordinator, who is just terrific to work with. She is very organized, knowledgeable, savvy about security and about how to avoid tourist rip-offs, and helpful in a thousand ways, even though she joined the CRWRC staff just a few months ago and this is her first time making arrangements for a visiting group. She’s been able to make connections with a remarkable variety of CRWRC partners in the field, and as I look back on our weeks together I find that all of my goals for the course have been met, and more, thanks to her careful prep work and the extraordinary openness and resourcefulness of all the community leaders we have met.
On Monday our exposure to Kenyan culture and the challenges of development work began with a bang. We met the leaders of a small savings and loan association in Kibera, reputed to be the largest slum in Africa, where an estimated 650,000 people from every ethnic group in the country have come in search of a better life than they had in their villages and towns. It began as an informal camp for Nubian veterans who had served with British forces in World War II, located on government land along the main Mombasa-Nairobi-Kinshasa railway line. Today it’s a bewildering maze of rough dirt tracks, informal housing built of dried mud or concrete block or corrugated iron or recycled shipping containers or whatever else may come to hand. Since we visited Kibera in 2001 there are some visible improvements: along the roads (but not in houses) electricity is available, and an NGO is building public toilets here and there. But there are huge piles of refuse everywhere, and sewage still runs in open gutters everywhere. There is no regular water supply, and residents must buy their water from tankers or carry it from a nearby stream. We didn’t see the infamous “flying toilets” we have read about—plastic bags of human waste being lobbed onto the rubbish piles—but we could certainly smell them.
One change since 2001 that Susan and I found encouraging was the absence of school-age children during the morning. We were followed by a herd of younger children incessantly calling out “How are you! How are you! How are you!”, but older children showed up only at lunchtime, wearing a colorful variety of school uniforms. Government schools just outside the slum now serve large numbers of Kibera children, who do not need to pay fees thanks to a recent government policy change. (For secondary schools there are still fees.) Many residents opt instead for private schools inside Kibera, most of them church-supported, that have primary classes of 20 rather than 50, even though the monthly fees of Ksh 200-300 (USD $2.60 - $3.90) are a heavy burden for many.
We were worried about how our students would react to seeing Kibera on our first full day in Kenya. But we were all very impressed by the work of the Kibera Savings and Credit Association, and by reports that this is just one of hundreds of self-help organizations launched and operated by Kibera residents, with advice and limited financial assistance from church and nonprofit groups. Evelyn, its treasurer, is a licensed pharmacist but could not support herself in her home community, so she moved to Kibera a decade or so ago. (We’ve been given first names only on most of our visits, but I’ve been promised family names as well—I’ll fill them in when I have them.) The association began in 1995 as a revolving loan fund for already established businesses in the slum that need capital to expand, supported by the church that houses its offices and provides space for its weekly ymeetings. New members pay pay Ksh 5000 to join, and then they must deposit Ksh 100 per week (USD $65.00 / $1.30). After six months without missing a payment, they may borrow Ksh 15,000 ($195)—essentially borrowing their own money back, plus an equal amount from the association. This must be repaid with 15% interest within six months. The rate sounds high, but it’s far lower than banks would charge—if they made loans in Kibera, which they do not. If this first loan is repaid on schedule, a larger loan with longer repayment is available, and then a still larger loan after that is repaid, and so forth.
After our briefing, before we visited association members’ shops, it was essential to pay a courtesy call on the Kibera chief, Douglas Oma Nyakash, who welcomed us to Kibera and told us many times over what a privilege it was for us to be able to meet with him. Your professor, he said, is sitting just where Barack Obama sat when he visited Kibera. Then he dispatched two of the young men in his retinue to walk with us as security guards—very friendly and personable young men, eager to talk, and of course eager for a contribution when we were done. The chief, a government employee, supervises the police force in Kibera: 35 officers who follow the “community policing” model of working closely with residents, he said. Quite a task, when by his estimate they serve 750,000 people. (That’s his figure; “one million” is often cited—these are all guesses, but I think 650,000 is the most credible among them.)
Then we walked together to four businesses: a furniture workshop run by a very resourceful and articulate young widow, with barely room to stand around the desk that was under construction by the carpenter she has hired; a “posho mill,” a large electrical mill for grinding maize into the fine flour that is used for ugali, the polenta-like cornmeal mush that is a staple of the Kenyan diet; a fruit and vegetable stand; and a shop selling school uniforms and other clothing. Several of the owners are now on their third or fourth loans, and their short speeches followed a similar pattern: life in Kibera is difficult, but God has blessed me richly through the association and now I can pay my children’s school fees, and I hope with the Lord’s help to expand my business further next year.
The posho mill belongs to John Otieno, chairman of the association, who joined us for the morning. After we crossed the railroad tracks (Kenya’s main intercity line) from the comparatively uncrowded southern part of Kibera to the far denser housing on the north side, he invited us to come and see where he lives. The door was locked and he did not have a key, but since the next unit was open and temporarily unoccupied we could step inside to get a sense of what a typical Kibera home looks like: a single room, about 2 meters square, with a door and a small window on one side, concrete walls, and a corrugated roof. In the next unit, just like the one we saw, John lives with his 14 children and grandchildren. That’s where they sleep, dress, cook, and eat. (He didn’t mention a wife—my impression was that he cares for the children alone.)
Many residents also keep their chickens and goats in their units, to prevent theft. We saw a number of chickens scratching in the dirt here and there, tied by one leg to deter theft. Even more sobering than the dwelling units was the path that took us there, ducking under clotheslines and squeezing through narrow passages, picking our footing carefully to avoid the flowing sewage and piles of garbage, down twisting alleyways where women were doing their laundry and cooking while babies played in the dirt nearby.
The students’ journals showed that they were as much encouraged as depressed by what they saw. Several made the comment that the residents paid us little attention but seemed intent on
going about their work. Only once or twice did anyone beg for money, and if we greeted the adults we passed most returned our greetings readily, with a smile. Our overall impression was of an amazingly energetic and busy community, far too crowded and disastrously underserved by basic necessities, yet full of life. The shopkeepers do a brisk business, with produce and clothing and other goods coming in “from town” every day. But unless they attend government schools many of the children of Kibera never leave its confines, and they may grow up knowing no other life.
The energy can sometimes be tragically misdirected, and Kibera sometimes erupts in chaos in response to political and ethnic events. It forms a large part of the constituency of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and (as I learned from the very informative talk given last fall at Calvin by Christine Odewes, a Catholic lay missioner who served in Kibera for 7 years) every attempt to improve conditions by providing land titles has been blocked by the politicians who reap handsome profits by collecting rent from slum residents on the basis of fake title deeds. Every ethnic group in Kenya is represented in the slum, and it was one of the first flashpoints for ethnic violence after the December 2007 elections. It is also saturated by criminal gangs who prey on the residents and demand protection money from shopkeepers. It really boggles the mind to realize that this city of the poor, with twice the population twice of Grand Rapids, is enclosed in one small section of Nairobi that most of its residents would never dream of visiting.
On the afternoon of the same day we went from the bottom to the top of Nairobi’s social and economic ladder,passing through wealthy northern suburbs to visit the new US Embassy in Gitiri. Through wide tree-lined streets, past tall cement walls topped with razor wire, we caught an occasional glimpse of lovely gardens and patios and spacious houses. This is the area where UN and senior officials of Kenyan and foreign governments live, with their cooks and children’s maids and drivers and security guards.
The former US Embassy in the center was destroyed in a terrorist attack in 1998, killing 12 Americans and 28 others in the embassy building and more than 200 in an adjacent building. You can certainly see the lessons learned when you approach the fortress that has replaced it and the multiple layers of wall, fence, and security surveillance all around it. The embassy has 7 “watch stand” Marines responsible for overall security, as is usual, and a Marine commander. They oversee a staff of 700 locally hired security guards.
We were there to register our passport numbers (all but the Canadian and the Korean student) and to get a security briefing and a general introduction to life in Kenya. The Cultural Affairs liaison responsible for Fulbright recipients had lined up a large cast of his colleagues for the occasion. The security officers focused more on their work than on precautions visitors should take (fortunately I had already dealt with that in great detail in one of our on-campus meetings). But we got a wealth of relevant information—and many sharply expressed opinions—from the cultural attaché, Ellen Bienstock, from a couple of the political and economic affairs specialists, and from consul general David Abell. Overall it was by far the most informative and the most candid briefing of its kind that I’ve ever attended (the ones we arrange in Ghana tend to be rather brief and very general). The students were no less impressed: for the first time after such a briefing, several of them wanted to talk further about how they could go about preparing to work in the foreign service.
Abell has spent a long career in an enormous variety of postings, but his Arkansas accent and droll Southern tone remain. Among the comments he made: “The work of the American foreign service is to advance American interests while also upholding American values. Sometimes that’s very difficult, but not in Kenya. Some other countries have an easier job. The Canadians, for example, have values, but they have no interests. Or take the French: they have interests, but they don’t have any values. You’re not writing this down, are you?”
