Today I spent a nice long day in Kibera which was a fascinating time. It was the start of my research into the types of data that communities find the most useful, so I spent all day talking to different people in the slum about things they would want to know about their community.
I started out by meeting Ken O. in the morning. We then walked from where we were meeting into the slum which was only about 10 minutes away. We entered through a different side of it then I’ve seen before. There was a large open dirt field which looked like it served as a place for big events to happen in the area. There were a lot of kids playing soccer, and there was a stage set up where there would later be some performers hip hop dancing. As we got into the slum, I saw one of the sights that Kibera is well known for. The train tracks. There is a railroad line that runs straight through the slum. There was no train coming so people were walking up and down it, and children were playing on them. Shops lined the side of them only about 5 feet from the edge of the tracks. One point along them, you could look too the right, and see all of Kibera spreading out into the distance. The slum really is quite massive. To the left of the tracks in an oddly surreal way was the green of a golf course where I saw some wealthy looking foreigners playing a game. It was just kind of weird to see such poverty to my right, a railroad beneath me, and affluence to the left.
As I was walking along the tracks, Ken saw another Kenyan who he knew who was guiding an American couple. The woman turned to me and said: “Oh, I guess this is the popular tourist route”. I just sort of nodded and continued on with Ken, but that comment bothered me a little bit. My first reaction was that of revulsion that she considered such a thing as tourism. I think it is vile to view other people’s poverty and suffering as something fascinating to look at. My second reaction though was that as I was looking out at the reaches of the slum from the railroad, wasn’t I in a way a tourist? I’m still not really sure where I sit on this. I think I justify it in my mind that I am here doing work with the community, rather than just staring at them. It enables me to do what I do without feel bad about it, but there is definitely some grey area.
The first place we went was a school complex run by the Kibera YMCA. That was where I realized that Ken was kind of a big deal as he turns out to be the director of the whole organization. We stopped in a parent meeting the school was having, and I had the opportunity to speak to the parents about the project and ask them a few questions. It went pretty well, though they were reluctant to speak at first. Most of what they mentioned dealt with the health and safety of the children in Kibera, which makes sense as they are parents.
After the meeting I went and sat in the headmaster’s office while Ken had some work to attend to. I think I dozed off for a little while, before waking up and chatting with one of the teachers for a while about the history of New York City, and the geography of the United States. After that was lunch before I met with all the staff of the school. I chatted with them about the project and data for a little over the hour. They were incredibly interested, and offered a ton of great insight. After that we left the school, and caught a matatu deeper into the slum.
The last place that we stopped to gather information was at a fundraising event that was taking place in a community center. Ken was invited as a guest of honor. It was a fundraiser to help send a student to University next year because the family could not afford it by themselves. It was an interesting event. You had to pay some money when you first came in. Then, the MC would introduce different people who would go up to the front of the room and badger people for more money. Whoever had the mic would walk around demanding more money from people for quite random reasons. One man handed another guy a box to hold. He then charged him 200 schillings for holding it and he had to pay up. It was a really interesting time, similar to fundraising events that you would see back in the US, but also very distinctly Kenyan.
I just returned back to the apartment now after a long day. We ate dinner at a place in prestige called “Books First, Sherlock’s Grill and Sports Pub”. I had some quesadillas which were not bad. I’m meeting Ken at 11am tomorrow morning to head back into Kibera, so let’s home it is as good a time as today was.
Oh, also, today we decided and set into motion the plans to go on a Safari next weekend. More to come on that later...
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