Swahili language and greetings lesson of the day:

Mzungu-a European, but really any white person

Mutatu-Mini-van straight out of Mad Max, people packed in like sardines, a “solicitor” hanging out of the open door shrieking for potential customers, drives on sidewalks and anywhere else, drivers so crazy they won’t hesitate to drive straight into on-coming traffic to move several vehicles ahead, accidents be damned

Hello Fist Bump-First bump knuckles, next knuckles to the heart, then fist to the sky

Hugging hello-Like the European kiss on each cheek but without the kiss, casual hug stance, lean in the left, then lean in to the right

“Welcome to Mathare”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

From the Karen Blixen Museum we began our trek into the city center to the lodging house we made arrangements to stay at through our host, the founder of Jamii Bora. The United Kenya Club has a good deal of historical significance in Nairobi because it was the first members club FOR actual Kenyans and it was started several years before Kenya’s independence in the 1960’s. At the time, there were many member’s clubs (like hotels, where you could rent a room, rent a meeting room, get a meal, use the library, work out in the gym) but they were exclusively for Europeans, no Kenyans allowed. The United Kenya Club is a low-key, modest place, antiquated in a charming sort of way, not particularly well kept up, but safe and clean. Kenyan leaders have been meeting inconspicuously and making important decisions here for decades.

As one descends into downtown Nairobi, the greenery and flowering shrubs of the suburb a distant memory, there is cacophony of city noises, vehicles driving according to rules one can only guess at (until you are used to it you may find yourself crossing yourself repeatedly as you prepare to meet your Maker), the worst traffic congestion I have every experienced (and I used to live in Los Angeles), and brave pedestrians crossing the street in every which direction (since cars pay NO attention to crosswalks OR LIGHTS). After about 45 minutes of this mayhem (on the heels of giraffe and baby elephant bliss), we drove up to a bustling looking hotel with smartly dressed porters who leapt out and opened the doors, began gathering our luggage, and welcoming us to the something-something hotel. It only took several moments to realize we were at the wrong place – we were at Hotel X For White Tourists not the United Kenya Club. We crawled like disheartened cattle back into our sweaty taxi and eventually found our way to what is to be our home for the next three weeks.

“United Kenya Club”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

We disembarked and checked into our “Deluxe Double,” not a mzungu in sight, a room the size of a walk-in closet. Our luggage literally filled the room. The pillows looked not unlike sacks of potatoes as they were comprised of potato-sized lumps of fabric that must have been a solid mass tens of years ago. The shower was a tub with a rigged shower head that looked like a fire hazard, a possible point of electrocution or both. When I lightly rested my foot in the sink to rinse the dust off, a large portion of the porcelain broke free and crashed to the floor. One of three lights worked. Famished, we decided to avoid thinking about the situation by seeking lunch. The menu is traditional fare: a lot of goat, beef, some chicken, potatoes with heavy gravy, white rice, ugali (maize flour cooked with water to a porridge – my apologies to ugali because I hear there is delicious ugali but the ugali I’ve tasted to date tastes like gruel mixed with paste) and “salad” consisting of several lonely pieces of iceberg lettuce and lots of tomatoes and onions. Our last meal had been an exquisite breakfast at the Giraffe Manor, attended to by a staff of beaming waiters, feeding and kissing giraffes from our breakfast table. Part two, the main course, of our adventure was clearly underway.

“Sort of like your local 7-11”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

That evening we had a late night visit from Ingrid Munro (who you will hear much more about later) on her way home from the office and received a briefing on Jamii Bora and some of the people and places that we’d be visiting over the next few weeks. Early the following morning, bleary-eyed from a poor night’s sleep, we were on our way to Jamii Bora headquarters, located in the industrial district of Nairobi, several blocks from two slums we visited later that day. We spent about  three hours in the office with Ingrid, key members of the Jamii Bora staff, and some of the “original fifty” (the first fifty beggars that Jamii Bora came into being with), hearing the history of the organization and the personal stories of the staff and members (more on this to come). This was no light fare, to say the least. Immediately following, we took a casual amble, security detail fore and aft, through the adjacent slums, Kwanga and Mukuru.

“River Clean-Up Project”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

The shanty towns all have a unique feel. Based on the three other slums we’ve visited since, it may have been our Day One thinner skins, but the two slums we visited that day felt more despairing and less friendly. “Mzungu!” rang out from the mouths of children. One memorable moment was when we walked by a child of perhaps seven or eight who was busily playing but looked up just as we passed, his eyes bulged in genuine shock and he nearly gasped, “Mzungu!” One had to assume that this little boy had either never seen a mzungu in the flesh or had seen one so rarely that it was a startling incident.

It’s difficult to describe the shanty towns because like anything gritty and real they must be experienced to be known even a little, but I shall try. Start with a barren piece of dusty land (it needn’t be big – Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa is approximately the size of Central Park in New York City and is the home to nearly 2 million people), add shacks, wall to wall, along narrow walkways (ranging from as little as 4 feet across to the expanse of a wide road). The walls and roofs of the dwellings are constructed of sheets of metal and the floors are bare dirt or sometimes covered in remnant pieces of carpet or linoleum. Often there is a narrow trench between the rows of houses to allow rainwater to flow and I assume, raw sewage. The paths are littered with fruit and vegetables rinds and cast-offs, bits of garbage, and feces. It’s not uncommon to see a very scruffy mongrel (used as security), chickens, and a random family of ducks. During the rainy season it isn’t difficult to imagine the muddy mess that these constantly travelled pathways become.

“Ndugus – Brothers”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

The houses generally range from 10 x 10 to a palatial 20 x 20. We didn’t visit a household with fewer than 4 people living in the home and often there were 10 or more people (children, grandchildren and orphans that had been taken in by the family) living in a house that size. Sitting in some of the homes we visited in near darkness, I could see numerous splinters of light coming through pinhole and larger sized cracks and openings in and between the metal sheeting and imagined rainy season. Often there is one room that serves as sitting room, bedroom, and kitchen (a place to eat, there isn’t running water, and cooking is usually done over some type of charcoal fire out in front of the house. Larger homes may have one or two very small side rooms with sheets across doorways that serve as bedrooms. In a one room house, couches may double as beds. Often there is a small television. Walking down the pathways you can see  heavy electrical cables hanging dangerously close to the ground.

There are public bathrooms that residents pay a small fee to use for a toilet and a shower. The ones I used had a pit toilet and a shower rigged with large water bottles on the roof, no flush toilets, no running or hot water. Some of the homes we visited were disheveled and had the gloomy sense of poverty. Others were neat as a pin and had pictures and art on the walls. One home we visited had inexplicably white cloths covering all of the furniture and the feel of an ashram. Homes like this one feel poor but not impoverished.

One can look out over what appears to be an endless sea of metal roofs with dirt pathways snaking through, smoke rising in lazy clouds, and brightly dressed bodies milling about everywhere. On the outskirts and down certain “streets” almost every building is a storefront selling either goods or services (food, sundries, clothes, hair salons, mechanics, shoe repair shops, sewing shops, movie “theaters”) behind which is often the family dwelling.

“He tugged my hand and asked for this picture to be taken”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana

One of the things that stands out to me is the degree of grooming and cleanliness maintained by so many of the residents in a place that is wall to wall dust and where the only running water comes from randomly spaced public spigots. The residents of the slum by and large clearly take pride in their appearance and it is such a contrast to see impeccably dressed, very clean people against the backdrop of the smoky, dusty, lively, teeming, littered streets of the slum.  The past few days I have seen sad faces, some people who looked drunk, many intent people bent over or under their work, some who just looked bored, and very many open, happy, beautiful faces.

“Where the wild things are”
Photographed by Malcolm King-Fontana