Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out

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mukuru kwa njenga pt.1

there is a link to donate to oxfam's water projects at the very end of this day's diary post.

good luck getting to it.

on another side of mukuru, we pitched up to do a little photography workshop with the amusha youth group at their bio centre.

i showed a short slide show of my work and my life in england: pictures of my family, my house: my kitchen, my bathroom, the bow bunker (where i work) and my animals.

then we gave out 20 disposable film cameras to the youth group and hopefully empowered them to tell their own stories through their eyes, ready for a pop-up exhibition at the bio-centre tomorrow.

what i thought was going to be a fun day for all, turned into a gruelling morning for the oxfam team, as we were given a detailed guided tour of real life in mukuru kwa njenga and learnt a whole load more than we had before.

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the conditions in mukuru kwa njenga appear to be much worse than those in mukuru reuben.

and we seem to punch deeper into the thick of it to meet the youth group.

after a larger 'road' with densely packed, blocks of flats, that looked like the streets of a war zone, that i've seen on tv the news, mukuru kwa njenga turns into crammed tin shacks with seemingly little more than open sewers and uneven paths of dried plastic bags, shit and un-recyclable rubbish.

dr.death (professor von hagens) once told me you only notice a change in smell.

i guess that's why i don't really notice the stink of this place.

i am used to the stench of the slums now.

as are the people that live here everyday and have done their whole lives: many don't know any different.

this is not a temporary refugee camp that came and will go quickly: this has been here for decades and is here to stay.

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the only 'empty' void (FULL of waste of every kind) here is land that has yet to be built on by someone who has bought the land, but hasn't yet been able to afford the building materials to build a tin shack on it.

there is NO running water here except the often unclean water which the 'cartel' have hijacked and bribed off the water board, and sell to people by the 20ltr gerry can.

sometimes there is NO water at all except for the liquid than runs through the open sewers and a couple of 'streams' that 'run' black

there is NO legal electricity but for the live, uncoated wires that run between the shacks, also hijacked by enterprising, life risking local 'providers'.

most of what we western world people take for granted here, is fought and paid for.

one thing that shocks me, which i should have realised, i guess, is that in these places you still have to pay for everything: you have to pay for water, you have to pay for electricity, you pay rent for your shack, you even have to pay someone to come and empty the bag you defecate in: once a week.

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ANYTHING worth ANY money is recycled.

EVERYTHING else is dumped HERE

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the black liquid around mukuru kwa njenga bubbles as (methane?) gasses make a break for freedom in a way the people here can't.

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you need skills to walk around this place, navigating the rocks between the shit and open sewers.

i am wearing steel toe-capped boots.

many of the people here wear flip-flops or 'nice' clean canvas shoes and are know where to tread.

balancing between the sloping, concrete foundations of some shacks helps.

i manage to go ankle deep in black sludge.

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some children do not have / wear shoes.

this boy is just in his socks

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children sitting on land mass made of dried plastic bags (mainly dried out flying toilets) next to a black, bubbling, open sewer.

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so every now and then a volunteer will dredge out the open sewer, dragging out the flying toilets and plastic bags that can't be recycled and depositing them on the side.

as these bags dry out in the sun and get trodden down, they become the path.

these paths keep getting deeper, of course.

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here's one of those volunteers dredging the sewer with a hook on a plastic stick

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between zones, where the 'steets' are slightly wider between the shacks, you have slightly more room to walk to your next alley and open sewer combo.

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flying toilets and other un-recyclable plastic piling up (everywhere)

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two chickens taking a drink by the stream, awwwww

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freedom fries

this lady is peeling potatoes to make chips in the frying pan in front of her, just the other side of the 'steam' with bubbling, black liquid.

this is a charming 'waterside' lunch destination: reminds me a lot of richmond

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the 'riverside' pub

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HOME

HOME

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all over kenya, european (but mainly english) football is hugely popular

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REVELATION OF END TIME CENTRE

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NO PLAYING HERE

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in trawling through the pictures i have on my laptop to post this image, i have caught this picture of (my son) maximum in our orchard tickling a sheep under the chin.

coincidentally as joan armatrading sings 'love and affection' from the same computer.

and i'm in tears for the first time since i've been here.

i'm in tears for the first time in a long while.

i guess i feel guilty, as a human, that me and my family have SO much and these other humans have SO little.

it's not fair: we don't get to chose where we're born or what we're born into.

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a child playing with a toy called 'scissors'

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HOW ARE YOU??

more children that i try to avoid photographing in 'informal settlements'.

ALL the children shout, 'how are you?'

if you reply 'i'm ok thank you. how are you?'

they always reply 'i'm fine, thankyou'

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ironic footwear

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this is davies, from the youth group, who was kind enough to show us around mukuru kwa njenga.

we are at his mothers house (tin shack) where 8 people live.

he is showing me how the raw sewage from the broken neighbour's toilet leaks under his mothers house.

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davies is lifting the lino on his mother's floor and showing us how the raw sewage runs all the way under his mother's house.

he is with his niece, wendy

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davies' mother's 'yard' where they keep rabbits in hutches, hang their washing, make compost out of rabbit droppings and rotten tomatoes (that davies' mother sells) and an outside toilet

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davies' mother's toilet.

the bag is collected once a week and emptied into the main sewers, somewhere.

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another lunch venue

good for chapati

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salon

salon

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rough rate of exchange: 100 kenyan shillings to the 1 pound uk sterling

1 shilling = 1p (ish)

the restaurants we've been eating in, in the rest of nairobi and the supermarkets we've been getting provisions at cost the same as london.

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the butchers

obviously not refrigerated.

goat, beef or pork.

most people here get to eat some meat once a month if they're lucky

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water

water

so the cartels own the water.

5 kenyan shillings gets you 20ltrs of water, which you'll need to sanitise with tablets before you use it.

if water is short, the 5 board turns round to a 20 and the price quadruples.

collecting your own water in gerry cans, from the cartel, is the only way to get it.

IF you were able to bribe a waterboard employee to pipe you water, the cartel would cut your pipes and likely kill you

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the youth group/s and other community groups have pipes in place to receive water from the bore hole.

they are ready

they are hoping that if they can get supply en masse, in the relative safety of numbers, from a less corrupt waterboard, they can undercut the cartel for the water they get and undermine the cartel's grip on water here.

this sounds like a war about to happen.

the cartel aren't going to just roll over and give up their revenue 'stream'.

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you can see the clean water tower owned by the waterboard and tapped by the cartel, from all over makuru kwa njenga.

this would drive me crazy.

here is clean, cheap water...but you can't have it.

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davies

davies

i've been asked a few times what the most shocking thing has been out here.

it's shocking how much dignity the people here have: how careful they are to have clean clothes and how they dress as well as possible.

but it's MOST shocking that the people here aren't broken and constantly complaining about their situation.

their optimism for positive change is almost overwhelming.

their ability to smile and laugh in their horrible conditions.

the people here we have met are amazing and set us an amazing example.

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elphas

elphas

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daniel

daniel

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brian

brian

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a shoe shoppe

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a primary school wall

the classrooms are always dark: no windows, just light coming from the door

the tin shacks also don't have windows and are always dark too.

hot in the summer, cold in the winter

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man

man

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STOP NO DUMP...

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so. i've run out of time...

stopped for a video interview for oxfam and broke down in tears again.

ridiculous and pathetic

it's like amy from oxfam said, 'we're crying about it but the people here aren't: they're strong and positive'.

i'll post more pictures of mukuru kwa njenga tomorrow.

for now, if i've been just a little bit able to convey that these people are living in conditions that we wouldn't even keep animals in, in the western world, donations to oxfam WILL get to the right people and WILL make positive change to these people's lives.

here's a donation link:

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/donate-to-an-oxfam-project/the-projects/kenya-2013

Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out: August 12, 2013