Kibera: Hell on Earth

(photos will be posted soon - the internet connection is really slow)

Never in my wildest dreams did I have any idea that human beings could live as they do Kibera. Nor could I ever dream up conditions as foul and inhumane as this place, which is simply hell on Earth.

Kibera is the largest slum on the African continent, choking more than a million people, mostly women and children, into a space no wider than a mile and a half. There is no running water, electricity is hijacked from outside lines, and the stench made my stomach churn, as I steeled myself into compliance, so that I wouldn’t throw up again and again.

There are more flies than people in Kibera.

We weren’t sure that we’d be able to visit Kibera at first, as there was a deadly conflict the week before, between two tribes – one of whom served as landlords, the other renters. The tension erupted, resulted in a riot, shacks and stores set ablaze, eventually leaving several dead. WFP felt that we could manage, but insisted that we bring four armed guards with us into the slum, just in case.

There are no roads, no cars, no infrastructure to provide the slightest hint that the outside world cares about this place. Rows and rows of shelters are cobbled together using sticks and mud, with corrugated tin roofs, when available. The hierarchy of dirt paths, indicates the main way, eventually narrowing down to rabbit holes causing you to bend and duck under ragged metal rooftops, sliding your way around corners, leaving you covered with dirt and mud.

As we walked deeper and deeper in Kibera, we arrived at the top of a valley providing us with a view of millions of shacks, several with plumes of smoke rising above them throughout. It was a view of The Inferno, which at any moment, could erupt into violence beyond measure, or sink into the Earth and never be seen again. Either way, nobody would care.

Climbing down into the valley, I noticed that the dirt paths had turned to deep, rich mud, covering our shoes, splattering up onto our pants. Children ran about, barefoot, women lumbered ahead with firewood on their head, wearing flip flops, caked and covered in mud. After walking onward for awhile, I had a thought… but I was sure I didn’t want the answer until we were out of there. I turned to my WFP escort, and said just that, and she said – “The answer is yes.” I gagged, having to stop for a moment to compose myself. We were walking in decade’s worth of flying toilets.

Because there is no running water in Kibera, there are no toilets. There are a few which savvy businesspeople have made available for a fee, but the people who live here, who pay between $3 - $8 in monthly rent, don’t have enough money to buy food. So one must prioritize. A long time ago, the residents invented the flying toilets. One will pee on the ground when needed, but then they will poop into little plastic bags, and then fling them up onto the rooftops, so as to disappear. Eventually, the bags slide down, covering the ground with (so far) about 8 inches of human excrement, made slick with wet plastic bags. I had to force my mind from thinking about this, as I realized what was all over our shoes and pants, all over these children as they scampered about, imagining the disease that festers about in this place.

The greatest fear was falling, as the ground is rough and unstable and slippery. At one point, I grabbed onto a tin roof, so as to not to lose my balance, but instead, ended up cutting my hand. Fortunately, we had a doctor in our group, who pulled out her potions, and sanitized me. The other million would never be so lucky.

We visited three program sites while we were there.

First, Lea Toto clinic. Lea Toto is a free clinic serving HIV+ orphans, who are either living with relatives or guardian, but more often than not, by themselves, in child-headed households, scratching their way through life. It became more and more apparent to me that HIV is not a disease of sexual behavior, as it’s portrayed in the USA, but a disease of victimization. Women get the disease from their husbands (who refuse to get tested, and sleep with many wives and many women), women transfer the disease to their children in utero, women (with no means to feed their children) prostitute themselves (resulting in more transmission and more children), and children are raped by bored men who are looking for something to do. And (unlike all other developing countries I’ve visited), I didn’t see one public education poster, not one flyer, preaching testing or condom usage. Here, HIV is the outcome of the deepest kind of poverty, stigma and shame, violence and abuse, which runs as deep as the shit on the streets of Kibera.

We then slopped our way though the pathways, to visit the home of Ruth. Ruth is 31 years old, and lives in a 10’x10’ shack, with her 7 year old daughter Rhoda, and eight others; her mother, her sister, and all of their children. All of those who had been tested (including the children) were HIV+. Others had not been tested yet. We were horrified to see that we were tramping human shit all over her floor, but she just waved it off and brought us in. We sat down on crates, boxes and piles of paper, cramped into her little space, to speak with Ruth. She told us that she washes clothes when she isn’t sick, in order to pay her $8/month rent. She hasn’t been working though, because it’s cold (70 degrees) and working in water when it’s cold, makes her sick. We spoke with her about her husband (dead), he father (dead), her life (she moved to Kibera from the northern rural regions), and so much more.

By this point, I was teetering on losing my mind. I was overwhelmed with nausea and sadness, hopelessness and helplessness, seeing this, knowing that every single country on the African continent is suffering from exactly the same issues – it’s the same everywhere. I asked Ruth our final question, which was “What do you hope for your daughter?” – to which she responded with tears. And as she sat there crying, I started crying, and neither one of could stop. So we just sat there weeping. Eventually, everyone left except Ruth, me and the translator. I asked the translator to explain (in Swahili) that I was so sorry – I didn’t mean to make her cry, but that it was so evident to me that she loves her daughter so much, sending her to Lea Toto for treatment, sending her to school for food and education – that I wondered what she would like for her daughter. And Ruth simply said, “I want her to live.”

We then slipped and slopped our way to the Stara School – a beacon of light in this hellhole. Stara School was started in 2000 by Josephine Momo, a lifelong resident of Kibera. She gathered her women friends together in 1996, and decided to pool whatever little money they had, to start a school – a safe haven for children – which would be positive, and safe, and clean, providing nourishment for the mind and the body.

Each day, the teachers come and sweep the dirt floors of the walled compound, which provided a stark contrast from the outside world of Kibera. Josephine has poured her heart and soul into this school, learning how to teach, how to manage resources, how to make one shilling have the purchasing power of five… in 2006, she was nominated as the UN Person of the Year. She told me about getting on a plane and flying to Rome – something so simple to me (in fact, I did it in February), but so life-changing (and probably heart-breaking) to her.

Here at the Stara School, the children were children. They weren’t workers, resources, objects for sex, or commodities – they were 10 years old, and 6 years old, and 14 years old, singing us songs, playing their drums for us, adding and subtracting, learning to read and write, learning where Kenya was on the map and understanding, with disbelieving eyes, how far away we lived here – here on the map – in the United States. We sang and danced with them, watched them in their classrooms, stirred the pots of food and served them lunch, leaving me broken and wistful, until the school day ended, and the children lined up to walk home in the mud.

Squeezing Water from a Stone

Today we went to visit, what I thought was, a really innovative project, which focuses on building capacity and creating assets within the rural regions of Kilifi, just north of Mombasa.

As you’ve read, Kenya is experiencing a staggering drought, which has left more than four million people hungry, and hundreds of thousands of cattle dead. For almost 80% of the country, the earth has turned to stone and dirt. The crops have withered, and for as far as the eye can see there is just brown, charred land. The “real” rains haven’t come in almost four years (Kenya is one of the top five countries on the planet suffering from the extreme effects of climate change).

When the first harvest failed, farmers could make do. When the second harvest failed, things became tough. When the third, and then the fourth harvest failed, there was nothing left to rely on, plummeting the people into a humanitarian disaster of massive proportion. The Masai people are bringing their cattle into Nairobi from the western hinterlands, because it’s the only place in southern Kenya with grass for their cattle to eat. Imagine if the farmers brought their cattle, by the thousands, to graze in NYC Central Park, because the farms and the yards and open space had dried up into dust.

WFP organized the women of Kilifi 10 months ago, and with engineers from World Vision, trained them to construct a “waterpan” (small reservoir) to serve as a water source for the community. Week after week, the women dug, hauled, and excavated, building a bowl to catch the scarce rainwater. And in the past week, some rain has come, filling the pan with a commodity more precious than gold in this ration.


And now their job is to maintain it. They have constructed a fence to keep the animals out, and a management system to ensure that this asset remains so.

WFP has paid these women with food over the last several months, and will continue to do so until the rains allow for crops to grow again. We had the good fortune of visiting a food distribution…

We bumped down the road, until, up in the distance, we saw a crowd of women, in their colorful sarongs and headwraps, with babies slung on their backs, gathering into a line (a rare thing – I’ve noticed that Africa doesn’t really seem to embrace the idea of cueing up… instead, people just cluster around and push push). Holding their food distribution cards, they first confirmed their identity and signed their name by providing a thumbprint (illiteracy is prevalent, and thumbprints are the only way to consistently provide secure ID). Hundreds of women then walked up the hill, with their purple stained thumbs, to the fenced area to claim their sacks of maize and CSB (corn soya blend). Each bag was weighed and measured, providing the woman with a month’s ration of food for her family. The women then hauled these bags, which much of weighed 50-60 pounds, onto their heads, and started the 5-10 mile journey home, with their babies still snoozing on their backs.

It was a moving sight to see these women streaming down the road for as far as the eye could see, with bags of food on their heads, as payment for their work. This project has been such a success, as WFP will be able to withdraw their involvement soon, and allow for the local community takeover of this initiative.

Kilifi – School Feeding

Picture this.

After a two hour bone-crushing drive, tossed and toppled like a buoy in rough waters, on dirt roads, never graded, gullies, boulders, gaps and holes that could swallow a water buffalo – you see, up in the distance, a cluster of small makeshift buildings in the bush, surrounded by low, brushy trees. And from that cluster, you see children in blue and yellow uniforms start pouring forth, streaming from their school, running down the road to greet you, waving their hands, teeth shining, faces open, slapping the side of the truck as you make your way toward the school.

This is how we were greeted at the rural school in Kilifi, in the region north of Mombasa, along the Indian Ocean coast. 1,200 children swarmed around us, swallowing us, yelling “Welcome! Welcome!” The most beautiful, chaotic scene…

WFP provides hundreds of thousands of children in Kenya with their one and only meal of the day – in school. Today, we visited the School Feeding program, and saw how one meal could prompt 100% attendance, relieving parents of worrying how they were going to feed their children, all the while, providing these kids with the only way out of grinding poverty – education.

We arrived just around lunchtime, as the children started to line up by age – long lines, with hundreds and hundreds of children holding red plastic cups and bowls – waiting to receive their meal.

Prior to eating, each child washed their hands, using a makeshift system, involving plastic vegetable oil jugs filled with water from the river. The jugs hung from a wooden structure, over the dirt, each plugged with a small stick at the bottom. The children would pull the stick out, wash their hands, and then replug the jug with the stick to avoid wasting the water.


The kitchen was an open-air structure, bearing two 3-stone firepits, on top of which sat huge metal pots, bearing porridge made of maize. I took a scoop and joined in on the serving – two scoops per child, to get them through lunchtime the next day.

It was over 100 degrees, with suffocating humidity – leaning over and into those steaming pots, scooping out the porridge, I was dripping from head to toe, humbled by the faces and thanks I received with each serving of food.

After lunch, all 1200 children and us gathered under a tree, so the children could sing, and dance, and recite poems for us. A group of 14 year old girls, heads shaved, long skirts, had written and performed a poem about how much they want to stay in school, learn and be healthy – typically girls are the first to pulled out of school in times of hardship, to help with the farming and raising of children. Then the crowds parted to a group of drummers and dancers – the parents had arrived, bearing instruments and brightly colored headcloth, stomping and swaying, singing and dancing, causing the children to clap and sing along. These were the parents of the schoolchildren, who assisted at the school, building gardens, making porridge, fixing tin roofs and fetching water. They came to express their gratitude for the school lunch program, which freed them of worry, and allowed them to spend more time earning money for their families.

I was asked to give a speech to schoolchildren. What could I possibly offer to these beautiful children, since I was what I participated in that day left my speechless…? So I explained that we came from America, the land of Barack Obama – and the crowd roared with pleasure (every road here is Barack Obama Road, and every baby is named Barack or Michelle), and we were here learn about the School Feeding program – and it filled out hearts with joy and happiness to see how healthy and smart all of these students are – more cheers and shouts of “Welcome! Welcome!” I explained that I used to be a teacher, a teacher of music – and would the children please sing us the Kenyan National Anthem? To see 1,200 kids jump to their feet, and start clapping in unison, nearly knocked me off my feet.

And there, under a tree, in the bush of southeastern Kenya, the air became full of drumming, stomping, and clapping, with the voices of 1,200 schoolchildren singing their song in Swahili as their final welcome to us, during this incredible visit.

Mombasa

Flying to Mombasa was a welcome change, particularly after our security briefing at WFP on Monday morning, where the Security Officers ordered us to program their numbers into our phone and call us 24 hours a day, in case of emergency. He then proceeded to educate us on how to avoid being the target of a kidnapping, assassination attempt, and general mayhem. Later than afternoon, we heard terrified screams outside of our hotel, and a woman was bludgeoned by an attacker.

I don’t have a sense if this attack was coincidental, or typical – but nevertheless, we realized that we needed to shore up our behavior in Nairobi.

Mombasa, on the other hand, is much more mellow and laid back. About an hour’s flight from Nairobi, Mombasa lies on the southeastern coast of Kenya, about 50 miles north of the Tanzanian border. The neighboring Middle Eastern countries of Oman and Yemen across the sea have played a strong influence in Mombasa’s development and culture. Women wore full chador, men in skull caps and the call to prayer drifted through the air – I have always loved this sound, and have found it stirring and beautiful.

Unlike Nairobi, which was 70 degrees and cloudy, Mombasa was hot, humid, with some occasional relief from the ocean breezes. Each day topped out in the high 90s, and left us covered with a slick sweat and a fine layer of dust.

We were greeted at the airport by David Kamau, the Director of WFPs subdistrict office in Mombasa. I was quite surprised that David was assigned to us, as he invariably has his hands full overseeing the programs throughout this region, most notably the desiccating droughts leaving animals collapsed on the side of the road, and the earth petrified and cracked. Over the next few days, I came to see that David perfectly represents the incredibly passionate and dedicated staff that WFP employees in their field offices around the world. Trained as a social worker, David explained why he does what he does by saying, “it’s my job to give a voice to the voiceless, and to lift up the downtrodden.” So many of WFP’s field staff are just a special kind of person – innate humanitarians, who would do this kind of work no matter what.

At the end of our first evening in Mombasa, we asked David to take us to the best local restaurant in Mombasa – a place that a tourist would never discover on her own. David and the WFP drivers looked at each other, smiled, and took us to a place, which, quite frankly, didn’t seem to have a name. A roadside, makeshift restaurant, lit by bare neon bulbs, sheltered by corrugated tin; we sat on simple wooden benches lining a long wood table. There, over an open fire, the cook made us all of his specialties; chicken biryani, charbroiled goat, greens that I had never seen before, each dish more flavorful and spicy than the next.

We were in very good hands in Mombasa....

The Island City of Mombasa

Somehow, I didn't realize that Mombasa is an island, until I arrived. I simply thought is was on the eastern coast of Kenya, facing the Indian Ocean. But alas no... it is surrounded by water, as well as covered in buzzing tuk-tuks (see right), women in full chador, Swahili cafes tumbling out onto the sidewalks bearing chicken biryani and shwarma, and a web of curving, crumbling, colorful roads and alleys, pleasantly pushing you around the city.

Joyce and Julia both said that Mombasa was much more laid back than Nairobi, and they were right. Beach towns, whether they be Venice Beach, or Catania, or Mombasa - there's something that mellows the urban energy in a beach town.

We woke in Nairobi this morning, and were picked up by the UN trucks, which drove us through the city, to the UN Gigiri Compound. Most of the UN agencies in Kenya are headquartered in this compound. It's a virtual United Nations village: UNICEF, UNDP, WFP, UNHCR, UNIFEM, Emergency Offices for Refugees and Drought, the list goes on and on... Just across the street from the UN Compound is the US Embassy, which was bombed (along with the embassy Dar es Salaam, Tanzania... I know how to pick 'em!) in 1998. The embassy has been rebuilt and ... it ... is ... just ... massive.

Anyway, during our morning security briefing, we were petrified into compliance, as we were told the realities of moving in this area at this point in time. I won't go into details, just in case my mother is reading this blog. We were ordered to put the head of WFP Kenya's Security Force's number into our cell phones, and told to call any hour of the day or night, if needed.

And then we received the program briefing, preparing us for the week's worth of field visits throughout the Mombasa region; visiting HIV/AIDS clinics, school feeding programs, the Mombasa port operations where food and materials are received and distributed for Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, and much, much more...

From there, we boarded a plane headed east to Mombasa, which provided an aerial view of thousands of miles of earth charred by the sun, affording nobody anything at all...

Though we've been here only two days, it feels like a week, though in other ways, I also realize that this trip hasn't even started yet. We will be thrown down the rabbit hole into some of the most extreme poverty in the world, in some of the most remote places on earth. And yet, we get to be part of this flickering light in the darkness, bearing peace and health and training and education and self sufficiency. This is the part of my job that I love the most...

Drought.

The Orphaned Elephants of Kenya

Greetings from Nairobi!

I was so surprised when I came out of the airport gates - as there is always that crush of humanity, and sensory overload when you exit an airport in a developing country. Men trying to sell you taxi rides, "Where you going? Where you going?," intertwined with the smell of fire and diesel, horns blaring, music pumping, people yelling over the din in languages I don't understand... I love it! This is always my signal that I've arrived - I'm now on vacation...


But Nairobi was surprisingly calm, almost lacking in chaos completely. I must say, I was a little let down.



Anyway, we found the WFP drivers, waving their signs with UN logos, a welcome face in the crowds.


Today I went to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Preserve, followed by the Orphan Giraffe Center - both local NGOs working to nurture and rehabilitate orphaned rhinos, elephants and giraffe, who have been left to fend for themselves - some as young as four weeks - as their parents perished at the hands of increasingly violent poachers, or, more recently, succumbed to the extreme drought conditions throughout the country. The volunteers said that they've had more animals come in this year, than at any other point in their 30+ year history.




The animals often arrive battered and scarred - marks left from attacks and close escapes. One small elephant had a huge piece of his ear missing - left with a ragged edge - and no tail. I was told that he was attacked by hyenas as a baby, who literally started eating him, before some pastoralists intervened. This little elephant followed the volunteer keepers around, like they were his mother; wrapping his trunk around their arms, grabbing on to back pockets and headbutting playfully...

All along the roads outside of Nairobi, I saw farmers directing herds of emaciated cattle. Normally I wouldn't think about something like this, but my driver told me that the Masai people are bringing their herds into Nairobi from the plains because it's the only place with grass for their animals to eat. Nairobi! A city with reeling taxis, choking exhaust, skyscrapers, and dusty, dirty roads... the idea that *this* is their best option is a foreshadowing of the extreme conditions we'll be seeing when we leave the city tomorrow...

Washington DC --> Amsterdam --> Nairobi

Similar to my prior post, I've embedded a short film about the challenges WFP is facing in alleviating hunger throughout Kenya.

Nearly four million people are hungry right now, because of the devastating droughts, which have dried up agricultural production, picked off the herds, and left Kenyans fighting for their lives.

The "little rains" have started to arrive, which have alleviated the most immediate fears, but it is expected that these rains will lead to devastating flooding, as the parched earth is unable to absorb the water.

I've traveled to places suffering from disasters and poverty before - most notably, working during the Tsunami reconstruction effort in Aceh, Indonesia. It never ceases to amaze and humble me, the strength and resolve of those who are suffering the most. Their faith, their community, their family - these are the priorities, which deliver life's greatest joys and provide somewhat of an antidote to disaster and hardship, which, quite frankly, would snap me in two.

We can provide food and assistance, but the gifts of perspective and humility that I receive from these experiences cannot be underscored enough. I always find myself thinking about the words "want" and "need."

I leave for the airport in an hour. This will be my first trip to East Africa.

Rains Arrive in Kenya But Food in Short Supply

From the United Nations World Food Program (http://www.wfp.org/)

Rains Arrive in Kenya But Food in Short Supply

Seasonal rain has brought some relief to drought-stricken areas but it will be months before the harvest comes. Almost four million people are depending on WFP help to stave off hunger.

After months of bruising drought, rain has finally come to Kenya. The cracked earth is changing to red mud, the air filling with the smell of rain and green things, and frogs are singing again in riverbeds that have started to gradually fill with water. The much-needed rains have begun to rejuvenate pasture for those cattle and goats that have survived through the long dry period. It also provides a welcome relief to people who have had to trek up to 20 kilometers in search of water.

But although the rain has satisfied the need for water in most areas in Kenya, it has not helped the food shortages caused by the drought. Farmers have begun to plant their fields, but harvests will only come in February next year.

Nolkitemu Lelesara (see photo) is among the 3.8 million drought affected Kenyans who are receiving food assistance from the United Nations World Food Program. Lelesara is a pastoralist in the Samburu region of Kenya. Here, much of the famed wildlife has died from lack of water, and pastoralist livestock has also been similarly affected. Now, for the first in many months, the skinny goats and cattle are able to graze on emerging green grass. But Lelesara is only cautiously optimistic.

“We need this food assistance to continue,” Lelesara says, “It will take some time for us to be able to get food for ourselves, and our animals will take time to grow healthy and produce milk and cows.”

But, alongside the relief that comes with the rain, there are fears of flooding, particularly in north eastern parts of Kenya. El Nino, the periodic temperature change in surface waters that affects regional weather patterns, is the cause of these heavy rains. In 1997, the El Nino phenomenon caused severe flooding in Kenya. Water borne diseases, and more deaths amongst people and livestock followed. Climate experts estimate that there is a 70 percent chance that floods could occur in the next few months.

WFP has already pre-positioned food for its refugee and drought operations to ensure that those most in need will not go hungry, when rains make the roads impassable. In a land that has been parched by the sun, boats are now on standby to distribute emergency relief.