Mathare Undocumented

“You will make many friends here,” Chris told me as we walked through Mathare, “Because you don’t have a camera.”

Although not many white people visit Mathare, the ones that do bring cameras. They want pictures. The changa (illegal alcohol) brewers are afraid that they will be exposed. “Tell them you are a doctor if anybody asks you,” Chris told me. The others just don’t want to be bothered.

A group of young men walked by, and made a joke about me being an mzungu (white man). One of them asked me where I am from. “America,” I responded. He then asked me how I find Kenya. “I love it,” I told him honestly. He seemed pleased. I asked him the same question.

“This place is crap,” he seemed upset. “The government is so corrupt. They don’t do anything for us – they just steal.”

The big news of the day is that the electricity company came in the morning to disconnect the lines that had been illegally connected. They came a few days ago but the residents resisted, and would not let them through. Today, they came with police. The residents were nowhere to be seen: they fear the police in Mathare.

The MP of the slum was well-liked, but now that she is part of the ‘No’ camp, she probably will not be re-elected. The councilors do not matter much, and most residents do not even know their names.

We walked on one of the wider roads in Mathare, and piles of rocks had been recently piled there to rebuild the road. “The councilor brought these,” a shop owner told us. But no road was being built. Chris told me that eventually they would sink into the ground, making the road stronger. The councilor would then brag about all that he brought to the community. Rocks.

But the MPs bring the toilets, with fancy signs painted by downtown Nairobi sign-makers. The national MPs still have the symbolic authority – they are the symbolic Big Men in town.

The big men still must pay off the gangs. Not because they have moral authority – nor any real authority – but because they have guns. And because they live there. A year ago Russia burned down a group of houses over a dispute that started between some of the wives of the leaders. Hundreds of shacks burned. They were paid off by the slum elders right in broad daylight. Everybody saw it happening. The gang leaders took their 20,000 shillings and fled upcountry. One by one, they are coming back.

I asked Chris if he knew who the gang members are. “Everybody does,” he told me. “It is not a secret.”

Meanwhile, a group of turkeys picked at the pile of garbage, while a huge pig grazed on the little bit of grass in the slum. “That is the biggest pig I have ever seen,” I told Chris, and he laughed. A large group of women gathered at the water pipe and did their laundry. Two men with empty jerry cans jockeyed for position to fill up their bottles. Then they charge three shillings for 20 liters. The men began screaming at each other, as one cut the other in line. Just like the fights that break out on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. The women quietly laundered their clothes.

The pipe spews water non-stop, and it is free. While residents are supposed to pay for water in Nairobi, this water point is the lucky well that never stops. “Water should be free,” Chris told me. “There is no reason people should have to pay for it.” On the other side of the slum, Nairobi Water Company has taken control, and they institutionalized paid water points. The residents are not happy.

“How are you, how are you?” a group of schoolchildren yelled at me. “Good,” I responded. “How are you?” They stood dumbfounded.

As we walked through Mathare, we began talking about the new constitution. Chris is hoping that it will help Kenyans. “The government today does not care about the youth,” he told me. “They only care about themselves.” He is hoping that the new constitution will bring change, and focus attention on the youth of the country. I asked him what he meant by youth. He responded, “Those under 35 years old.” While so much attention is paid to the category of “youth” in Africa, it remains an ambiguous term. For Chris, it is solely age. For others, it represents those who are unmarried without a job. For many, it is a class distinction.

In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela writes, “A man is not a man until he has a house of his own.” For Mandela, it is about property and ownership. But he also needs a woman – or women – to live with.

In Mathare, the youth struggle to keep their homes. Few of them have any formal title, and ownership itself is a disputed concept.

We stood for a few minutes quietly in the area where the houses were burned down a year ago. You could not even tell that the disaster took place. The houses were reconstructed, and the structures were complete. Title or not, these were their homes.

“Let’s go,” Chris told me. “The World Cup is on.”