DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Portrait of a Shantytown

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Gitau Warigi

NAIROBI, Mar 1 2006 (IPS) - Paul Opiyo sits outside his corrugated iron shack in Kibera, chuckles ruefully and shrugs. "I know the life here is rotten, but what do I do? It&#39s no better than if I stayed in the village; at least here I survive with whatever comes by the day," he says.

Located in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, Kibera is thought to be the largest slum in East Africa. An estimated 600,000 people live here – over one-fifth of Nairobi&#39s 2.5 million inhabitants.

The settlement lies in a crescent-shaped valley on the south-western edge of the city. From the upper-class Langata district, the crowded tin and mud shacks can be seen stretching out for kilometers, with hardly any roads or open spaces to separate them.

For many in Kibera, survival means hawking cheap wares in the outlying lower middle-class residential areas – or selling water, as there is no piped water supply in the settlement. Some men rely on menial jobs they get in Nairobi&#39s industrial district, about five kilometers away. Bus fare is a luxury, so most walk to and from work – if they&#39re lucky enough to get it.

Opiyo, 45, and a father of two, has lived here since he left his ancestral home in western Kenya to look for better prospects.

He says he is better off than many of his neighbours: he has a job as a panel beater in an open-air garage in the industrial area, where workers get paid according to the number of vehicles they fix. On average Opiyo makes 20 dollars a day, but there are no benefits of any kind, and when business is slow he is temporarily laid off.

Now there is an even bigger uncertainty he has to live with. Opiyo recently learnt that the land the garage occupies is not the property of his employer – and that the City Council wants to repossess the plot, which has already been allocated to another trader.

Bootleg liquor is the bane of Kibera. Opiyo&#39s neighbour, a widow with four teenage children who have all dropped out of school, makes a living selling chang&#39aa. This dangerously intoxicating brew is illegal in Kenya, but widely consumed in low-income areas, nonetheless.

Prostitution is rife, and the jaded customers of sex workers don&#39t often use condoms – putting both themselves and the prostitutes at risk of contracting HIV.

In addition, violence is never far away in Kibera – much of it ethnically-motivated, although residents tacitly acknowledge that conflict is often fanned by local politicians playing out their intrigues. Luos (like Opiyo), Luhyas, Kambas and others co-exist uneasily. In addition, the constant tensions between tenants and landlords often turn nasty.

Despite the landmark decree in 2003 that primary education would be free throughout Kenya, many of Kibera&#39s children rarely attend school regularly, and officials complain that the primary school drop-out rate is around 70 per cent.

Few students have the inclination to go on to secondary school: drugs, truancy and disjointed family lives in the slum are all hindrances to higher education, as is cost. Opiyo has no illusions that his children will be able to attend high school in the absence of financial aid from a benefactor, or the children&#39s marks being high enough to earn them government bursaries.

At present, Opiyo&#39s daughter Atieno, 10, and son Benson, eight, go to the Olympic Primary School: a government facility which performs surprisingly well for its location. But, the good standards set by the institution are not necessarily to the advantage of Kibera residents: they now find themselves being excluded from Olympic as children from other areas are enrolled there by parents in search of a good education for their offspring.

The Opiyo family is an exception in choosing to stay together in the slum.

"Life here can be too rough for families living together. Most of the men I know prefer to leave their families in their rural villages, and only visit them when it is convenient. But my situation is a bit different because I met my wife in Nairobi," says Opiyo, whose spouse, Rispah, sells vegetables at a roadside kiosk to help the family get by. Atieno helps her mother at the kiosk when school closes in the evenings.

A typical Kibera dwelling is no more than four meters by three meters, but Opiyo&#39s is slightly larger. Two wood-and-straw beds, a few stools and a tiny table make up the furniture, while a small stove sits in a corner, a few pots and utensils stacked next to it.

Drainage in the settlement is non-existent, and raw sewage seeps along the labyrinthine narrow alleys because there is no disposal system, and a dearth of pit latrines. The few that have been set up are an unsightly mess, something that has given rise to a phenomenon called "flying toilets".

Residents defecate in their shacks, and wrap the faeces in small polythene bags that they then throw away as far as they can: out of sight, out of mind. For those who unwittingly step into the path of the flying toilets, the experience can be all too memorable, however: many residents and visitors have found themselves splattered with this foul cargo as they make their way through the settlement.

Add to this the fact that there is no garbage removal in Kibera, and it becomes clear why the first thing a person notices upon entering the shantytown is a rancid stench.

Church groups, non-governmental organisations and humanitarian agencies like the United Nations Children&#39s Fund run a plethora of projects aimed at alleviating the misery and hopelessness of Kibera. Some provide HIV-counselling and anti-retroviral drugs; others focus on general health and hygiene.

The government and the U.N. office in Nairobi have also been collaborating on a sanitation programme to improve water supply and build toilets.

But residents view these initiatives with some cynicism: many are curious as to why such a substantial number of projects has failed to change their lives for the better in a significant way.

Earlier this month, a project to build 600 housing units in Kibera was reported to have got underway.

But, Opiyo and others are not too sure they want such an initiative: they have seen shacks in other slum areas in Nairobi demolished, only to be replaced by newly-built units that are beyond the means of residents.

In 2000, global leaders drew up eight Millennium Development Goals in a bid to improve the living conditions of poor countries. One of the goals focuses on achieving environmental sustainability, including betterment of the lives of 100 million slum dwellers – hopefully more û by 2020.

If such goals are going to be addressed in Kenya, Kibera would be a good place to start.