Twelve year old FirstBorn has lived in Kenya for two and a half years, but we're kind of aware that she hasn't really been exposed to the life led by the majority of Kenyans her age. Yes, lots of her friends are Kenyan. And Rwandan, Senegalese, Burundian, Ghananian and the like. But in her British curriculum school she's mixing with a tiny minority of the more prosperous - of all nationalities - in this country.
And yes, her Dad and I tell stories of the less privileged friends and clients we work with. My student, one of 27 children of a polygamous father. My student who at Firstborn's age had been orphaned and was setting up home on his own, or rather, as on your own as you can be when you're responsible for three younger siblings in a land without social security. The children at the remand home who've been abandonned by desperate parents. But 'Yadadayada' its not the same hearing these things at second hand from a parent. So FirstBorn and I bunked off school today for some mother daughter bonding cum exposure to another side of Kenya in Kibera, possibly Africa's largest slum.
We started off with a websearch about HIV. FirstBorn knows all about the Black Death, scourge of medieval Britain. She knows about the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. But no one - not her Dad and I - not the school had explained about HIV, which 1.5 million Kenyans are living with today. Many without access to retrovirals. 1.2 million Kenyan children have been orphaned by HIV we read. I hadn't known that. In fact, kept mis-quoting the statistic through the day - 120,000 children - No Mum, 1.2 million children. That's a city the size of Birmingham of orphaned children, in this country, less populous than the UK. 6% of the population living with HIV. And this shouldn't be a far distant issue. The school's handbook is clear: Children will be welcomed to school irrespective of their HIV status. Quite right. So at 6% of the population, a number of her peers at the school will be HIV positive. Some of our staff have disclosed their status to me. She knows about diabetes and asthma. And yet none of us had taken time to tell FirstBorn about HIV.
Kibera is home to anywhere between 200,000 (census figures) and 800,000 of the poorest Kenyans. It's hilly so has no sewage pipes. Open drains, which overflow in the rainy season, carrying rubbish and worse through many homes. Houses are made of tin or mud. They don't have running water - you go to the nearest standpipe and carry your bucket, uphill, home. NGOs have built some toilets and showers, but they are few and far between. Not as close as a UK corner shop. One block of five toilets was shared between around a thousand families. And you pay for their use - around 5KSh a visit for the cheapest ones or 30 KSh for a family per day. But some of the poorest families live on 75 KSh - around a dollar - for the whole family for a day. So you can't afford to spend too much on that child with the dodgy tummy.
Infact the toilet block we visited was shut for renovations. The smell and the discarded plastic bags all around showed even the slowest learner what people used when the toilets were shut, or when they couldn't afford them. Flying toilets - do your business in a plastic bag - also safer at night when its too dangerous to venture outside to a toilet - and then discard your business on the road next day. Smelly, unhygenic, unpalatable, as small children with no shoes crowded round us, noses running, hands mucky with what they'd been touching.
We visited a preschool - 30 children under 6, 7 of them HIV positive, one inspirational teacher in one room around 10 foot by 10 foot, no running water and filled potties around in the yard, waiting for someone to take them to the latrine opposite. A small business networking group for HIV positive mothers. They had also run poultry keeping from their business premises (again 10x10 room) but had recently decided that the loose chickens underfoot was too much to cope with. A youth employment project making sophisticated jewellry from raw bones. But the smell and the bonedust filling the air, the naked blades from the machinery, not for the fainthearted. Toi market. And a final soda in our tourguide's Mum's house. Again a single room, 10x10.
'And how many of you lived here when you were growing up?'
'Nine of us. Four siblings. Mum. Dad. Uncle. And two cousins who came to live with us.'
Nine in a single room.
I went to a presentation by a US NGO recently, where they spoke on the results of a survey of young girls they'd conducted in Kibera. Almost 50% of 16 year old girls in their study had swapped sex for food. The youngest child whom they'd supported to access justice had been six, and had been being raped by a neighbour, with impunity until the NGO's advocates had stepped in. Another NGO survey says that 60% of Kibera's residents are HIV positive. I don't know. I don't have the means to assess or to judge. But in the daytime, accompanied by enthusiastic residents, visiting thriving social projects, well this felt a lively, purposeful community. I didn't feel unsafe. I didn't feel ill at ease. But I don't live there.
But I'd spent time in Kibera before. What did Firstborn think?
'Gosh it was crowded and hot in that preschool. But the children were really sweet.'
'I realised how lucky we are. We have three toilets in our house. And there were five for thousands of people in Kibera. And its really not nice when there aren't enough toilets. I have my own room and it has windows. It was so hot in that house, and there were only five of us in it. Imagine at night with nine in that one room.'
But most tellingly,
'Do you know Mum, that's the first time I've walked around on the street in Nairobi. In two and a half years.'
And its true. Outside Nairobi, in Naivasha, Nanyuki, Mombasa, we wander around. But in Nairobi when we go on errands together we go in the car, park in a mall. On my own, dropping off cheques, paying national insurance, yes I wander round on foot. But with the kids in tow, no. So that's a resolution for me for the future. Breaking out of the malls with the kids. Loafing. Looking at things in markets. Waiting in long endless queues. Spotting a bargain at the mitumba. All as much of the Kenyan experience as Kibera.
We visited Kibera with Kibera Tours. I recommend them. http://www.kiberatours.com/
And yes, her Dad and I tell stories of the less privileged friends and clients we work with. My student, one of 27 children of a polygamous father. My student who at Firstborn's age had been orphaned and was setting up home on his own, or rather, as on your own as you can be when you're responsible for three younger siblings in a land without social security. The children at the remand home who've been abandonned by desperate parents. But 'Yadadayada' its not the same hearing these things at second hand from a parent. So FirstBorn and I bunked off school today for some mother daughter bonding cum exposure to another side of Kenya in Kibera, possibly Africa's largest slum.
We started off with a websearch about HIV. FirstBorn knows all about the Black Death, scourge of medieval Britain. She knows about the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. But no one - not her Dad and I - not the school had explained about HIV, which 1.5 million Kenyans are living with today. Many without access to retrovirals. 1.2 million Kenyan children have been orphaned by HIV we read. I hadn't known that. In fact, kept mis-quoting the statistic through the day - 120,000 children - No Mum, 1.2 million children. That's a city the size of Birmingham of orphaned children, in this country, less populous than the UK. 6% of the population living with HIV. And this shouldn't be a far distant issue. The school's handbook is clear: Children will be welcomed to school irrespective of their HIV status. Quite right. So at 6% of the population, a number of her peers at the school will be HIV positive. Some of our staff have disclosed their status to me. She knows about diabetes and asthma. And yet none of us had taken time to tell FirstBorn about HIV.
Kibera is home to anywhere between 200,000 (census figures) and 800,000 of the poorest Kenyans. It's hilly so has no sewage pipes. Open drains, which overflow in the rainy season, carrying rubbish and worse through many homes. Houses are made of tin or mud. They don't have running water - you go to the nearest standpipe and carry your bucket, uphill, home. NGOs have built some toilets and showers, but they are few and far between. Not as close as a UK corner shop. One block of five toilets was shared between around a thousand families. And you pay for their use - around 5KSh a visit for the cheapest ones or 30 KSh for a family per day. But some of the poorest families live on 75 KSh - around a dollar - for the whole family for a day. So you can't afford to spend too much on that child with the dodgy tummy.
Infact the toilet block we visited was shut for renovations. The smell and the discarded plastic bags all around showed even the slowest learner what people used when the toilets were shut, or when they couldn't afford them. Flying toilets - do your business in a plastic bag - also safer at night when its too dangerous to venture outside to a toilet - and then discard your business on the road next day. Smelly, unhygenic, unpalatable, as small children with no shoes crowded round us, noses running, hands mucky with what they'd been touching.
We visited a preschool - 30 children under 6, 7 of them HIV positive, one inspirational teacher in one room around 10 foot by 10 foot, no running water and filled potties around in the yard, waiting for someone to take them to the latrine opposite. A small business networking group for HIV positive mothers. They had also run poultry keeping from their business premises (again 10x10 room) but had recently decided that the loose chickens underfoot was too much to cope with. A youth employment project making sophisticated jewellry from raw bones. But the smell and the bonedust filling the air, the naked blades from the machinery, not for the fainthearted. Toi market. And a final soda in our tourguide's Mum's house. Again a single room, 10x10.
'And how many of you lived here when you were growing up?'
'Nine of us. Four siblings. Mum. Dad. Uncle. And two cousins who came to live with us.'
Nine in a single room.
I went to a presentation by a US NGO recently, where they spoke on the results of a survey of young girls they'd conducted in Kibera. Almost 50% of 16 year old girls in their study had swapped sex for food. The youngest child whom they'd supported to access justice had been six, and had been being raped by a neighbour, with impunity until the NGO's advocates had stepped in. Another NGO survey says that 60% of Kibera's residents are HIV positive. I don't know. I don't have the means to assess or to judge. But in the daytime, accompanied by enthusiastic residents, visiting thriving social projects, well this felt a lively, purposeful community. I didn't feel unsafe. I didn't feel ill at ease. But I don't live there.
But I'd spent time in Kibera before. What did Firstborn think?
'Gosh it was crowded and hot in that preschool. But the children were really sweet.'
'I realised how lucky we are. We have three toilets in our house. And there were five for thousands of people in Kibera. And its really not nice when there aren't enough toilets. I have my own room and it has windows. It was so hot in that house, and there were only five of us in it. Imagine at night with nine in that one room.'
But most tellingly,
'Do you know Mum, that's the first time I've walked around on the street in Nairobi. In two and a half years.'
And its true. Outside Nairobi, in Naivasha, Nanyuki, Mombasa, we wander around. But in Nairobi when we go on errands together we go in the car, park in a mall. On my own, dropping off cheques, paying national insurance, yes I wander round on foot. But with the kids in tow, no. So that's a resolution for me for the future. Breaking out of the malls with the kids. Loafing. Looking at things in markets. Waiting in long endless queues. Spotting a bargain at the mitumba. All as much of the Kenyan experience as Kibera.
We visited Kibera with Kibera Tours. I recommend them. http://www.kiberatours.com/
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