Kibera The Slum of Hope - 2019

Kibera
The Forest in Nubian
Nairobi
Kenya
A million souls
Living by the Nairobi Lake
On $2 a day
A slum
Bigger than Boston
Filled with every tribe in Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan, Nubia, Somalia
Living together
On $2 a day
Never giving up
Kibera is the slum of hope.

I have walked through the paths
Between the colonies of mud shacks.
With young friends
On a sunny winter day.
Banda likikushinda, jenga kibanda.
An oldiu Swahili saying.

'If you can't build a hut, build a shack."

There are hundreds of thousands
Of huts and shacks
In Kibera.
We go inside Steve's shack
Pop posters
A single overhead bulb
Dirt floor
Clean
$20 a month
It is home.
He lives the same as we all do
From past to present to future

I am a mazungoo.
A white man
I am here thanks to Tim
We met in Tibet
He was shot in Nairobi
By slum criminals

His revenge was to help Kiberans

Why am I here?

To help the team walk through the Masaii Plains
And climb Kilimanjaro

I know nothing
Of Kibera
But
I live in a ghetto
Clinton Hill
I have lived in others
In Thailand
In Indonesia
In the East Village
The poor there are poor
Same as the poor here
Same as everyone
Seeking an end to greed
And happiness.
Furaha

My friends are young Kiberans
Felix, Slow Steve, Vanessa, Maureen, Ubah, and Jackmon.
This is their home.
My friends are young New Yorkers too
Larry, Laikyn, Nathalia
Red Hook and Queens
I am a mazungoo
But here my name is not my mazoongoo name.
My name in Kibera is Mzee
Old man.
I was once young like them.
Not today.

We walk through the paths
Of Kibera.
Mud and tin shacks rise two-storys
Over paths of compressed garbage and mud.
Children play
They smile
Kibera all they know
Their world.
Gunmen roam Kibera
I'm not scared
I'm only scared of my wives.
Steve knows everyone
Everyone knows everyone
Now they know Mzee.

A dirty stream trickles along the path.
No running water
In Kibera.
Only these streams.

Vanessa's eight year old sister recites SLUM GIRL
"I am a slum girl "
Proudly defiant a slum superstar.

Hope

We walk more.
I buy watermelons at the shops
For the children
They smile with delight
They follow Mzee
Throwing gnawed rinds
On the ground to join
Dried mud and garbage
Further on
I buy another watermelon
More kids
More smiles
Old toothless women
Eat watermelon
Toothless smiles
Gunmen eat watermelon too
Fast Steve, Maureen, Ubah, Jackmon, Young Steve, Larry, Laikyn, Vanessa and Mzee smiles too u
We all love watermelon.
It offers happiness
For Mzee
For the young and old
For Kibera
The slum of hope
For the world
We are us
We are family

Today Shannon and Charlotta walk Kibera
With Steve and other Kiberans
I cannot fly yet
u They are my eyes and ears
They saved my life
Steve knows that
2024
I will be in Kibera
I will walk the paths
I will buy more watermelon
Mzee is coming
Nakuja 2024
https://youtu.be/eBpYgpF1bqQ?si=D7jlEpaAsjah_sX4

Cast A Vote for Hope Wambui Ochieng

Please cast a vote for the young poetess Hope Wambui Ochieng from Kibera in the Little Ms Kenya Contest 2020 by going to this URL

https://pageantvote.es/pageants/2375/contestants/13735

Asante

Kili Initiative 2019 # 3 - Kibera

Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Authorities estimated the population of the 'Forest' to be 500,000 to a million residents, who live on less than $1 a day. Crime and disease ravage the vast shantytown lacking schools, electricity, running water, and medical care.

On my second day in Africa the Red Hook contingent; Natalia, Larry, and Laikyn, accompanied five Kibera natives to Soweto. Our guide Fast Steve warned we had to be careful. He helped run the local boxing club.

"Kiberans are good fighters. Hard hands and harder heads."

"People don't like photos. They think you're taking them to think you are better than that. Bring no money and only your phone."

"I've been to ghettos before."

The Lower East Side.

Bangkok's Klong Toey.

Paris' Bidonville.

Larry and Laikyn hailed from Red Hook, Brooklyn's notorious crack capital. Back in the day bullets flew between gangs night and day. Some hit some of their intended targets. More often they struck 'mushrooms' or innocent citizens far from the action.

The NYPD treated everyone like a criminal. It was part of the 76th Precinct's training for the 'slave patrol' mentality.

None of these ghettoes rivaled Kibera.

'The Forest' had revolted after the last election and while the poor hated the rich, even more they despised politicians who stole everything, even the future.

Kibera was peaceful on this Saturday. The main street was crowded with thugs, families, young men and women, most with a smile on their faces despite the constant threat of economic chaos.

The New Yorkers were used to this. Red Hook had suffered the hell of Crack in the 80s. Gunfire echoed from the front to the back of the low buildings. The twenty year-old were cousins.

I was simply an old white man, but I wasn't scared, because I came from the South Shore of Boston. Jackman called me M'zee. He saw something in me. M'zee was better than being a 'mzungu'.

Young boys played football on a dusty soccer pitch.

Below the bluff reeds stretched across a valley and Fast Steve explained, "Once water filled a basin at the edge of Kibera. They had a yacht club, but the lake is gone."

"So I see."

"The streams are filled with plastic. The water is gone. Maybe one day it will come back.

"I hope so." I doubted any recovery from plastic, but Fast Steve was young. He pointed to the left.

My eight charges posed for a shot.

I tried to remember everyone's names.

I failed with the girls. They were shy. Their eyes held stories. All our eyes did the same. Young and old.

We walked by the football field and Steve explained, "This was a rough field controlled by the gangs, but we found money to level it. My team is Arsenal."

Everyone all around the world loves the English Premiership.

And boxing.

The old boxing club was in rough shape.

The young fighters had hope.