Cheetah Man: February 2007

Some Interesting Facts/Insights About Kenya
-Became free from British rule in 1963

-Population: approx 30,000,000

-These shots were taken on the bus ride from Nairobi to Malava. It’s acres and acres of tea fields. Along with sugar cane, tea is Kenya’s top export

-Kenya’s currency is the shilling. 1 US dollar is equal to about 70 shillings. About 60% of all Kenyans live on less than 2 dollars a day.

-The school system desperately needs to be fixed. Primary school is 1-8. Secondary school is what we call high school, and only a minute percentage of primary school graduates are admitted to secondary school. And for some odd reason, secondary school costs a fortune, so many kids who are admitted can’t even afford to go. Of the ones who don’t get the chance to go to secondary school, those who are lucky enough to find jobs will work. The others either hang out and do nothing, or turn to the streets.

-Healthcare is pretty much nonexistent

-Kenya has a Parliament and a President. The President can only give his cabinet positions to an MP (Member of Parliament). Also, Kenya’s MPs are the highest paid MP’s in the world. This fact is ridiculous because the Kenyan government is so corrupt that not only do that get paid well legally, they are also making tons of money with bribes.

-Right before the millennium, the International Monetary Fund stopped lending money to Kenya, partly because corruption had been so blatant that it was holding back the nation’s economy

-My boss explained to me that the corruption in Government has much to do people’s loyalty to their tribes. So instead of choosing someone qualified for a position, someone in power would rather just give that position to a friend from their native tribe or family member, with less qualification and (more often than not) intentions to help themselves and not the people of Kenya

-2007 is actually an election year. I was informed to stay away from anything that deals with politics. It is not uncommon for political rallies to end some kind of violence, and sometimes full fledged riots. Kenyans take politics very seriously. I assume this is because they want to believe that there is someone who can help stop the corruption and violence, and set up decent health care and education systems, therefore giving the citizens of Kenya the chance to live with dignity.

-Small towns like Malava are not immune to the AIDS epidemic, and because of the struggling economy and job market, prostitution is a problem no matter where you are in Kenya. The current life expectancy rate of a Kenyan citizen is only 47 years of age. In the 1990’s, the life expectancy rate was 57 years of age. This is drastic drop is directly related to AIDS .

I REPEAT: THE LIFE EXPECTANCY RATE FOR EACH CITIZEN HAS DROPPED 10 YEARS IN THE PAST DECADE BECAUSE OF THE AIDS EPIDEMIC.

Slum visits

So during my orientation in Nairobi, we were taken to two different slum neighborhoods. I haven’t traveled to many places around the world, but I can confidently say that trying to survive in the slums of Nairobi has got to be as tough as gets. There is no clean water, therefore simple diseases that we spoiled scoff at can actually be fatal. There are no bathrooms. The people use trash bags, and when they are done, they throw the trash down by the river. The stench of the slums can be best described as a mixture between raw sewage and rotting flesh. The “houses” are just big pieces of tin held together by nails. Disease, murder, rape, starvation, child neglect/abuse, drug addiction: they are all prevalent.

       These people are basically the poorest of the poor. Most have come to the big city with dreams of honest work, decent pay, and a better life for them and their families. Unfortunately, they come to find no resources whatsoever, and no place to stay, so they resort to slum life. I mentioned in my first email that people can just buy some tin and build a house in the slums to live, but this is not the case. Actually, slum residents pay almost just as much as people living in “middle class” sections. How is this possible? Because many of the landlords are very powerful people who own and rent out multiple slum houses, making huge profits off the poor. The landlords will pay off government officials not to pass laws to either lower rent prices or help the conditions in the slums, giving people no choice but to pay high rent to live in filth. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Seeing how people in the slums live makes it hard to ignore the fact that corruption is the root of MUCH IF NOT ALL of the suffering that Kenyan people endure.

       For both tours, we went to visit primary schools that are located inside the slums. I compare each school to an oasis for the kids to get away from their surroundings for a few hours of the day. Our first trip was to the Kibera slum. Kibera is arguably the biggest slum in all of Africa. There is another slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, that might be a little bit bigger, but there’s just no way to tell how many people actually reside in slums slums. There are approximately 900,000 – 1,000,000 residents in Kibera.

       If any of you have ever seen the movie “The Constant Gardener”, Kibera is where Tessa (the main female character) spends her time trying to help some of the locals. There is a big set of freight train tracks shown in the movie that run through the middle of the slum, and I’ve walked on those tracks. And whenever the young kids see a Muzungu, they scream “how are you?” because English is Kenya’s second language, and is taught in primary school. Next time you watch the movie and the scene is taking place in the slums, you can randomly hear “hey Muzungu” and “how are you?”

This guy

Cat and some friends

Kids go crazy fro muzungus, and they go especially crazy for Muzungus with cameras

The school actually has a really nice outside basketball court, which absolutely perfect for the kids to play SOCCER on (I have noticed that soccer is the most popular sport among Kenyans, with WWE wrestling coming in a close second). There are about 4 different soccer matches going on during this shot. Notice the kids don’t play with an actual soccer ball, just a bunch of plastic bags rolled up and duct taped.

These pics were taken from the 2nd floor library of the primary school we were visiting in the slums.

This is a shot of people walking along the train tracks that are featured in the move “The Constant Gardener”

What you see in these pics is only a tiny section of the slum. From this spot, Kibera stretches farther than the eye can see in every direction

Later in the week, we visited a smaller slum called Mukuru. Mukuru is located about two blocks where I stayed for my orientation, in a section of Nairobi called South B.