November 27, 2006

Dear Friends,

Last week I returned from a week-long trip to Kenya, and over the summer I spent three weeks in Kenya. These were my twelfth and thirteenth trips as part of my ongoing project to document the lives of children growing up at the Good Samaritan Children's Home in Nairobi's Mathare slum.

GANG VIOLENCE

I made my most recent trip in order to see the fallout from the November 5th-7th gang violence in Mathare. I heard several different explanations of what happened, but essentially the Mungiki, a banned, quasi-religious sect that functions as a mafia in Mathare, decided to burn down the chang'aa brewing operations in the slum. (Chang'aa is an illegal drink that blinds and kills many Kenyans every year.)

The Taliban, a rival gang connected to the chang'aa brewers (with no relation to the Taliban in Afganistan – they just wanted a tough-sounding name) fought back. And over the three nights of fighting at least ten people in the slum were killed, over 200 houses were burned, and over 1,000 people were displaced.

Most people in Mathare, though, understand this violence not in terms of rival gangs, but as part of a resurgence of tribal violence that is building across the country leading up to the December 2007 presidential elections. The Mungiki generally are Kikuyus, Kenya's largest tribe, while the Taliban are Luos, the second largest tribe and the Kikuyu's main rival. Many people suspect politicians are inciting this tribal violence in order to solidify and rally their voting base.

After three nights of burning and killing, the government stepped in, arresting a number of people, imposing a curfew, and bringing in the army and a special police force to patrol the usually un-policed slum. When I arrived, nearly a week after the police came to Mathare, tension was still high, and there were reports of continuing small-scale sporadic violence.

Good Samaritan is relatively deep in the Kikuyu/Mungiki controlled area of Mathare, so none of the children or caretakers at the Home were hurt during the violence, but it was still considered too dangerous to go to the area of the slum where the violence had occurred. So several people from Good Samaritan arranged a police escort so we could see what had happened. As we got close to the chang'aa brewing area, where most of the violence occurred, we started seeing machete cuts in the iron sheet walls of the slum buildings. A store owner told us that all her goods had been looted. People complained of their eyes still burning from the tear gas the police had used. And finally, we came upon a large, charred, empty expanse of land – an anomaly in the incredibly overcrowded slum. Piles of burnt iron sheets were stacked high. People picked through charred remains of household goods. And a few ambitious residents were starting to rebuild.

A man picking out burned clothes from the rubble told us people had stolen most of his possessions that hadn't burned, and he was just trying to protect what he had left. He told us the Mungiki had ripped open one of his iron sheet walls and lit fire to the inside of the house. When he said this, a man across the way yelled, "It was not the Mungiki." The clothes-digger picked up a rock and was preparing to throw it at the man until we mentioned the police were with us and that it was probably not a good idea to start a fight. The tension is bubbling just below the surface, and many are afraid of what will happen once the police leave next month.

Auntie, who runs Good Samaritan, took me to visit a shelter for the displaced people who had not yet found another place to live. The shelter, on the outer edge of Mathare, was comprised of two tents and an upper floor of a community center. Approximately 75 families were sleeping in these cramped quarters. The lucky ones had all their belongings – beds, chairs, trunks, cooking utensils, clothes – in a pile behind where they sat. There was little or no food for many of them, and Auntie invited a dozen women back to Good Samaritan to give them small bags of maize and beans. Eventually, 70 women filled Auntie's small living room, and the portions of food she was able to give grew smaller and smaller, as she feared being unable to feed the children at Good Samaritan.

BOSS

Earlier this year Boss, who is 22 and who moved out of Good Samaritan several years ago to live in a little slum house nearby, started dating Njoki, a girl who also came from Good Samaritan. Soon after, she moved into his house. In the slum, where getting married is often out of the question because of the cost, a couple that lives together is often considered married, and Boss and Njoki call themselves married.

During the violence, they decided to move out of Mathare permanently. Boss has had previous run-ins with the Mungiki when he refused to pay his security payments. When one of their Mungiki neighbors killed a nearby Luo and threatened to burn the whole area down, Boss and Njoki took their hard-earned furniture and possessions – Boss has been working at a printing press for over two years now – and moved out of Mathare to a nearby, slightly more developed neighborhood. Their new room is more expensive than the one in Mathare, and Boss probably won't be able to continue to help his younger sister, Njambi, and her 20-month old daughter, Melissa, anymore. Boss's older brother, Malonza, who shares a room with Njambi and Melissa, recently lost his job, leaving the whole family in a very precarious position.

OCHIENG

Ochieng also moved out of Mathare during the violence, and the house that he and his friend shared was later burned down. They did bring most of their possessions with them in the move, but some of them were stolen as they were packing (I heard from a number of people stories of well-wishers "helping" them to pack their belongings, but really pilfering from them.)

The violence and his subsequent move didn't phase Ochieng very much. In fact, he was happy he moved because his new room was in a multi-story apartment building in Mathare North, an area of the slum with tenement buildings instead of shacks. The new building has a security guard, toilets down the hall instead of pay-toilets outside in the slum, and free running water.

This room is more than twice as expensive as his old room, but Ochieng feels like he can afford that now. He has actually made a remarkable turn-around in the past year since he finished high school. (He had many difficulties in school and he refused to attend for most of his senior year.) Since the beginning of the year, Ochieng has been volunteering at a local primary school, where he was recently hired to teach religious education. With his salary he has been able to pay his living expenses, save money, and take a few computer courses. He has even begun to repair his relationship with Auntie, which was very contentious during his high school years.

And Ochieng now has a serious girlfriend who he is talking about marrying. (He is 19 years old, but marriage often happens relatively early in Kenya.)

CHALO

Unfortunately, Chalo is not doing nearly as well as Ochieng. Both boys finished high school with the same grades – a "C-" – but Chalo has not been nearly as aggressive in looking for work as Ochieng. (After high school, Chalo moved back to Mathare into the house of a friend's family. They live in an area largely unaffected by the violence.)

And he had a large falling-out with Auntie, which has severed his ties with the orphanage. Before May, he often spent much of his time hanging out at Good Samaritan, but then he was accused of stealing Auntie's mobile phone because he was the last person seen near the cupboard where Auntie stored the phone. This was reported by a four-year-old after Auntie found the phone missing and started asking who had been in the room. Auntie bases her accusation on the child's report, on the fact that Chalo was accused of stealing a phone while in secondary school (under similarly ambiguous circumstances), and that she "knows his character" – that he doesn't want to work and he hangs out with bad people in the slum.

Chalo readily admits that he wants to go to college and get a "white collar job" like many of his friends from boarding school. Those friends have parents who can pay for them to go to college even if they don't have good grades. But children from Good Samaritan who get mediocre grades do not go to college – only those with the very best grades are able to continue their education, either by going to a national university or by finding a partial sponsorship from a donor. Chalo has had a very hard time accepting this, and absolutely refuses to do the manual labor Auntie asks of the older kids. So, except for a few short-term casual jobs, he hasn't worked since he finished high school a year ago. (He has, though, been volunteering at KENWA – Kenya Network of Women With AIDS – performing educational skits in different slums in Nairobi.)

Now that he is no longer allowed at Good Samaritan, he spends all his time out in the slum, and he tells me many of his friends are involved in illicit activities.

LUCY

I'm returning to Kenya in January, when Lucy will begin her final year of high school. Lucy moved to Good Samaritan three years ago because her HIV-positive mother was too sick to care for her. She had the best grades in her class, but after her mother's death in July 2005, her grades dropped dramatically. They have improved somewhat since then, but her teachers do not expect her to do well enough on her national exam to get into university. This coming year is her final opportunity to learn the material for the exam, which she will take in October. Over this year I will continue to follow her story, and all of the others, as these teenagers struggle to reach adulthood, and as the Good Samaritan Children's Home continues to take in more orphans.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN EDUCATION FUND

Lucy is one of 60 children who Good Samaritan helps attend high school. In January, a new group of children is supposed to begin high school, but they will be unable to attend without additional financial support. You can help send some of these children to school by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. For information please visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html If you do make a donation, please let me know so I can ensure it is tracked properly.

"ORPHANS OF MATHARE" SCREENING IN VANCOUVER

As part of World AIDS Awareness Week at the University of British Columbia, "Orphans of Mathare" will screen at the Life Science Centre at UBC, Vancouver in room LSC3 on Tuesday, November 28 at 5 PM. All are welcome to attend.

Thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy