Our third visit to Mathare

Irine Wanjiri "Life in Mathare is Hard, hard, hard."

Mathare, The inhabitants

It’s June 26, and we are sitting in a matatu (public bus) on our way to Mathare. A man standing on my left hand side is hanging out the door of the matatu as it hurtles towards the station, shouting commands loudly to get people in. We look on nervously, half expecting him to fall off. Inside the matatu, Gospel music (actually a mix between Reggae and Hip Hop) is thundering away intensely, so if you want to communicate with anyone you have to SHOUT. After a while we arrive, we have driven through some of the worst traffic and pollution you can imagine. It can be pretty scary driving around Nairobi, because it seems like all the motorists are colorblind, they run red lights ALL the time, even when police officers are standing in plain sight nearby.

We jump out of the bus together with Nish and Ann, who work with Rays Of Hope, and stroll towards the opening of Mathare. It is impossible to try to explain the feelings and sensations one experiences when entering Mathare, it is a world of its own.

There is garbage everywhere, kids are shouting all around us, you see people living in metal boxes without any insulation from water or cold. One can only imagine what it is like when the temperature drops to a chilling 10 degrees during the night, and rain starts dripping in through the many holes in the roof. You then understand that Mathare truly isn’t a place you would like to spend the night.

After some breathtaking interviews of the people here in Mathare, we are yet again humbled by how they deal with such horrendous living conditions. One of the people we have been interviewing is Irine Wanjiri, she has a remarkable story about her life in Mathare Valley. She tells us about her father who became an alcoholic and used all their money on Changaa, (illegal brew) which he eventually ended up dying of a couple of years ago leaving his wife and kids to fend for themselves. Her brother followed in his footsteps and started drinking and using drugs, and it didn’t take long before he was arrested for brewing illegal spirits and drug trafficking, he is still in jail.

As she is talking she starts getting very emotional while describing her desperate situation in Mathare. She tells us how she fears the life in Mathare, and how they struggle daily to survive.

Her mother Katherine Nasera tells us that she works for an organisation called KENWA, they work with HIV infected women and take care of kids that have lost their parents to HIV and Aids. But she is only earning 50 Shillings (0,5 Euro) a day, and as she puts it so pithily, 'that isn’t even enough for myself'. We also spoke with her grandmother Rosemary Wanjiri, who has lived in the slum most of her 64 year long life. She tells us that conditions in Mathare are worsening, 'it’s getting so bad we are forced to steal’ she says. And when we ask her if they have received help from any of the organisations in Mathare, her answer was, ‘no, if you want help you need a disease.’

Some also tell us that when it comes down to receiving aid, tribalism is involved. One tells us that if you’re not a kikuyu you are born unlucky(there are 42 different tribes in Kenya, Kikuyu is the biggest, it is also the president’s tribe), and that most of the housing is owned by Kikuyu and that they pay the Kikuyu rent. There is a clear feeling of injustice, and it is obvious that tribalism is one of Kenya’s greatest problems.