Nairobi was teeming with people like Michael who came in from the country desperate for work. Over 55 per cent of Nairobi’s population lived in slums that occupied less than 16 per cent of the city. These slums were truly appalling, crowded, filthy, and unsanitary. Michael had a brother, Isaiah, who lived in Kibera, the largest slum, not far from Wilson Airport. Michael offered to take me there and introduce me to his brother since it was unwise for a muzungu to go unaccompanied. I wanted to see for myself what constituted an African slum, so I agreed to go.
Kibera held almost a million people, packed into tiny mud hovels. The press of humanity was suffocating to the outsider. Open sewage ran along narrow passageways with hardly enough space for people to pass. Rank smells of burning dung, garbage, and rot permeated the fetid air. We left the car and I found myself holding on to Michael’s jacket, fighting claustrophobia, pushing through the jostling throng, wading through rivers of muck and feces.
Isaiah lived with five other men, all of whom shared a hut furnished with two cots and a chair in a space no larger than a walk-in closet. Half the occupants worked the night shift, which allowed the others to rotate every two hours between a chair and two cots—four hours sleeping, one hour sitting. Isaiah made a great fuss over our arrival.
“Come in, come in, you are welcome to my home,” he said, enthusiastically. The smoke-filled hut was completely devoid of light. The smell of stale sweat and dirty feet was overpowering. Isaiah unceremoniously roused his roommates from their cots and ushered them, dazed and shuffling, out the doorway to provide space for us to sit.
“Get out, get out. Can’t you see I have guests?” he said, as they slouched uncomplaining into the blinding light of day. He then set about serving us a syrupy sweet tea in tin mugs.
“You shouldn’t have disturbed your mates,” I interjected, embarrassed at the fuss he made over our visit.
“Don’t worry about them,” Isaiah said quickly. “It’s not every day we have a muzungu visit us in Kibera.” Isaiah and Michael laughed and immediately switched to speaking Kikuyu. Michael did most of the talking, while Isaiah repeated, “Ahaa, ahaa” every few seconds.
I cast my eyes around the room, slowly adjusting to the lack of light. The mud walls were bare except for a cracked, unframed mirror and a calendar featuring a girl pulling on a pair of stockings.
I speculated absent-mindedly that Michael and Isaiah were discussing whether or not I had money. I decided it didn’t matter. I simply sat there drinking tea, trying to imagine how six full-grown men could live month after month in such restricted quarters.
Eventually, I interrupted their conversation. “What do you do for work, Isaiah?” I asked. Both brothers turned, as if surprised that I was still present.
“Oh, I’m not working at the moment, bwana. Between jobs,” Isaiah volunteered. Michael quickly added that it was very hard to find work living in Kibera. I could see the conversation was heading towards a request for money so I ignored Michael’s remark and addressed Isaiah again.
“Do you have a family?”
“Oh yes, he has a family living in Nakuru,” said Michael, determined to steer the conversation back to himself. “It’s very hard for my brother. He must send money to his family every month.”
A loud whistle from the train travelling from western Kenya to Mombasa interrupted our conversation. The train passed right through the middle of Kibera between the press of people and the racks of cheap clothes hanging from poles on either side of the tracks.
Resigned now to the inevitable request for money, I asked Isaiah how it was possible to send money to his family if he had no job. Unfazed, Michael rose to the occasion, while Isaiah sat silently, anticipating rejection.
“Isaiah lost his job from Asian boss in Biashara. He closed his shop and refused to pay last week’s wages. Now my brother can’t pay his rent. It’s a very bad situation, you understand, Scott.” Michael’s persistence was relentless.
“How much is rent?” I said, incredulous that rent could be collected for such a place. That was it; the trap was sprung.
Triumphant, Michael announced, “Rent is 1,800 Kenyan shillings a month. Isaiah must pay his share, 300 Kenyan shillings, by this evening. Only 300 Kenyan shillings, Scott. Can you help him?”
I pulled out my wallet and passed the money to Isaiah who appeared stunned at this miraculous event. He accepted the money without saying a word. Michael quickly added, “God bless you and your family, Scott.” Turning to his brother, he added something in Kikuyu that sounded like a rebuke. Isaiah remained silent. The business over, it was time to go. Isaiah’s roommates had gathered round the doorway, anxious to return to their sleeping quarters. We made our way out into the press of people, towards the eastern end of the slum, where Michael had left his car.
There was something impressive about Kibera. In spite of the dirt, poverty, and unsanitary conditions, there was a social order that I found extraordinary. The intensity and vibrancy of close quarters, shared hardships, and the mix of generations gave Kibera a sense of community. This enormous congregation of people, mired in pollution, without police or government, had a commonality of purpose which focused on day-to-day survival. It was unlike anything else I witnessed in Nairobi during my two-year stay there.
Sometime later, I learned from friends in Westlands, a well-to-do suburb, that their African staff, living in separate quarters palatial by comparison to Kibera, became lonely, missing the life in Kibera, depressed by the material comforts of Westlands but devoid of human contact. Similarly, aid agencies such as the Flying Doctors Service spoke of refugees who were loath to abandon the intense social life of the massive refugee camps, no matter how bad the conditions, for the less human prospects of resettlement.
Michael and I made our way along the railway tracks that bordered the slum. Mounds of rotting garbage piled several stories high redefined the landscape. I could see first one, then two, and soon over half a dozen children, picking and sorting their way through the slime, in search of anything of value they might possibly turn to a shilling. Their eyes darting, alert to danger and opportunity, the scavengers were totally unaware of our presence.
Monday morning, November 18, 1996, I walked up the laterite path that led in from the main road to Wilson Airport, to an area where a collection of attractive bungalow-style buildings butted up against a nondescript office block. A large nandi flame tree had dropped its gold-laced, reddish flowers on the dark earth. There, under the leafy shade of a parking lot, dappled in sunlight, I found the main reception of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) headquarters. I was pleasantly surprised. Inside, the atmosphere was professional and efficient. The corridors buzzed with activity; doctors, nurses, secretaries, and messengers were striding purposefully from office to office, sheaves of paper in hand, intent on AMREF business. A small group of Africans waited patiently for news about a sick relative or a job application. The phones never stopped ringing. On closer examination, the buildings required minor repairs and a lick of new paint but, for an NGO (non-governmental organization), dependent on private funding, headquartered in Africa, the place scored high on first impression.
The African Medical and Research Foundation was the brainchild of plastic surgeon Sir Michael Wood, who was knighted for his work in Africa. He was born in 1919, educated at Winchester, and interned at the Middlesex Hospital in England. He and his wife, Susan, immigrated to East Africa after the Second World War. Two other plastic surgeons, Sir Archibald McIndoe, a New Zealander, and Dr. Thomas Rees, an American, arrived in Nairobi in 1957. All three met and together founded AMREF; however, it was Sir Michael Wood as director general who continued to be the driving force of AMREF until his premature death in 1987.
Sir Michael Wood, a man of charismatic charm and imagination, was also a pilot and larger than life. He realized that in Africa it was impossible for the sick to reach the large hospitals in major centres such