There’s a lot not to like about slums:
Most of what makes Kibera interesting, though, is what it shares with other African slums. The density (shacks packed so tightly that many are accessible only on foot); the dust (in the dry seasons) and the mud (when it rains); the squalor (you often have to pick your way through streams of black ooze); the hazards (low eaves of jagged corrugated iron); and the litter, especially the plastic (Kibera’s women, lacking sanitation and fearing robbery or rape if they risk the unlit pathways to the latrines, resort at night to the “flying toilet”, a polythene bag to be cast from their doorway, much as chamber pots were emptied into the street below in pre-plumbing Edinburgh). Most striking of all, to those inured to the sight of such places through photography, is the smell. With piles of human faeces littering the ground and sewage running freely, the stench is ever-present.
So what explains the strange allure of the slums?
And what about the people who live in Kibera? Strangely, it suits them too, up to a point anyway. Asked whether she wouldn’t prefer to go back to the village in western Kenya that she left six years ago, Mrs Kadenyi says, “Yes, of course. But what would I do back home?” What indeed? Kenya’s average rate of population growth for the past 30 years has been over 3% a year, putting enormous pressure on the land. With mouths to feed and no prospect of a job in the countryside, the rural poor head for the cities. There at least they have some hope of employment.Hope is all it is for most of them, at least in the formal economy. But hope is what keeps them in places like Kibera. It may be a dump, but it is central. This means that anyone lucky enough to have a job, either in the offices or houses of the city, or in the industrial area nearby, can walk to work. Those who have to peddle goods or search for casual labour are equally well placed. Being able to avoid a time-consuming and expensive commute is a great benefit.