Kibera slum, seen from the south.
Nap at midday, Ebenezer Day Care$ School, Mathare Valley slum.
Daniel is unemployed. As approximately 45 % of the Kenyans. He is native of the inside of the country. At the end of the frst school cycle, he asked his parents to support him fnancially for his secondary education, they couldn’t afford it. He came to the capital and now he lives in Kibera since ten years. He hopes that he will fnd a job in order to save money, to be able to go back to school that will allow him to make plans for the future, further than the end of a day, and to go to sleep every evening with a full stomach.
Street with heavy traffic and lots of shops.
Phillip, social worker, lives and works in Kibera. Before the post-electoral riots of december 2007 he worked half-time in an association. After these events, with more than 1000 deads just for Kibera, he decided to involve himself in full time. In his association, people builds and restores houses in the slum to compensate for the overpopulation and the insalubrity. The aim is to encourage the «employees», descended from different ethnic groups, to mix themselves, to speak to themselves and fnally to realize that they gain more by helping people than killing them.
School dining room. No cutlery, single menu all week long.
Maureen, Conlyn and her son Deryl live together in the same room in Dandora Estate, an underprivileged and off-centered district of Nairobi. It is necessary to be several by barrack in order to afford the rent. Here walls are solid and hygiene is correct. There, the inhabitants are working, the standard of living is more decent but not high. Maureen is a primary school teacher in the Rehoboth Community Center, a school born from an individual initiative.
Football pitch on a saturday afternoon.
Daisy is a pupil. It is her frst year at school. She is a joker and mischievous child. When she is not at school, she helps her mother or hangs around in the fruit and vegetables workshop of her grandmother with other children, her cousins and with her uncles and aunts hardly older than her. In the evening, she goes to her grandmother with some other friends. They eat in front of the TV. Daisy is particularly keen on Mexican Télénovelas (especially Tormenta el Paraiso) badly dubbed, that makes her laugh.
Georges (in the second place from the left) and the orphans.
Joyce is a Sukuma Wiki farmer, that means «week shoot», it’s a cheap vegetable. It is cultivated in bags made of hessian because of a lack of space. It is a very resistant and pe- rennial vegetable. Three months before, Joyce cooked and sold chappattis (thick pancakes made of wheat four and water) and kidney beans. She lives in Kibera since 15 years. She comes from Kiriyuga, the region of the Mount Kenya. She has four children, two boys and two girls. They are healthy. The only legacy she can pass on to them in these conditions is education. Sometimes it is a challenge. She cannot pay school for all of them, she feels very guilty. The worst suffering is not to be able to feed them and send them to school. Her husband is a builder, he is from a different tribe. He works a lot, he is very tired, worn out, he became sick because of his job. He can’t stay a lot with his family.
Stray dog looking for food, near Fort Jésus.
Dieudonné (Ivory Coast), Jacques (Congolese of RdC) and Mathew (Kenyan), they are all ministers. Jacques is invited by Mathew to preach in his church of Kangemi, under-privileged district like Dandora. The religious buildings are often modest, they are settled in buildings which we ft out according to the needs. At least one musical instrument accompanies the prayers to sing a Gospel. People dance, sing, laugh and sometimes go into a trance.
Evangelistic mass, Kangemi Estate.
Ruben is a cook at «Toi Market» (to pronounce TOW-E), in the North of Kibera and separated from the district of Makina by Joseph Kangethe Road. Ruben cooks sukuma wiki, chappattis, kidney beans, beef boiled tripes, fried fshes (from the lake Victoria) with ugali (dough made of corn four and water). Ugali is served in balls, we use it as cutlries when it is mixed. It’s quite an art. In the storeroom, benches and tables are boards. It is modest. All the foods are cooked and warmed with embers. According to Ruben, his business goes well. For him : «it is enough to eat and it is already a good thing when it is like that».
Daniel looking after his shoes.
Janet is unemployed. Every Saturday, she is a volunteer in a program of biblical and food instruction for Kibera’s children. She loves children. She loves soccer. She has strengthened and decorated the walls of her kitchen with pictures of Barcelona and Arsenal players, her two favourite teams. She really appreciates Kaká because when he scores a goal, he points his fnger at Jesus to thank him. Apart from the biblical instruction of this food program, children attend to a class of «surviving skills». They learn the fundamental bases of the survival : how to cultivate the sukuma wiki, how to protect themselves during acts of violence, how to treat small cuts and bruises.
Along the Mombasa/Kimusu railroad, the major route in Kibera.
Sheldon is a clothes seller at «Toi Market». He merged his stand with his brother stand to survive. They take care of it successively every two weeks. During the week when they are not at the stand, the brothers have to manage on their own. At «Toi Market», we can found everything : corn four, beans, sukuma wiki, clothes, mattresses, coal, workshops of sewing and ironing (sewing machines are from the early 20th century and irons work with coal), second-hand shoes, medicines that have not labels on it... It is a «fea market» for the staple commodities.
Koranic school.
Peter is student in the second academic cycle. He is discreet and skilful. His family cannot pay for his studies at university and cannot take care of him. He will have to find a way to survive.
Classroom, Rehoboth Community Center, Dandora Estate.
Elizabeth and Irène are primary school teachers in Mathare slum, the third most important slum of Nairobi, in terms of surface area; Mathare is second, equally placed, with Gorogocho in terms of population (approximately 700 000 inhabitants). Elizabeth and Irène take care of a hundred of children. Unlike the other schools, their school (Ebenezer$ Day Care) does not beneft from a daily or weekly food program. Pupils are sent back to their home at noon. Some of them can eat some ugali with sukuma wiki. The others go back to school fve minutes later, time to drink a glass of water. During the post-electoral riots, the school has been destroyed when severals inhabitants of Mathare have known that Elizabeth belonged to the Kikuyu ethnic group (that represents the 22 % of the Kenyan population). For many people, most problems in Kenya – like the slums - are the consequence of a lack of education, of the corruption of the political class and of tribalism.
Children playing on their way back from school.
Graffiti in reaction to the post-electoral riots of decembre 2007.