the Friendly Heart of Nairobi

Kibera is probably the biggest slum in Africa – it is home to an estimated million who live in appalling conditions – facing poverty, HIV and other diseases, unsanitary living conditions, unemployment, and social issues such as violence and drug and alcohol abuse.

A visit to the slum is not for the faint-hearted – the smells, to the uninitiated nose, are nauseating – rubbish, open sewerage, unrefrigerated meat hanging in disheveled tin-shack butchers, dried sardines being sold by leathery-tough women on the side of the road.

On any given day you might see the severed head of a dead dog looking up at you from the street, a gang of young men beating up a girl, a huge line outside the MSF clinic treating HIV; you might have to negotiate the foul-smelling sewerage trenches that flow openly down every narrow, dusty street and become like treacherous river rapids in the rain, and tear gassed areas from violent protests to the Kenyan government who will not recognize Kibera as a legal settlement.

But if you can open your eyes and heart past these things, you will be rewarded. In a world where the farthest corners of the globe are increasingly reachable, challenging travel is always the most rewarding, and you will find unexpected treasures almost everywhere you look in Kibera.

The amount of colour you will see – from women dressed in brightly coloured wraps, vegetables set up on street stalls, brightly painted shop-fronts, and the red dirt under your feet – is amazing, as is the youth culture present in Kibera. The young people have their own style, slang, music, dance, and art. And it’s inspiring.

Walk around a bend and you will find a business initiative to empower women – ladies busy sewing dressed in brightly coloured fabrics. You will find people marching down the street, advocating against domestic violence. You will find drama groups traveling through the streets educating audiences on HIV/AIDS. You will be invited into strangers’ homes for lunch – ugali (flour and water mixed to a porridge like consistency) and spinach. Walk into a pub and you will find people watching the soccer over a pint – for a couple of hours you could be anywhere in the world. Go to a live soccer match and see the young players proudly wearing their uniform, or playing the drums and dancing enthusiastically on the sidelines.

And the people desperately want to share all of this with you, they want you to be a part of their world.