Welcome to Mathare Valley, Kenya

CURIOUS ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER IN MATHARE VALLEY.


















A GOOD LOOK AT THE CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL USED IN MATHARE VALLEY











AN OLDER GENTLEMAN SELLING GOODS DOOR-TO-DOOR IN THE VALLEY, TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING.












A CITY WITHIN A CITY. SHOPPING, DOING BUSINESS DOWN IN THE VALLEY, ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NAIROBI, KENYA




















A TYPICAL DAY ON A BUSY "AVENUE" IN MATHARE VALLEY.












ONE OF THE MANY, MANY SIDE "STREETS" IN MATHARE VALLEY.














A YOUNG MAN STANDING ON A ROOF TOP, OVERLOOKING PART OF MATHARE VALLEY.











LAUNDRY DAY NEXT TO THE MATHARE RIVER IN MATHARE VALLEY.













MATATUS, PUBLIC TRANSPORT VANS IN NAIROBI, WENT ON STRIKE, FORCING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF SLUM DWELLERS TO WALK TO WORK IN THE RAIN.

Selling Maize on the Slopes of Mathare

We’re on a quest to figure out the economics of slum life this week, so if you hate numbers, I apologize.
We spent time with Felix today. He’s 16 and lives with his sister Winnie, who I wrote about a few days ago. She’s the one who fetches water and pays an exorbitant fee.
Felix does his own bit to help the family survive down in Mathare Valley and this is how it goes.
We followed Felix out of the slum at 5:30 a.m. to the Gikombo Market to buy maize. It was raining so the normally fetid slum was abnormally fetid. It was downright gross. We slithered down to the Mathare River, crossed the bridge and scrambled up the other side to reach the main road so Felix could catch a Matatu (public transport) to go the 5km to market.
The Matatu Operators Association had threatened a general strike for three days, starting today, and they were true their word.
Nairobi is a city of over 3 million people. Locals tell me that maybe 5% of those have private vehicles. The rest use public transportation. The strike—called because of alleged police corruption (matatu drivers are tired of paying bribes, they say)—has a direct and immediate impact on the poor.
Take Felix for example. It’s raining. It’s very muddy. And this 16-year-old kid needs to make some money today so he and his siblings can eat. The strike means he now has to walk 5km to market, do his business there, then lug a heavy sack of maize the 5km back to the slum.
We filmed Felix and tens of thousands of others as they walked into town. It was like a river of humanity as people scrambled to get into work so they wouldn’t lose their jobs. We took Felix the rest of the way and watched as he went down a dirty side street to purchase a sack of maize for resell. When he was done, he waded out of the mud and began the hike back to Mathare Valley. We took him most of the way and were once again amazed at the flow of humanity out of Mathare, into Nairobi proper.
Felix took his maize back to his shack and boiled the corn in the husks for several hours. When it was ready, he hawked the maize in the slum for awhile before settling down on a corner somewhere to let people come to him to purchase maize. It took him almost the entire day and when it was all done—assuming he sold it all—he would make a profit of 105/=, or, $1.40.
Here are the numbers:

40/= Matatu Fare to buy the maize
50/= Charcoal to boil the maize
05/= Water to boil the maize
400/= Purchase of the maize

Felix purchases three ears of corn for 20/= and then sells the boiled ears for 10/= each. If he sells his 400/= of maize, he makes a total of 600/=. Remove expenses and Felix is left with 105/= ($1.40). Today he did well because he did not have to pay Matatu fare as we took him with us. In the afternoon, when it was really hot and we all needed a break, we stopped for sodas. I paid the 30/= for each soda (about .50 cents) and later, when I was doing the numbers, realized that the soda I bought for Felix would have been almost a third of his daily profit.
This is not a lazy kid. Felix works hard to make it, but no matter how hard he works, the economics just don’t add up. He says he wants to be an engineer and see “London and America.” Selling maize on the slopes of Mathare Valley is not the path that will take him there.

Meet Emily

Emily is a young Luo woman we met in Mathare Valley. She’s 27, has two children named Ian and Olga, and a husband. They live near the edge of the slum in a shack made of iron sheets that measures 9 ft x 12 ft. She’s lived in Mathare most of her life.
We did some math today and this is what we found.

Emily cleans for a Somali family in Eastleigh and earns 1,500/= per month (approx $20). Her husband is a watchman and earns double that for a total monthly income of 4,500/= ($60) per month.
Here are the monthly expenses:
1,300/= Rent
800/= Water
300/= Use of public toilet
1400/= Public transport for husband to get to work each day (price immediately goes higher if it rains).
300/= Public transport for Emily to go to work assuming 10x per month. She walks the rest of the time (one hour each way) to save money.
480/= Daycare for 3-yr-old Olga. Emily also has to send a lunch with Olga 6 days per week.
300/= Ian’s school fees (Ian is 8).
700/= Cooking Fuel (combination of charcoal and firewood).
5,580/= Total which is 1,000/= more than what they earn. This does not include food, the cost of a yearly school uniform for Ian, medicine, entertainment or anything else.
Either the income is off, or the expenses are off, or Emily and family are struggling mighty hard to stay afloat. My hunch is it’s a combination of all three of those.
As we tromped around in Mathare today doing interviews and getting to know people, it became apparent rather quickly that Emily is not the exception. She’s the norm.

The Cost of a Drink

Today we entered Mathare Valley. Piper, one of the crew members, asked, “What’s the nastiest slum you’ve ever been in?”
After some thought I had to say, “Mathare Valley.”
I first entered Mathare Valley in 1985 as a college student. It was my first exposure to severe poverty and I’ve never forgotten the experience. Within a year, my parents joined me in the Valley.
Fast forward to 2010 (We spent New Year’s Day 2010 in Mathare) and it doesn’t look like much has changed.
Mathare Valley is a teeming mass of humanity separated by thin walls of mud or cardboard or iron sheets or even burlap. A complete lack of zoning means narrow, winding corridors become the main avenues and a lack of sewage services mean incredible filth spilling down the corridors into the Mathare River at the bottom of the valley.
In this place, clean water is gold.
Felix is 16. His older sister Winnie is 18. They and the rest of their family live in a tiny hut-indistinguishable from the others, in Mathare. They were born in this slum.
They pay 5/= (that’s how you write “five shillings”) for 50 litres of water. They go through at least 250 liters a day for a total cost of 50/= (about US 75 cents).
Winnie’s parents make between 2,500/= and 3,000/= per month. If we go with the higher amount of 3,000/=, they earn approximately 100/= a day (about $1.25).
This means half of the household income goes toward one thing: water.
Let me say that again. Half of their monthly household income goes to water.
And its’ not even good water. It’s Nairobi tap water, which our crew was warned repeatedly not to drink while we’re in Nairobi working. And they have to go fetch the water.
How many of us reading this spend half our income on drinking water?
I don’t have access to my latest utility bill, but I pay a fraction of my monthly income for very clean drinking water that comes out the tap in several different parts of my house.
Something ain’t right here.