Nairobi

To say that my first opportunity to spend time in Africa has been an incredible experience would be an injustice because it has simply been overwhelming.

Consulting for the House of World Cultures/Goethe Instituts project “Translating Hip Hop” brought me to Nairobi where I had the privilege to be part of workshops involving Emcees from Manila, Beirut, Bogota and Nairobi. The results will be presented during the 4-day “Translating Hip Hop” conference at the House of World Cultures in Berlin in November of this year.

This is not meant to be another sad story about Africa. In fact, the opportunity to converse and work with local Emcees has been uplifting and a source of great motivation. The stories were heart wrenching. Tales of highway robberies and stick ups (they don’t call it “Nairobery” for nothing), Aids, child abuse and prostitution, men who rape little girls, sometimes even babies, because “they don’t have aids yet”…….

On day two we headed to Kibera, which is known as “Africa’s biggest slum”. While being disgusted at the thought of looking at other people’s misery it is like getting smashed in your face by your own ignorance and distance. Reading books or watching documentaries has one believing to know something about poverty, maybe even understanding some of its causes. Once there it is hard to wrap your arms around what it is your seeing. What kind of world do we believe to be living in when every day there are some 1.3 Million people, the overwhelming majority of whom are very young, in Kibera alone, who are clearly invisible? Living in piles of trash and open sewerage, no running water, no clean dinking water (kids with discolored teeth because of the dirty water they are forced to drink every day), no schools, no medicine……One out of 5 children here won’t live to see his/her fifth birthday. The people who live here earn less than a dollar a day and that is not even enough to buy adequate amounts of the dirty water they are forced to purchase from shadowy figures who seem to be making good money “running the water tanks”. The water runs through contaminated pipes and the Water Company seems unwilling to invest any significant amounts of money to improve the pipes, which would improve the water for people who are almost constantly sick with diarrhea. No sanitation leads to inventions such as flying toilets. Plastic bags people excrement into which they throw on piles on which kids play. All of this is in clear sight of the golf course and the former President’s mansion directly next to it. Separated by a wall, naturally……

The people I encountered in my very short time in Nairobi were Emcees or people who are somehow part of Hip Hop culture. Being around them has been an incredible experience for me. The positivity and incredible energy was amazing. Dudes coming from Kibera but looking like they just jumped off the front page of “The Source”. Rhyming for days…..I have never seen anything like it. You tell them to spit rhymes and 45 minutes later you wonder if they’ll ever take a break, like where are they pulling all that from?

I didn’t meet anyone looking at themselves as victims. I met people who would talk (matter of factly) about some of the most horrendous things I have ever heard of with a smile on their face.

And we live in a society where we start bitching when the remote is broke the local Café doesn’t offer wifi.

I couldn’t make this up and if I saw it in a movie I would laugh and dismiss it as “Hollywood bullshit” but at one point, walking through Kibera, I was flanked by a 13 year old boy wearing shoes 5 sizes too big and dirty clothes asking me, with big eyes, if I knew who my president was and before I could answer he stated, full of pride “Barrrrrack Obama”. And that was one of the more sad moments for me. Though US Aid is clearly present, Kibera is an abandoned place.

I am not sure how to move on from this and ever feel like I am doing something worthwhile but Nairobi, in just a few days you have taught me many valuable lessons, many of which I will not forget for the rest of my life.

Thank you

One Love!!!