I often felt numb, as though observing myself in the same way I observed these surrounding scenes. Every day I saw something that shocked me. I didn’t know how to take it all in, or how to articulate it when I wrote to my family. Instead, I read emails from my mother about the weekly sales at Kohl’s, how disappointing a new TV series was, how my alma mater football team was faring that season. How could I share what was going on here in Nairobi when I couldn’t even explain it to myself? I pictured my mom at her office, seeing my name in her email inbox and then excitedly opening my message. She would call over all her fellow workers to share the news: her daughter was still safe and doing well.
But what if I wrote to her about the man with elephantiasis of the leg I’d passed on the street the day before? A chill shot down my spine and my breath caught in my throat when I saw him, slumped on the sidewalk. My face contorted as I fought to hold back tears and nausea at the same time. I fought to look away, but couldn’t help but gape at the swollen, deformed figure lying before me. His thighs looked like the base of a tree trunk and his darkening skin was bursting at the seams, like a balloon ready to pop. His foot was so swollen that the toes nearly disappeared inside the distended flesh. I wondered: How can he even turn over? His foot must be impossible to even lift! Can he walk? How does he stand the pain?
Then he caught me openly gawking and met my gaze with a toothless smile and a trembling palm held out in hope of a couple of shillings.
How could I possibly explain to Mom just how gutted I felt in that moment? There seemed no way to share the flood of questions racing through my mind: Where does he sleep at night? What can he afford with just a few shillings? Or how do I even explain the unexpected contradiction, that even in agony his eyes held a gentle mystique, seeming to assure me all would be okay? Or how do I explain the bitter irony, that his smile was providing comfort and reassurance while I—healthy, with money in my wallet—stood stunned, unable to help him? And what about all the other sick, wounded Kenyans I saw? Do Kenyans have public health care? And if they don’t . . . what did they do?
How could I possibly even begin to share all the disheartening scenes I saw almost everywhere I went in this strange city?
I was a part of it now; there was no turning back. I couldn’t avoid the brutal reality; in fact, I didn’t want to avoid it. Although there were no easy answers, no understanding, no logic—only corruption, greed and ignorance—this was a world I wanted to learn more about. Right now I didn’t know how to share with my loved ones back home. Instead, I was learning to keep a million secrets with myself. But maybe someday I’d know how to tell them.
The days in Nairobi began to run into one another. Yet some experiences stood out, like the first day I was moved to actual tears.
I’d come to Kenyatta Market with my classmate Brenda to buy a sweater from the second-hand clothing market. It was a maze of stalls, vendors selling all sorts of used clothes, everything from fine-tailored business attire to Nike running shoes and Gap sweatshirts.
During my stay in Nairobi, I brimmed with anticipation while preparing to head to Maasailand for a full year.
As we strolled through the busy market, two street boys approached, asking for five shillings. Brenda took a glance at them, then declined casually, just as we both often did.
“Sina pesa,” she said. I don’t have any money.
Clearly, this was an outright lie. I’d been taught to say the same thing, because when there are two beggars there are ten and, when there are ten, there are still more ready to pounce. But even after saying it countless times, it still felt wrong. Compared to the people we passed on the street, we might as well have been driving bmw convertibles with the top down, flashing designer clothes and sparkling jewellery, tossing stacks of cash . . . then saying “sina pesa” while craning our heads for a better view of the dejected locals.
One street man nearby overheard us. Missing most of his teeth, his clothes hung as if they hadn’t been washed for weeks, and his hair was so dirty it was knotting into dreadlocks. Glaring at us, he said in Swahili, “What are you doing in Kenya, if you can’t help us?”
Despite my halting comprehension of the language, I understood his question. What was I doing here? Was I here to help Kenyans? I couldn’t remember any sort of altruistic impulse as my reason for being me here. I only pictured myself three months earlier, curled up on my family room couch reading books on cultural sensitivity, or shopping in neighbourhood department stores for appropriate clothing, thinking this was a chance for me to enlarge my experience and pick up others’ points of view. I’d been driven simply by a desire to escape not to improve the lives of these poor people.
I had no answer for this man. His piercing stare lingered, awaiting an explanation. It was all I could do to turn my head to avoid meeting his eyes. Brenda and I quickly rushed away, still wishing there was some sort of answer, any answer, to give.
By the time Brenda and I parted ways to return home from our shopping trip it was raining, with a chill in the autumn air. I hurried down a side street to catch a matatu back to the suburbs, my rain-soaked pants sticking to my legs and my hands jammed in my pockets.
Then I heard it: a sharp yelp from an intersection about ten metres up the street. Drawing closer, I could see two street boys hovering over a third boy lying on the ground. Keeping my distance, I continued on my way. It wasn’t an uncommon scene: I’d seen many street boys harass one another, stealing one another’s little food or the glue they sniffed. Yet the third boy’s cries echoed through the empty street, his quick yelps turning to desperate, wordless pleas as the others beat him with sticks. The sound seized my heart as I drew nearer, both with fear for my own safety and in alarm at the scene unfolding before me.
Then I saw what the boys were after: the fallen boy’s jeans. He struggled on the ground, outnumbered and overpowered as they stole the only protection he had against the night’s cold. He fought in vain until his attackers successfully yanked off his jeans and ran away, the echoes of their feet smacking pavement ringing down the empty street. Their victim tried to chase after them in his bare feet, but to no avail. For him, it was a harsh lesson in survival of the fittest.
No one helped the boy. I certainly didn’t. I’d only watched in astonishment, not knowing what to do. I was clearly larger than his attackers and could probably have fended them off. But then what? More street boys would likely come to their help, and then it wouldn’t be me against two; it would be me against eight, maybe more. And if I did get the boy’s pants back, nothing would stop him from being robbed again minutes later, after I’d returned to my home—a home with running water, a stocked refrigerator, warm blankets and a window I could shut to keep out the cold.
Empathy was overruled by desperation, and desperation created chaos. It wasn’t just happening here, at the corner of Koinange and Muindi Mbingu streets. It was happening across town, across the hundred various slums within Nairobi, across the country, around the world. I didn’t know where I stood in this equation. I’d never been so desperate that I might steal someone’s only pair of pants yet neither had I ever to defend myself against such an attack. I had never had to defend else from physical attack. I didn’t know what the outcome would be if I did.
I had so many questions. The voices inside my head wouldn’t shut up as I continually asked myself questions I couldn’t answer. Why were so many kids living on the streets? What was the government doing about it? Were international aid organizations assisting? Did the kids make enough money to live even at a subsistence level? Did they make any money at all? What happened to them at night? How did they get this way? And, most of all, what could I do?
I met many children throughout Nairobi, as street children were unafraid about approaching strangers, begging for handouts. There was a group of boys who lived along the route from my home to my matatu stage and, after running into the same recognizable faces, I began to often stop and talk with them. One afternoon I met Moses, a ten-year-old boy who lived on the streets. He was immediately endearing, brimming with charisma. We made plans