When chatting to a good friend on new year’s day, I asked how her daughter was, and at first, it seemed that the question had dampened her spirits.

“Darius, she’s in secondary school now”, was the subdued answer and it was quickly followed by a resigned “Dude – it’s official, we’re old”.

But even after we both cracked out laughing, the thought lingered and you begin to take stock. I guess that the main change in my life over the last several years is that some things have become more important than others and you tend to prioritize better and focus on what’s important. What hasn’t changed though is the ability for nostalgia to hit you hard enough to make you home sick especially with the sub zero temperatures and snow storms that box you in the house and makes you ask that dreaded “what am I really doing here” question.

It made me think of the good old days growing up and enjoying some of the simplest and most cherishable moments life will ever present.

Don’t know about some readers up in here, but there were times when 5 bob could take you a long long way back in the day. My dad used to give us 5 bob a day and that would cover bus fare to and from school, a soda and a snack of some sort (usually quarter bread bandika) for lunch, and you’d still have left over change to buy roast maize with pili pili or patcos to carry you through the evening.

Long before the advent of satellite TV with over 20 exclusive movie channels, local entertainment back then was fronted by public service open air movie services like Tazama Mobile Cinema pitched up in an open field once a month to bring to you the blockbuster of the day. They had this strange habit though, of commentating the movie as it went on in a manner that was as equally funny as it was annoying.

Speaking of entertainment, there were classic shows that would definitely be in my DVD collection right now – From Vioja Mahakamani and the comical antics of the residents of Matopeni, to Vitimbi and the real celebrities like Othorong’ong’o and Masanduku (forget all these latter day celebs who think they’re celebs because…well, anything makes you a celeb these days). There were shows like Tushauriane that were banned outright because they showed a couple embracing and the chap started unblousing the girl. Or even the days when we didn’t have mobile phones and you had to walk a kilometre to the nearest phone box where there was a massive queue of all manner of people – and you’d be mad when your ‘girlfriend to be’ plays hard to get and pulls that stunt of asking you to call later because she’s watching No One But You or The Rich Also Cry. The ungrateful heifer – after all those hours you’ve waited in line to make that call….LOL!

And how was it that folks could actually watch such shows. The acting was so bad and the love scenes so predictable and drossy. Maybe I just hate them coz’ they cost me many a date.

Thinking about dates, I miss those day time dates where you save up the whole term and during the holidays you can take the young lady to a respectable restaurant in town followed by a movie. The only down side is that she has to leave by 4.30 pm so that she can get back home in time before her dad and mum arrive from work. It was such little time you didn’t even get the space to express yourself and give yourself a chance to get into her panties. The strategy was always to buy time and charm her enough to warrant the next date – and perhaps you might get the chance to start early enough in the day.

The most affordable place seemed to be Wimpy on Kenyatta Avenue where you had to contend with their Indian manager always shouting orders at waiters like ”upstairs-downstairs”. But the funny part was the red and blue Bata rubber shoes that they used to wear as part of their uniform. On occasion, some of them would be allowed to wear North stars – but you catch my drift…LOL

But on the entertainment – I miss shows like This is it whatever happened to Sam Madoka the presenter of the coolest music video show at the time); or Family Affairs that had Mambo and Riziki and their troubled family. On radio, there always seemed to be the same 3 or 4 folks sending salaams on shows like Yours for the Asking. I think there was Robbie Reuben Robbie and Agnetta Machinga who would never miss a shout out on radio. And of course Sundowner with legendary DJ’s like Ike Mulembo.
And what
Happened to Kenya’s best known (now he is a celebrity for sure) radio news reader Agao Patrobas. I used to think he was called A gang of robbers. But Patrobas used to front every news bulletin on radio until he became a household name. Legend has it that the reason why he was too good on radio and wasn’t seen on TV was that he was too ugly – but I honestly don’t think so. But a gang of robbers had the mojo for radio.

There were times that it was so boring during the day in the estates, my best friend and I would wear our Sunday best suits and head for town and just walk around. We would carry them brief case type portfolios and fill them with newspapers and Malkiat Singh text books just to give them substance. If we met someone we knew, they’d be impressed about how sharp and on the ball we were even though we were barely out of school. We’d try to say something intelligent to give our cover story some credence.

Speaking of Malkiat Singh, that dude had to be my best author during that time. He was either a mega multi-talented factual author of text books on every subject including Christianity, or he was the biggest conman in town. Either way, he trousered millions of shillings from unsuspecting Kenyan students.

But despite being in town, we would always end up at Jivanjee gardens at lunch time. It was the place to be. If you were lucky, you’d have a few bob to buy some chips and sausage at the only Kenchic in town at the time. Watching those naked chickens rotate on that machine was bad enough knowing you were never going to afford them – but what made Jivanjee gardens interesting is that most if not all of the folks hanging out there were broke like nobody’s business and they all came to pass time and listening to them loud lunch time preachers. But if you looked into the eyes of most of the people, they couldn’t disguise that hunger that oozed out and screamed ”I could murder a bandika and cold Fanta right now”.

We eventually figured out a way to survive being broke during meal times. We would go to Burma market by City Stadium and in the market, there is a long row of restaurants that do nyama choma. The idea was to pop into every restaurant and ask for a sample which would come on a very small plate. After you had the sample, just respectfully decline the offer of a meal and move on to the next restaurant. By the time you hit 8 or so restaurants, you’d have had a whole meal and all you have to do is ask for a glass of water to drink. It wasn’t glamorous but it worked for sure.

Down town Nairobi was a very interesting place though. I always thought the funniest part was whenever there was a fracas of some sort, people would just explode and run away in one direction. But if you even asked someone why they were running, they’d scratch their heads and say “I don’t know – people were running”. I never did figure this one out.

And who can forget the lunch time kiosks along the route to the railway station. I had a friend who used to work with mum and set out to start his own food kiosk called Aluta Continua. The thing was this though, Johnny used to give my best friend and I free meals and once in a while, he’d ask us to run him some errands – collect stock, heavy lifting, that sort of stuff. Sometimes when we got pressurised by girls who were only interested in being taken out for dates in expensive restaurants, we’d get them all dressed up and eventually weave our way to Johnny’s kiosk. There was a bonus for us of course and it’s not just the free meal. If we brought a pretty face it enhanced the equity of the kiosk and was the envy of many others around it – so Johnny would throw in a Fanta madiaba for good measure. Some chicks couldn’t cope and considered it humiliating – LOL, but some took to it like water off a ducks back. You can’t beat fried matumbo and chapos even if you were dressed for a lunch date at Trattoria.

Folklore has it that only 2 professions in the world can withstand anything thrown at them – whether it’s the mother of all economic recessions, a world war, or a once in a lifetime occurrence of that infamous and elusive force majeur principle – an act of God. Yup! You’ve got it – prostitution and running funeral services.

They’re the only two professions that have withstood the test of time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the tax authorities can easily be your new found best friend if you register your sole trading vocations as funeral services and sheltered adult entertainment services. It’s the combination that’s a killer – the revenue folks don’t flag up each of them in isolation.

I even remember a story a few years ago in the famous Kondele area of Kisumu City. There was a chap who religiously attended church every Sunday and vociferously prayed to God to bless his business and ensure that there’s always a ready stream of customers. You see, this chap was the most successful coffin maker in the area, and most definitely a believer in the school of thought that unconventional and diversified marketing, if carried out with discipline and without fear, can yield incredible results.

It’s not surprising then, that the oldest profession in the world has caught onto the most popular phenomenon of latter day citizen media – this here blogosphere of ours. I think it’s safe to say that residents of the local stiff house will never take advantage of the wi-fi provision in their guest house facility, though I’d hazard a guess that you’ll find a mortician or two blogging away to pass time while literally doing the graveyard shift. No, no – I’m talking here about prostitution getting the most high profile attention any blog in the world will want.

Until this week, the biggest and most sought after secret of the blogosphere was the identity of Belle du jour, a high class £300 an hour London call girl who anonymously blogged about her exploits in the sex industry. Her blog – The Diary of a London Call Girl – was a witty, matter of fact kind of blog about her experiences with her punters that whilst not necessarily explicit, left very little to the imagination.

From the time her blog (which unsurprisingly has been moved offline was chosen by the Guardian Newspaper as the best blog of 2003, the literary world and the tabloid and mainstream press set out on a mission to identify and flush out the person behind the blog. There were even claims that the blog was a work of fiction by some professional writer, or that it was written by a man.

Belle du jour, eventually unmasked herself to the Sunday Times in fear that an ex-boyfriend was about to cash in on one of the best kept literary secrets of all time. Now known as Dr Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist in cancer and epidemiology at a Top Bristol hospital for children, she admits that she worked as a prostitute for 14 months to pay her way through graduate medical school.

Her exploits as Belle du jour also earned her a neat cushy income with 2 biographical type books based on her blog and work as a prostitute, and a novel classified as fiction, as well as a TV series based on the life and times of Belle – who was played by a famous actress Billy Piper. Until this week, only Billy Piper had met Dr. Magnanti when familiarizing herself with the role before doing the TV show. Even her publishers Orion had no clue who she was.

Flat-backing your way through school is not a new phenomenon (well, maybe writing about it and publishing a couple of books is a bit different), but the truth is that if you look at most if not all the universities around the world, you’ll find a story to tell. It’s like one of them taboo things that folks don’t speak about – but it’s the white elephant in the room. The methods of payment may vary for most students trying to pay their way through school, and these range from favours, to rent payments, to good old fashioned hard currency. In recent times, many have resorted to publicly auctioning their virginity to pay their way through school.

You could always make a moral argument about whether flat-backing is a sign of an industrious and entrepreneurial spirit, or whether it’s just pure ole exploitation of girls who are desperate to change the course of their lives by daring to aim for the best careers. A good friend of mine I went to college with saw it totally different – “Pragmatic mi old chap, pragmatic” she used to say.

While I understood her reasons for doing it, my only gripe with her was that as a Business student, she was short-changing herself. It’s the classic business conundrum of how to build equity by not committing yourself too much. My argument with her was that if she turned tricks herself, her body could only let her work a finite amount of hours. However, if she got a customer willing to pay £100 an hour to tap arse, and gave someone else £70 to do it, she could better spend her time pimping and building equity. If she had 4 girls working in one hour, she’ll break even and some, and she didn’t even need to stare at the ceiling and think of the Queen.

LOL! Stop looking at me like that. The girl simply asked me for my advice. I was just thinking of the quickest way she could pay her way through school and finish paying off her student loans.

But seriously – like with anything in life, there’s a nasty side to the game. For those like Dr. Magnanti, it probably is a happy ever after story and she’s got her PhD and working in a cushy job (with a few bob also from her books and TV show).

For millions of other girls and women, prostitution is a means of survival and will never be a glamorous affair or the stuff of Hollywood. It was only in September that I wrote about the exploitation of children in Mombasa in We’re not going to hell, we already live in it.

Sometimes I wonder why we indulge in the mystical belief that there is life after death. Our transgressions here on earth supposedly decide whether we get to go to heaven or as it were, shake hands with the devil before assuming our position in the fire and brimstone of hell.

The truth is, we don’t need to look forward to spending our eternity in hell, we already live in it.

About 3 years ago, a UNICEF funded report that still haunts me today landed on my desk with a post it note suggesting what I can do to highlight what was in the report within my sphere of work. The general subject of the report was not alien by any means, I guess it was the scale of it and the impact that continues to disturb me. The report was about the scale of child abuse and child prostitution in Kenya in general, and around the coastal region in particular.

Fast forward to last night and I’m watching my favourite Channel 4 news and out of the blue, they feature a comprehensive investigative report about the prevalence of child prostitution and child abuse in Mombasa. What was different is that the children involved and highlighted in the report were given names and faces, and they actually came alive to tell their story. Not that they weren’t alive, but hearing the story from them is gut wrenching.

Here is the blog and video of the untold suffering of Kenyan children story by Jonathan Rugman, the Foreign Affairs correspondent of Channel 4.

Leyla, a 14 year old girl being interviewed in the video made tears roll from my eyes. She is clearly a bright, intelligent and articulate girl, and accepts that poverty has dealt her a raw deal and she’s ended up selling her body to survive. There’s one point she says that she reflects and asks God how the hell she ended up where she is and tearfully laments “I’m just a child”.

There’s also the story of a 6 year old girl now in an orphanage and able to better relate to her carers following her ordeal of abuse since the age of 3. It wasn’t only the physical marks of her abuse like the whipping on her back or the vaginal and anal trauma she’s sustained at her tender age of 6 – I submit to you that this girl doesn’t have to wait to live in hell. It’s her life now.

The sentiments of one mother whose 13 year old girl attends church on Sunday morning and from the afternoon is prostituting herself on the beaches of Mombasa to ensure that her family don’t starve to death captures an even more devastating side to this nightmare.

Until the issue of poverty is addressed, it’s hard to see how the “foreign” money from the mzungu – most of who travel for child sex is going to be turned away by those desperate to put food on the table.

It’s estimated that over 20,000 children, most under the age of 15 are involved in child prostitution, but I think it’s fair to say that this is only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. An iceberg that our society, particularly in Kenya, doesn’t want to deal with. For all the publicity the news report yesterday will bring, I’m more concerned with those who suffer in silence and for whatever reason, are not able to speak out.

I have previously worked on issues of social injustice in various forms, and the one that makes it hardest for me to comprehend, is the untold story of our children who are abused daily and don’t have a voice.

I once told a group of colleagues I worked with on a project “show me 5 girls living in a context of social depravation, and I’ll show you a story of physical, emotional and sexual abuse that is likely to be taken by the victim to her grave”.

Recently, a good friend asked me for some advice as he prepared for a rare trip back home. As I write this post, I wonder quietly whether he came through unscathed, but I guess I’ll have to wait for him to get on a plane and for us to eventually sit and chat with a cold beer in hand, before I can find out the true extent of the said expedition. For many folks who have settled abroad, a long overdue trip back to the motherland is something to get excited about, and it’s something you plan for a long time.

Granted, a holiday trip home, especially with ‘er indoors and the kids is a project in itself. However, the benefits say for folks at home who genuinely want to see you (as opposed to those who get pissed off that you’ve spent thousands of pounds on air fare for you and your kin – money which would have been better spent via a western union transfer to them), far outweigh the financial and emotional investment and stress involved. Well, with the exception of that dreaded trip to the outlaws.

“Come we stay” has been the de facto option for most immigrant couples from home who meet abroad, and I suspect that at the back of every man’s mind (at least those who are not just interested in the convenience of in-house booty as opposed to a serious relationship), there’s that daunting feeling that the time will come when you’ll have to make an honest woman of the lady you’ve been waking up next to for most part.

It’s the sort of trip that despite constant assurances from your other half aka mshikaji, its extremely naive and negligent for a man to embark on such a trip to the wild west solely on the assurances of a loving partner. I mean, how would she know it’ll be OK unless she’s been married before and has forensic evidence of how your outlaws (I mean in-laws) to be will react? Call it a duty to the survival of fellow man folk, but seeking and giving advice from those who have experienced that dreaded trip to the girl’s family to, shall we say, atone for and explain why their precious daughter has been living in sin with you for however long.

I’m not talking about weddings here. Weddings are side shows and opportunities for drama and fairy tale showbiz that a significant amount of folks don’t have the opportunity to indulge in. Where I come from, a marriage is a done deal once the traditional formalities are given a nod by the powers to be. This would involve that dreaded visit that I talk about, complete with the delivery of “cows” to the homestead of the outlaws. This concept of a wedding in church is a more recent western oriented phenomenon that those who can afford to, go ahead with to compliment the process of a traditional marriage – and as my aunt Rhodah would say – “forget the wedding – once they let you leave that boma with their daughter, it’s a done deal. Otherwise, that girl won’t be allowed to leave”. Aunt Rhodah should know, she’s been around the block a few times and left her father’s gate several times – and she ain’t a spring chicken.

So when a friend asks “what can I expect when visiting the outlaws” – the best advice to give is:

1. Get a good negotiator – you’re too emotionally involved. Get a chief of staff you trust, a consigliere who can competently represent your wishes and that of your mshikaji. Also make sure you have a good delegation of friends – peers you grew up with and your tight with, an aunt you trust, and perhaps one of your dad’s peers – call him an elderly statesman who is in the delegation for good measure. You’re going to need them.
2. There’s always a fixer in the girl’s family – identify that person quick and get on their side. It’s usually (but not always) a grandmother, or an elderly female mother figure like an aunt. This is the person who has the ability to smooth things as and when (yes as and when and not if and when) things go pear shaped.
3. Forget all the assurances your partner has given you or all the “it’ll be OK sweetie – my folks are really nice nonsense”. Consider everyone an outlaw. Only those at the table will negotiate the bride price and she’s not going to be there, and in most cases, will never be told how ugly it got.

I’ve been involved in enough of these expeditions to pick the signs of how things can transpire, and the one thing you always say to yourself is this is the time to be a boy scout – always be prepared…LOL! My expedition was comparatively and thankfully a straight forward one, but by being part of many other expeditions of friends and those close to me who asked for my support – I have seen enough that will traumatize any fully grown warm blooded male.

In one particular case, the whole marriage was nearly called off because of the brinkmanship of some of the folks on the outlaws team, and the insistence of the elders on our delegation that their boy was not going to be taken for a mug…LOL! It’s only in such cases that you ever get to see the value of the “fixer” from the girl’s side.

You see, in my culture, its customary that the suitor takes no part in any aspect of the negotiation. Their job is to sit down and look pretty and occasionally remind folks by standing up to answer the question of “who the gentleman is that is seeking to take away their daughter”.

It’s also customary that after the niceties and warm welcome, there is a sidebar session where the girl’s mother is given her own time with our delegation outside the main negotiating table. This task is usually assigned to the chief negotiator aka consigliere and perhaps a female in your contingent like an elderly aunt or something who step outside with the mother of the bride. During this sidebar, the mother of the bride has to be “sorted” out in her own terms.

And boy don’t some mothers know how to milk this one. I’ve heard lines like “You know that girl kept me in labour for 18 hours and she was a very difficult birth” or “she was a very stubborn child when she grew up” or “she broke all my favourite plates”…LOL! The point is – until the mother of the bride goes back to the negotiating committee and declares that “wameniona vizuri kando” (they’ve sorted me out properly), can the proper negotiation of the bride price go ahead. It doesn’t matter how much the mother of the bride relieved you off, or what arrangement you came to – whether in full or in instalments, that part was a side show that plays no part in the bride price negotiation.

It is at this point where it’s possible to see grown men cry….LOL! particularly in cases where more than just the immediate family of the girl is involved – uncles and cousins are notorious for this. But let’s face it, the negotiation and payment of bride price has become a cottage industry of sorts – and for the most part, it’s immaterial what a girl thinks or hopes will happen. They have no influence in what her “peeps” are capable of. And some of these guys play hard ball. All the girl can hope while hanging out with her own peers and kina auntie is that her husband to be will get past the outlaws. The longer it takes, the more nervous she gets, especially when she gets insider whispers during those very frequent and essential sidebars for “consultation”.

The ante is seriously upped when the bride price is dramatically increased for things like perceived virginity (dare you try and call their bluff and suggest their daughter was not a virgin when she met you – this is not the time and place to stand your ground…and considering you’re the first suitor she’s brought in front of this committee, they have a case for the presumption that she was a virgin before she met you – and you don’t want to take this case on LOL), the girl having a university degree and a job of her own (read: our western union remittance will reduce), the fact that you both live abroad and you’re balling it like a nonsense, or that you have a good job and can afford it. It brings a whole new meaning to “we raised our daughter well and we are pleased that you appreciate our effort – and the bride price is a token of your appreciation to the work done here all round”.

So as you can imagine in lore’s case, things weren’t going well on the negotiating table. It was another pal Kim who noticed Lore was in distress – mainly from the throbbing vertical vein that had formed on the left side of his forehead and his eyes developing an unnervy shade of red. Kim swiftly whisked Lore out of the house on the pretence of having a cigarette break – but clearly, the man was being distressed by the very thought of the brinkmanship that was threatening his impending marriage. A few of us joined the so called fag break at the fence and were even approached by one of L’s girlfriend’s peers to find out if we were OK and if we needed anything.

Clearly Lore’s girlfriend and her peeps had seen L being led out in distress and wanted to find out what was cutting – but the only thing you could say is “wazee bado hawajamaliza” (the elders are still talking). Though it was hard to see at that time, we suspected that the folks negotiating on behalf of the bride had their own agenda…LOL! They were there to get paid and they knew that Lore had a good job abroad.

There was a timely break in the protracted negotiations when you had to admire the skills of the elderly statesmen and women we had with us. They had insisted on coming for the ride, though most of us were convinced they were there for the feast. But their value begun to show by the way they maintain conversation and a light hearted spirit to pass the time by with laughter and old timers stories. For most people in the house who weren’t part of the negotiation, it seemed that everything was going on well – if they only knew…LOL!

What we didn’t know at the time, is a group of the mercenary negotiators who were hell bent on getting paid, had accosted the bride to be during this negotiation and meal break– apparently to get her to confess how much money Lore had with him. In fact they literally threatened the girl to tell them how much they had brought with them from “ngambo”. It’s an understatement to say that they scared the living shit out of the poor girl who was in tears for most of the time after that. I guess you could be if you’re being told that your “man” is too stingy to pay the bride price and that his people are threatening to walk away – which I guess was an option, but never one that had reared its head on the table.

Lore’s girlfriend’s distress didn’t go unnoticed and a savvy aunt approached us at one of our famous fag breaks at the fence with that re-assuring “are you guys OK out here” greeting and smile – and a coded “you guys are not leaving this girl here” message, with cryptic instructions of how we could find the back door. Of course we were too stupid then to figure this out and more focussed on the fact that there were totally unreasonable demands being made on the high table and walking away now seemed an option to consider…LOL!

After indicating to our consigliere that auntie so and so had given us a coded message by saying we were not leaving that girl there – the consigliere, who now looked like a man who needed a break… – had a word with the oldest member of our delegation, a neighbour of Lore’s dad who had travelled with us. He disappeared for about half an hour and on his return, the consigliere asked for another break.

Honestly by that time, few actually had any hope we were going to pull this off – yet we had to maintain our smiles and pretend that all was well. The truth is that if we had guns – her 2 cousins and uncle (the mercenaries) could have easily been dead – though you have to question whether that would have done any good for Lore’s marriage…LOL!

The key was the grandmother. She had been out in the background and no one took notice of her – and it was the old man from our delegation who went to have a cup of tea with her. From what we gathered, she was well aware of the mercenary tactics of some of the members of the outlaws team though the hope was that the rest will tame them. But I guess pay day is pay day. The deal that was brokered was for what Lore was willing to offer to be an upfront payment of some sort – and that a small token of appreciation will be on-going – kind of like to keep a bond for the family.

On our part, we gave way to not demanding and being given assurances about what future instalments and demands will be, and on the granny’s part, she guaranteed that the girl will leave that homestead with us and an assurance that tomorrow was another day – this will pass.

Even as people celebrated the new traditional union, there were some very bitter people in that room. Some of our friends went as far as loading everything that the girl owned, including presents from her folk into one of the SUV’s we had, and by the time all the good-bye’s and crying was taking place, all the drivers were revving the cars outside the gate. All that was left was for that girl to be smuggled into one of the cars….LOL! She was ours and we weren’t taking chances that them mercenaries were going to change their minds.

Funny thing is that over a year later at Lore’s wedding, the two looked so happy in church and lapping up the event. If only folks there knew that that wedding might have never happened…LOL! I guess it must be harder for the couple especially since they normally have to take a back seat as others see to their business. I don’t blame Lore for never telling his wife what was said in that room. There is some truth that sometimes you have to protect the ones you love and some things she just did not need to hear.

And to think of how she was a bitch to everyone during the wedding preparations – “Guys, no one is going to fuck this up for me – this is the most important day of my life”. Lordy Lord, if she knew the hoops Lore and his boys had to jump to give her the freedom to say that…LOL!

I’ve always found it interesting to consider how people rationalize arguments to spin their own agenda – whether in politics, in civil society circles, in business or in relationships. The one common thread that runs through the spin cycle is the cryptic question about “who benefits?” – when negative, inaccurate and in most cases, misleading arguments carry the day.

Take Kibera for example. Rightfully or wrongly, this stretch of Nairobi real estate that spans over 2.5 sq km (give or take a football pitch either side) – has garnered a world-wide reputation for being the largest slum in Africa with at least 1 million residents.
A first assumption you’d make is that the government in Kenya or some form of reliable public body or statistics agency actually did a head count and figured out that the number of folks who live in Kibera topped 1 million.

The veracity of such an assumption is not lost to those wondering whether you can fit that number of folks in an area (which can be measured accurately and not estimated) the size of Kibera. In mid 2008, Stefano Marras, a mapping specialist, took the plunge and decided to scientifically quantify a reliable estimate of Kiberas population. Marras wrote in summary to his mapping exercise

“…looking upon the data reported, and considering that type, dimension and distribution of the buildings observed in Kianda is typically the same in the whole slum of Kibera, it is possible to make a guess about the numerical dimension of its population. Considering that its area of Kibera is set between 2.3 and 2.5 sq km, the total population living in the slum can be most likely estimated between 220,000 and 250,000 people”.

So why the over-inflated estimates of those confined to the hardship of slum dwelling in Africa’s most renowned informal settlement. Conventional wisdom would suggest there are many parties that benefit. Politicians for one, have become seasoned tacticians unmoved about using the plight of poverty stricken slum dwellers to further their own political ambitions. Kenyan politicians don’t hold this monopoly – look around at the influence of politics in the slums of Asia or even right across the world in South America – say in Venezuela where Hugo Chavez enjoys absolute support for his socialist agenda from majority of their slum dwelling population.

Other players who benefit from the inflated population estimates are NGOs, the manifestation of the cynicism and fallacy that is the aid and development industry. The survival of this industry (clearly a topic for another post on its own merit) is dependent on the perpetuation of poverty at its highest extremes. The sustainability of this poverty helps fund mortgages and lifestyles for development experts on all manner of disciplines who believe it’s their destiny to change the world.

It can also be argued that the residents of Kibera themselves may benefit from the inflated figures as they solicit sympathy and funding from aid sources to celebrities of the ilk of Chris Rock and Simon Cowell. It’s a twisted interpretation of the tenets of Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory. Short of getting a job – the aid and development industry will fund this madness.

The media are also complicit in this spin of convenience. Some Kenyan journalists (if I can be allowed to qualify this generalization) in particular are known for their misguided enthusiasm and sensationalism in their reporting of events – so the accolade of having ‘Africa’s biggest slum’ falls right down their street.

Truth is – Kibera is probably just Nairobi’s biggest slum. And if you think about it, a similar exercise would probably factor down the population estimates of other Nairobi slums.

One interesting question is about how money flows within the slum. Marras estimates that over 96% of folks in Kianda area alone pay rent to someone – and this easily aggregates to a monthly income of around £45,000. Even in Europe, that is a windfall – and the capital gains tax alone on this income can fund some basic public services in the area. Who gets this money?

Renato Sesana, an Italian journalist and missionary observes:
“Marras did this work with funds from a scholarship, using an amount that in the average project financed by any European country would fall under “contingencies” or “stationery”. Yet he has accomplished a task of great value and that is scientifically outstanding, such that from now onwards, no government or NGO project conducted in Kibera can afford to disregard his data”.

The thing is this though – the more the unchallenged and convenient assumptions go on about Kibera, the faster the slum realities become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Equal opportunity and ‘elf and safety mafioso masqeurading as administrators complain a lot about being maligned for being anal about political correctness and about enforcing the straight and narrow.

Once in a while you get a classic example of the madness of political correctness unleashed on unsuspecting souls. Take Caroline Petrie for example, a devout Christian and community nurse going on about her business, with an added optional extra of an offer to pray for the patient Kind of like – would you like a biscuit with that tea, or can I take your coat for you, or do you want me to open the door for you type of optional extra….or maybe not…

Read Caroline’s story here. She is at risk of losing her job and even getting struck off the nursing register for offering to pray for a 79 year old patient. Maybe one of the mafioso saw a funny side to this if it turned out that Caroline was offering elder patients their last prayer before death came calling, whilst all the while fronting as a community nurse.

I personally think the mafioso administrators were just bored and running out of ideas to justify their salaries.