It Happened on the Way to War (15 page)

“Pata kubwa!”
Nate shouted. “Get big!”

Kash strained and struggled, his back flat on the chipped wood bench, slowly pushing the bar up until his elbows locked. He didn't need help. He racked the weight and rose with a grin.

“Your turn, Omosh.”

I squeezed by him and took his place on the bench. There was not much room in Kash's gym, a tiny triangle of dirt next to a flooded
choo
swarming with flies as big as thumbnails. A strand of rusted barbed wire separated the gym from another row of mud shacks. One of Kash's dozen neighbors had installed the wire when he had discovered that people were sneaking into their
choo
. There were more churches than
choo
s in Kibera, Kash observed. The poorest of the poor defecated in plastic bags and tossed them into open sumps. Called flying toilets, the bags resembled miniature parachutes and slowly made their way to the river and the Nairobi Dam, a cesspool at the far east end of Kibera that once supported the docks of the colonial Nairobi Sailing Club.

I hit my max on eight reps. I was surprised I couldn't match Kash's eleven. Nate bested me with nine. Pleased with his performance, Kash stacked the concrete slabs and metal bars so that they wouldn't block the way for someone dashing to the
choo
. He escorted us around the corner to his ten-by-ten.

“How many people do you sleep with?” Nate teased Kash about the size of his bed, which was draped with a silky pink comforter.

The bed fit four people, Kash said, but his shack was in such an undesirable location near the river that friends rarely stayed at his place.

“It's the only bed in Kibera big enough to fit Nate,” I joked. “And pink's his favorite color.”

“Yeah, pink, it's nice. Reminds me of flowers. You're welcome to stay here by the way. Me, I don't mind,” Kash offered.

“Kash, do you snore?” I asked.

“ 'Cause my snores rattle the walls.” Nate laughed.

Kash wasn't a snorer, though he seemed strangely intrigued by the challenge of sleeping next to one.

“If I move in, I'll have to help you decorate this place Kash, ol' buddy,” Nate slapped him on the arm and gestured to the walls, which were barren with the exception of a small mosaic featuring a Siamese cat. Not much else was in Kash's shack apart from his big bed, battery-powered radio, and dog-eared French textbook. Kash sounded upset as he explained that he once had more furniture.

“I had more stuff before the rains came.” He pointed to his tin roof. “When the rains come, it's very loud. It covers the sound, you see. Nobody wants to be in here then. The rains bring mud and thugs.”

Kash's comment reminded me of a lesson from a military exercise, when I attempted to lead a squad of midshipmen through a forest at night. We were soaking wet and shivering when Major Boothby circled us up. Rain, cold, and night were the ideal conditions for Marines, he explained. The rain covered the sound of movement, and bad weather always brought out “the human factors of war.” “Hit the enemy when their will to fight is at its lowest point,” Major Boothby instructed. “Hit 'em when all they can think about is a hot meal and a warm bed.”

Thugs had crashed into Kash's room in the middle of the long rains. They held him on his bed with the tip of a machete pressed into one of his nostrils, and they took everything he owned, except the bed and the French textbook. The fear was not the worst part, Kash said. It was the sense of betrayal. Kash only welcomed his closest friends into his room, and the thugs had known the precise locations of his two most prized possessions: a stereo and a soccer trophy.

“Man, that's intense,” I reacted. “You sure it's safe here for Nate to stay?” Nate looked as if he had the same question on his mind.

“Yeah, it's fine man.” Kash looked at Nate. “ 'Cause the rains are over and thugs, they won't know what to think of a big
mzungu
. They'll fear you.”

“You found the thugs who robbed you?” I asked.

“No, but I haven't stopped looking.”

“Does it ever make you regret your decision to come here?” Nate asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Here, I mean, to Kibera, to the slum.” Earlier Kash had told us that he'd left his parents and came to Nairobi as a teenager in search of more opportunities.

“Depends. Life here sucks.” He kicked a pebble across his dirt floor. “We live like animals. But it depends. It depends 'cause I don't know how the story will end.”

Kash didn't have a formal job. He sold things periodically for income. It was vague, but I was familiar with how informal work ebbed and flowed, and I was captivated when he explained how he taught himself French. Kash studied the language every night from his textbook in hopes that he could one day qualify for a job as a flight steward with Air France. The benefits of such a job sounded so great they were difficult for him to comprehend: health insurance, paid vacation, salary, and a pension. In addition to his airline ambitions, Kash dreamed about soccer. It was his passion, and like most serious players, he aspired to one day compete in a stadium with thousands of fans. He also realized the power of sport to organize and inspire youth. For that reason he spent much of his free time coaching a team of boys called the Slumtotos.

“Do Slumtotos compete in KIYESA?” Nate asked.

“What?”

“KIYESA, you know, Taib's thing.”

“Oh, yeah. It doesn't do much.”

“But Taib says it's the only tournament,” I interjected.

“Taib's full of shit,” Kash reacted. “There are lots of tournaments like his, and they all charge the fees. They're money making. My kids, we can't afford.”

“Fees?” Taib had never mentioned fees to me.

“Yeah, few thousand shillings per team.” It was the equivalent of $30 to $50.

“Figures,” Nate grunted, as I asked myself if I could still trust Taib.

“You guys don't need Taib,” Kash challenged us. “Just do it yourselves.”

A COUPLE OF days later Nate and I met at the Mugumeno Motherland Hotel to brainstorm over a steaming plate of pilau, our favorite Swahili dish, rice cooked in a seasoned broth with bits of beef. We had been in Kibera for less than a week. The news that Taib might not be respected by the youth in the community surprised me more than Nate. A politician was a politician in his book, and he assumed every Kenyan politician was corrupt. He was probably right, though I remained hopeful that some government leaders took the high ground and put the public interest above their own narrow ambitions.

“So what do you think of Kash's idea?” Nate asked.

“Which one?” I shoveled a fistful of pilau into my mouth.

“To start our own thing.”

“How would we?”

“With leaders on the ground like Kash.” Nate's observation struck a chord. The whole reason we formed CFK was to empower local leaders. KIYESA could only bring different ethnic groups together to prevent violence and create new role models if it was well led. We decided we needed to gather more information by talking to youth individually and holding a couple of focus group discussions about sports and development.

Perhaps I should have spoken with Taib about our efforts and directly raised some of the concerns we were hearing in the community about KIYESA. We hadn't written off working with him. We still thought the greatest impact we could have in our short time with our limited funds would be to help build the capacity of a preexisting organization, not start something new.

Taib called Oluoch to express his displeasure when he learned that we were back in Kibera and had not yet consulted with him. Oluoch maintained a transactional relationship with Taib. Although I didn't realize it at the time, it was in Oluoch's interests to have KIYESA dropped from our agenda so that we might spend more time and resources on Elizabeth's Carolina Academy. The day after we had arrived, Oluoch had asked me for a $1,500 loan to purchase a used minibus. He intended to start a busing business. Although the business would not be connected with the Carolina Academy, Nate and I had assumed Elizabeth knew about his request. We trusted Elizabeth and didn't want to potentially damage our relationship by saying no to Oluoch. Shortly after his request, I lent him the money with a handwritten agreement that pledged repayment within a month.

“What's that
mzungu
doing?” Taib allegedly shouted at Oluoch over the phone, “I run soccer in Kibera. Nothing happens without me!”

Trusting Oluoch's summary of the conversation, we thought Taib sounded like a hothead, not what we were hoping for in a partner and community leader. We decided that we needed to keep our distance.

SIX MONTHS BEFORE Nate and I had arrived in Kibera, I had sent $400 to Jumba to launch Jumba's junior credit scheme. It was the easiest $400 I would ever raise. My mother had given it to me for Christmas. We now wanted to see the results of the investment. Yet every time we brought it up in conversation, Jumba detoured to discuss macroscopic issues about poverty and economic development. As a college student, I had enjoyed hearing his wide-ranging opinions on such topics. But now we were trying to get something done. Just when Nate and I began to question if we should continue to work with Jumba, he introduced us to one of his field officers, a community organizer who helped us mobilize a dozen youth representatives for our focus group discussions on sports and youth leadership in Kibera.

Every one of the youth representatives knew the word
development
. It conjured up a mix of notions ranging from wealth, privilege, and corruption to jobs, education, and health care. We told the youth representatives that we had no money and wanted to “brainstorm.” Most of them were familiar with that term too. It was another favorite word of the development community, and Kibera was a source of no small supply of community-assessment surveys for well-heeled NGOs. Most residents assumed nothing would come of these surveys, though were often content with them as long as participants received some type of simple compensation—sodas, lunch stipends, something.

We didn't want to be the white faces leading the project. If CFK was going to work, it would have to be locally led. We tried to convince Kash to lead the workshop, but he refused for reasons that weren't clear. I should have realized that if Kash was apprehensive to lead, others would be as well. Kash was one of the most self-assured guys I had met in Kibera. It was part of what had attracted us to him as a prospective leader.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING we held our focus group discussion on a hill overlooking Kibera. The first few youth representatives showed up looking shy and hesitant. One of them walked away as soon as he heard that we didn't have sodas. The other representatives sat quietly on the short grass around our flip chart. They laughed at our Swahili and silly jokes as we made introductions.

“How can sports be improved in Kibera?” I asked.

No one said a word. I called on Kash for his opinion.

“We need more fields and supplies.” A few of the participants nodded in agreement, then silence returned. The group never warmed up. Nate and I had to solicit every response.

We felt dejected as we walked back through Kibera. We had nose-dived into something we knew nothing about. Nate had read a lot of Malcolm X and Che Guevara. I had once worked in a soup kitchen in Rhode Island. Neither one of us had studied social work, let alone had any real expertise in it.

We knew we weren't being patient enough. Community organizing took time. Yet we only had three months. The first meeting with youth leaders took up the better part of a day, not to mention the time that went into planning it. Hustling up and down Kibera recruiting youth representatives had consumed much of the previous week. We didn't know what to do next. Perhaps we might get some assistance from a community organizer named Semaj Johnson who was about to join us? I had met Semaj through a mutual Kenyan friend, and, after a dozen phone calls, he had agreed to spend a month with us that summer before he started a new job in the South Bronx.

“Let's just table the sports until Semaj gets here and focus instead on the Carolina Academy and Jumba's youth micro-credit program,” I proposed to Nate.

“You think Jumba will work?” he asked skeptically.

Nate had a good point. We needed to find out for sure what had happened to the $400. We decided we would press Jumba to see his books the next day.

“AH, YES, THE books, they are here.” Jumba stuck his index finger in the air as if he had made a profound point and added his trademark pause in between thoughts, “Ehhhh.”

“Well, can I see them?” I asked.

“Sure, that I can arrange. Why don't we get some chai, ehhhh?”

“Now?” Nate asked. “Can we see them right now?”

“Yes, yes, my assistant she can arrange while we have chai.” Jumba appeared unaffected by the directness of Nate's question. Jumba was either a really good liar, or he had the books and had been too busy to pull them up previously. Most of his accounting records were kept in the adjacent room in hard copy. Jumba had an old Apple computer like my mother's. It didn't have a basic spreadsheet program, and we were only talking about a $400 initiative in an organization that we believed disbursed tens of thousands of dollars of loans each year. Maybe we just needed to cut Jumba some slack?

We braced ourselves for another long meeting as we ordered our chai and Jumba launched into a soliloquy on development. We tried to direct him back to the plans being made to ramp up the junior ghetto-credit scheme.

“What size loan would be most appropriate to start with for youth?” Nate asked.

“Well, you see, that one, that one's a tricky one, ehhhh. It will require some studies. I can't be sure precisely the amount but I do know this thing, this thing will create jobs, much needed jobs. You've seen it, isn't it? Kibera needs, ehhhh, jobs.”