She reached out her hand.
it was small,
delicate like a flower.
And when I held my hand
she tentatively took one of my fingers.
"How are you?"
Her voice was small and full of innocence.
While we held hands
a sea surged around us
"How are you, how are you, how are you?"
And beyond them a forest of hardened faces,
beaten down by years of compromised hopes,
and certain about the desperate
unfairness of the world.
"How are you?" I ask
And a riptide of laughter
ran across the muddy path.
In the shadow of a nearby doorway
an older woman smiled
as the giggles bounced down the street.
We look at each other and she smiled again.
Her bare feet are dirty and worn.
On Thursday I went to Mathare again to photograph a man who was the head of one of the youth gangs that were directly involved with the post-election violence in 2007-2008.
A little historical background… Since gaining independence in 1963, politics in Kenya has been marked by corruption and high levels of politics related to tribal background. The riots that happened after the 2007 elections were an outpouring of anger at the perception that the election had been stolen by the sitting president. The anger was intensified by immense levels of poverty and the feeling that the politicians were enriching themselves at the expense of everybody else in the country. The election came after several years of scandals in which government officials were found to be involved in corrupt business dealings that funneled government money into shady business deals. Because the government was dominated by one tribal group, tribal tensions flared and politicians from both sides started using these tensions to their advantage. The anger that started as economic desperation was quickly fanned into an ethnic fire that exploded into riots and looting. For over three months Kenya was shut down. Thousands of people were killed, and over 300,000 were driven from their land in response to what were perceived as unjust land-takings in the past. The main two ethnic groups in this conflict were the Luo and the Kikuyo. A great book that explains much of this history is “It’s Our Turn to Eat”, by Michela Wong about the Kenyan man who blew the whistle on the corruption scandals by the Kibaki government.
Fred, Joseph and Jemimah from the Mathare slums
This is a photograph of Fred Owino, Joseph Maina and Jemimah Kafura. All three of these men were directly involved in the riots that exploded across the slums in 2007. People who had been friends turned against one another based on ethnic background. Fred, in the center, is a Luo. Joseph and Jemimah are Kikuyu. Fred was a leader in a gang that had been politically involved and turned violent when the results of the election came out under to great suspicion. At one point during the riots Fred came across a Kikuyu friend of his who was being attacked by a group of Luo armed with machetes. His friend called out for help. He was already injured and bleeding. Fred knew that he couldn’t appear to sympathize without becoming a target himself, so he told the others he would take things into his own hands and pulled his friend away roughly as though he was going to continue the violence. Once alone, he told his friend to never return to that area and let him go. Unfortunately, that act was misinterpreted by the other side and Fred became a target, and he soon went into hiding.
Two months after the riots ended Fred went to a workshop sponsored by the Kenya Alternatives to Violence Project. Fred feels as though that workshop changed his life, and he started training to give workshops himself. Now Fred gives workshops regularly. Joseph and Jemimah are two men from the other side of the conflict who have attended his workshops. Since 2008 Fred has been leading the charge to make Mathare into a safer place. It is clear that the part of Mathare that I visited is safe. I walked the streets there without any feeling of tension.
Next week I am going back to photograph a group of men from the youth gangs from both sides. Fred is getting them together for me. Today I am meeting with a graffiti artist to talk about converting these photographs into a mural for peace.
…… …… …… …… …… …… …… …… …… ……
Ben and Janet and their kids
On another note, I met Ben and Janet again, and this time had the opportunity to photograph him with all of their kids – their one natural daughter and the eight orphans they care for. Their nine kids are between them – a few other kids had crowded in – it’s almost impossible to keep kids out from in front of a camera here.
During the riots Ben and Janet took in four children whose parents had disappeared (maybe killed, nobody knows). A year later, Ben was approached by a man from the US who was in Kenya to help orphans through a small non-profit he was starting. He encouraged Ben to adopt another four children so that he could more easily get a Kenyan work permit, and then use the work permit to help support Ben and others like him. The man’s project was called “Haven of Hope” – promoting itself as a Christian ngo supporting poor orphans. Ben assisted the man in getting a work permit, and Haven of Hope profiled Ben and his orphans in a newsletter their first project in Kenya to receive support. According to Ben after the man received his work permit, he never contacted them again. Ben and Janet now had twice as many kids to take care of and no additional help.
This is a picture of the newsletter in which Haven of Hope asserted that they were helping Ben and Janet’s orphans. I don’t know what really happened with Haven of Hope. It is clear from the rest of the newsletter that they received donations from churchgoers in the US. Looking through the web, they have a facebook page and a non-functioning website. Ben says the man is still in Kenya working. Unfortunately, I have heard plenty of stories of small non-profits like this coming in with great promises and then leaving unexpectedly.
The riots left many orphans. Ben and Janet aren’t the only couple I have met who have adopted orphans after the violence. Many people have. It is a testament to the nature of the people living in these dense and difficult conditions that they adopt these children.
Kids in Mathare
The kids in Mathare are great. As you walk or drive through they gather around to call out “How are you?, How are you?”. It is adorable and hilarious. There was an art project done by a Kenyan artist where he made a ringtone out of kids saying “How are you?” in Kibera. It’s great – you can get the ringtone or just listen to it here: Conversations in Silence. I’m totally putting this on my phone when I get back. :) Too bad my Kenya cell phone is too cheap to use cool ringtones.
Snippet of the day: Kenya bread – soft as tissue; Kenyan peanut butter – hard as dried mud. A combination guaranteed to create morning frustration for silly muzungus like me :)
Oh yeah, one more thing…
Check out the song on this youtube video. Totally the most popular song in Kenya now, maybe in all Africa. It’s from a Nigerian band called Flavour. Awesome tune – it’s everywhere – stores, clubs, taxis, homes, matatus… (the video itself is just another stereotypical music vid – ignore it if you don’t like it, it’s the song that is great).
And… I just found the origin of that song. Apparently its an old highlife song from Nigeria called Sawa Sawa Le. You can hear it here.
This weekend I went into the Mathare slums of Nairobi to photograph people involved with the 2008 post-election violence. I met and photographed two families. Ben was directly involved in the violence, and he talked at length about what he considered to be the problems that led to the violence – specifically the lack of jobs for young people and the fanning of ethnic divisions by politicians who were seeking to make political gains.
After the riots Ben and his wife, Janet, adopted eight children who had been orphaned in the riots. The eleven of them (including their own daughter) live in two small rooms that are maybe eight to nine feet square. This part of Mathare is really different that Kibera. The Kenyan government teamed up with the German government to build concrete structures here that people live and work in. They are still tiny, but it is totally different than the haphazard mud and tin structures of Kibera.
Ben used to own a butchers shop, but his shop was burned down during the riots. He still owes money to the bank for the shop which no longer exists, so he hasn’t been able to start a new one. He now runs a small co-op that makes jewelry from bones for tourists. Janet sells frozen sweets from a small freezer that takes up the corner of one of their rooms. After the riots, Ben became involved with the Kenya Alternatives to Violence Project which he feels has helped him get past his anger about what happened in 2008.
Tomorrow I’m going back to Mathare so that I can photograph Ben and Janet with all of their children. I’ll also be working with two other people from opposite sides of the conflict who were also directly involved with the violence.
The second room in Ben and Janet's dwelling in the Mathare slums
Ben's Co-op for making jewelry in Mathare
Ben's coop in Mathare - they also make instruments
This is about a trip to a Samburu village that has decided to settle and abandon the nomadic lifestyle. Ingelai village is home to two ambassadors from the Grevy’s Zebra Trust.
Visiting this village was a good thing for me. As I wrote earlier, I found it difficult to be in the area of Samburu around Baragoi. Baragoi is where the Samburu and Turkana tribes intersect, and these two tribes have been in conflict for generations. Perhaps it is partially this conflict that makes the town feel tense and uncomfortable, but on top of that there seems to be a strong culture of expectation in northern Kenya. I found that the people in the north expect anyone from the west to give them a great deal. Many, many people ask for things from you, and it is often in an aggressive manner. On top of this, there is a strong negative feeling from many people simply when you walk by them. I like to think that this is a lesson for me in letting other people’s negativity slide off me. The poverty up there *is* intense, however some of the “poor” villagers might also own $20,000 to $50,000 worth of cattle their tradition won’t let them ever sell them for anything: to finance their children’s secondary education, to go to the hospital or even if a drought is obviously going to kill them. Within the town there is clearly great poverty and the hospital for the region has no doctors and only two under-qualified nurses.
The people of Ingelai village were completely different in their reactions to us, and it was wonderful. To me it shows that the work the Grevy’s Trust is doing up there is doing something. It was definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far.
If you can’t see the video below, you can watch it here on youtube.
My visit to the Samburu village Ingelai with the Grevy's Zebra Trust
Going into the middle of the Samburu-Turkana conflict was difficult, but in the end it was a positive experience. This was different from my first shoot in the slums of Kibera. There I met two people who never really considered themselves enemies to begin with. The conflicts had risen and fallen like a fire flashing across a skim of gasoline – fast and furious and then mostly gone. The Samburu-Turkana conflict has been going on for generations, so it is a very, very different story.
The funny thing is that when I really talked in depth with people on both sides, they said that the conflict was not that big a deal – it almost seemed like they considered it more like a family feud. The Turkana said that their actual serious enemies are another tribe that lives nomadically in the area and raids both the Samburu and Turkana. In this video I talk about my impressions talking with and meeting people from each side.
If you can’t see the video below, you can view it on youtube here.
Here is a first sketch I did for one of the photographs of two Grevy’s Zebra Trust Ambassadors – Lmantros Lenagetai on the right is Samburu and Lojore Loputhiki on the left is Turkana. This is just an idea. I know the final product is going to be very different, but I thought people might like to see some of my visual thinking process.
If you are reading this on Facebook, you can see the original blog post here:
If you are reading this on my blog, I often post more photos and details on facebook and you can friend me here.
I just got back from another trip to northern Kenya to photograph the Grevy’s Zebra and the Samburu and Turkana tribes - two tribes who live with the Zebra and have been in violent conflict for years. It was a bit of an intense trip, and I have very mixed feelings about the area. There were many good experiences, but also many difficult ones. The Grevy’s Zebra Trust sees it’s mission as one of peace-building along with conservation, because they work with all of the tribes in the area equally. I’ll write more about that later.
The Moran are the warrior class from the tribes. In both tribes, the young men are sent out into the bush at a young age. From that point on for seven to fifteen years they are not allowed to eat in the presence of women. They are not allowed to enter the village alone. They are essentially outcasts. If they die while still a moran, even if it is in battle, their bodies are simply left in the bush. They are non-people until they come back in from the bush and marry.
The conflicts between the Turkana and the Samburu almost always involve cattle rustling or reprisals for cattle rustling. Up there an average female cow can cost $200 and a bull twice that. There have been recent cases of up to 200 cattle being stolen – that is the equivalent of $40,000. the reprisal for this was an attack which killed two young children who were shot in the back as they ran away. None of these thefts or killings are ever investigated or prosecuted, and in fact they are often encouraged by the elders who conducted raids when they were young. The difference in this area is that the youth now have guns. In the past, and further to the east, the moran typically only fought each other and only with traditional weapons. This area where the Turkana and Samburu meet is more violent and the town of Baragoi feels unsettled and aggressive.
Below is my video blog. If it doesn’t play here, you can see it on youtube at this link.
This trip was in conjunction with the Grevy’s Zebra Trust, which works to conserve the endangered Grevy’s Zebra and to promote peace among the peoples who live in its range.
Crisp desert sky, thin boys asking for coins.
Looking through the restaurant door, one is sniffing glue.
He is the most persistent as we head back to the truck.
Down the street we stop to buy tobacco
for the villages we will visit.
It seems dirty
but they chew it or sell it
and there a life of 60 years is a rarity.
While the bags are stuffed
another boy takes me by the wrist.
I pull away, my fingers enclosing two bills,
but he is just pointing to my bracelet
that was made for me by a school headmaster to the north.
“Kenya,” he says.
“Yes,” I reply. “Kenya.”
…………………………………………………………
Evening:
The sun has set,
dripping down the wall of sky
and spreading across the horizon
into a low orange blur
behind the acacia.
One man waits with a gun
while the other tests and adjusts a remote camera.
As they work, the night is washing away
the last smears of daylight,
and the sky is being overtaken by stars
that are flickering into the hush
of the rising and falling winds.
Walking back to camp
I talk with the scout
about the city and the bush.
“Here,” he says, “there is space to breathe”
“Space to think.”
“Last night,” he goes on. “A lion called behind camp.”
“We found it’s spore here.”
I sit out to listen to the stars.
As the Milky Way floods into view.
This week I had my first actual shoot for the enemies project in the Kibera slums of Nairobi. There are a lot of things I didn’t say here in the video. I would have liked to take so many more photographs there in the slums, but I have decided that I won’t take peoples’ photographs unless they agree to it. Walking through the slums, you see a wide variety of reactions – from innocent laughing curiosity in the young children to suspicion or resentment to stares that are as blank as some of the mud and tin walls of the narrow passageways. It is an incredible place, and the people I met were wonderful beyond words.
The woman who I photographed was Loice. She was quiet and beautiful. When I interviewed her she talked at length about forgiveness and how grateful she was for her Luo neighbors. In the post-election violence of 2007 the Luo and Kikuyu people were killing each other in great numbers. It is so beautiful to me that her former Luo neighbors worked hard to help her move back into Kibera. You might wonder why someone would want to move back into the biggest slum in the world, but it is still a community and the bonds of friendship are meaningful to people who live here, scraping by to live one less than a dollar a day.
The New Zealand woman who came with me is Jeannette. It was her first full day in Kenya – what a first day. I think that it was shocking for many of the people in the slums to see a disabled white woman. But the meeting between her and James was beautiful. Then the meeting of James and Loice, from opposite sides of the conflict, was beyond words. These experiences make this whole project worthwhile. As difficult as it has been to arrange, and as challenging as it will be to fund, I am glad that I have started on this.
Many thanks to the Kenya Alternatives to Violence Project, and especially to Thomas Kozzih and Cornelius Ambias for helping me find and arrange the shoots in Kibera.
Minor notes: I was not so happy with the photographs I got from this shoot. I was paying so much attention to the people interactions that I feel as though I didn’t give the photographs enough attention – so rare for me. But this is just the first shoot of a huge project and I consider these raw images just material for the final pieces which will be far from the raw photographs. Also, I video-ed James and Loice telling their stories as well, and that is not something I planned on doing. I’ll put some of these interviews up when I have time, though I’m sure the audio is not great since I didn’t bring an external mike. So much was happening in these shoots that I wish that I had a person dedicated to doing video of the experience itself. I wanted more documentation than I could possibly do on my own. Something to think about for the next trip.
I filmed this timelapse in the Westgate Conservancy, Samburu, Kenya. The singing you hear in the background is from a Samburu circumcision ceremony in a village in the neighboring Mebae Conservancy. I was here working with the Grevy’s Zebra Trust.
Slogged through mud, saw thousands of wildebeest, drove miles of bad road, met two enthusiastic Masai elders who offered me a place to stay in return for my returning to work on their elephant problem, had a wonderful but very short dinner with friends, saw Sam off at the airport, got back to my hostel which was booked and moved me to the dreary hotel next door, shaved for the first time in a week and blew up my clippers. Interesting few days.
