When I got back from the grade 10 trip, Mumo picked me up from school and drove me home. We had a really good chat about poverty in Kenya, and he gave me a very interesting perspective on the issue, so I thought I'd share with you all. He took me to see the Kibera neighbourhood - I liked that he calls it a low income housing area rather than a slum. His grandfather lived his whole life in a traditional mud hut, and his father of course grew up that way. He explained that the father used to have one hut, and then each wife had her own hut with her kids, and when the teenage boys were old enough, they would build their own hut, and so on.
In a culture where everyone lived in huts, earthquakes were not a disaster - a hut just takes a day to build, and you won't be too badly hurt if it falls on you. The people then had very different values than Western values. Status was measured by how many children you had, not how much money you had. Housing wasn't really a problem because you could always build a hut, so you really just had to worry about if you and your family had eaten that day. If you'd eaten, then you're good. So when colonization brought the idea of working for money, people weren't interested. They had a system that worked, they had the things they valued, and they had food to eat - so why would they work for the British for unnecessary coins? So the British imposed tax so that people would need to have money, and therefore need to work for them. These different values also explained when Kenya isn't a rich country - a country can only become wealthy if the people are wanting to be wealthy individually. In a culture where people are content with what they have, taxes can't amount to very much money because the people don't have money to pay in taxes.
When colonization came, Mumo's dad found the things that it brought like books interesting, and he ended up making money not because his goal was to be rich, but simply because he was curious about these things. He made the transition from growing up in a mud hut to living in a modern house, so Mumo grew up in a house. Many people, however, who came to Nairobi moved in and build what they were used to - mud huts. It only makes sense that if you grew up in a mud hut, you would naturally build a mud hut when you moved. However, the mix of colonization and traditional culture caused problems. Mud huts work well when you have lots of space, but in a city, they cause sanitation issues. In the country, children can play with the chickens and explore, but in the city they have nothing to do. In the country, you can grow your own food, but in the city there is no space. The semi mud huts of the Kibera (Mumo explained they have mud walls, but metal roofs) are not owned by the people - they are rented for I think he said 12ksh a month, so the people have to work for wealthy Kenyans rather than growing food and teaching their children in order to live there.
The government is trying to move people out of the huts into apartments which you can see being constructed (with very innovative scaffolding made of branches!) right beside the Kibera. But Mumo explained that since the people have always lived in a mud hut, they don't feel comfortable in an apartment. They can make money by renting the apartment, so if the government gives them an apartment, they rent it out and go live in another mud hut.
The issues are so complex, and the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't understand. I wonder what the solution is. Simply making Kenya "modernized" doesn't make a lot of sense - there are so many beautiful aspects of the traditional way of life that are lost in modernization. For one example, the traditional way of life is much much better for the natural environment. Another example - one of the teachers that I was talking too told me about his issues with Europe. He was living in Germany, and he was shocked that his neighbours didn't even know eachother. So he just sat on the sidewalk with a beer in the sunshine. He saw everyone peeping out there windows at him, and after a while someone asked him what he was doing. So he just explained that he was enjoying the day like he would in Kenya, and the person joined him. Over the time he was there, he managed to get many of his neighbours outside, just enjoying each other and the sunshine together. In a world where the focus is making money, there isn't enough time to just be - to know your neighbours and enjoy the day as it comes. I hope that colonization never takes that content attitude away from Kenyans.
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