Gregory Chisholm SJ, Visiting professor from USA, shares his experience in Hekima College and its surroundings in Nairobi - Kenya.
“I haven’t communicated anything about the inauguration of our new and very impressive President, especially from my vantage point in East Africa. That entire weekend was full of festivity. I attended the blessing of the newest Jesuit church in Nairobi, Christ the King, situated in Kangemi (more about that place later). You might have a favorite image of what a church blessing might be, especially if you attended the blessing of the Oakland Cathedral or the blessing of the Los Angeles Cathedral. So you might think there would be plenty of clerical types all decked out in vestments and large crowds of faithful Catholics watching the drama with rapt but passive attention. If these are your images, then get rid of them. Because when the Cardinal came to bless the Church in Kangemi, the brother danced…and he was not alone. The priests danced, the altar servers danced, the church ladies danced, the young people danced. When these folks in Kenya bless their churches, they throw a party for the Lord. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you who loved every single minute of that mass. But then to top it all off, the Cardinal can preach. He walked the aisle and had the folk laughing and clapping. Now when in our Holy Roman Catholic Church have you EVER seen a Cardinal who could preach?
The next day I spent preparing my remarks for the Academic Forum at which I and Tom Scirghi, SJ would be presenting. Yet even as I did so I could feel the steady rise of adrenaline as I watched the news about Barack and Michelle following the route of President Lincoln and Barack and Michelle arriving in Washington, etc., etc. The Rector of the Jesuit Community put up an announcement on Monday (Martin Luther King’s Birthday) about an inauguration party which would be held Tuesday, beginning 5 PM Kenyan time (6 AM, PST and 9 AM, EST). I arrived on time for the party. My class had ended at 5 PM. There were about 15 Jesuit students there and we watched the drama unfold through the medium of SKY News, a British media service (since it wasn’t my party, I couldn’t announce that the British newscasters hadn’t a clue about what was going on…I simply tuned out their chatter and watched the live images). By 6:30 PM there were about 40 Jesuits in the room, yelling at the screen and each other, being young and African. One could tell that Barack was the crowd favorite, followed closely by Michelle. There was plenty to munch on and drink, thanks to the extreme generosity of the Rector, who read the mood for celebration correctly. Outside our television center, there were the sounds of matching celebrations from nearby Kibera. These would go on all night long. At the swearing in ceremony, I simply couldn’t contain my emotions any longer. Since everyone else was intent on the images, I felt pretty sure they wouldn’t see me crying. I knew at that moment there were good friends of mine standing in the freezing cold watching all this history. I knew good friends in Oakland had organized themselves into family style celebrations in front of large screen TV’s. I knew that an elderly lady (friend of mine) who lives around the corner from me would have forgotten her own 96th Birthday in order to celebrate the first black man to enter the Oval Office and his brilliant, beautiful and loving companion (watching the two of them, who couldn’t think marriage wasn’t almost the greatest gift of God to all humankind). I knew that it would be best to be alone just then, so I left the party. In my room I extended my consciousness half way around the world to my own folks in New York, New England, Detroit, Louisiana, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, California and felt right at home and very happy.
Brother Deusdedit, SJ, the minister of the Jesuit Community at Hekima College, was kind enough to drive me to St. Joseph the Worker parish in Kangemi last Sunday (1/25). Kangemi, like Kibera, is an expanse of temporarily constructed shacks which have become home to hundreds of thousands of Kikuyo and Luo families which live in Nairobi. Some heads of households have jobs and walk to work each day to earn enough money to pay the $20.00 per month rent for a shelter without indoor plumbing and to buy food to feed children. These heads of households are often women. Other heads of households have given up trying to move up and have simply given themselves over to drugs (marijuana and heroin, which come in through Somalia to the north and east of Kenya) and/or to drink (a locally and casually manufactured brew made from maize). These heads of households are almost all men. Children are everywhere, so men and women don’t quite live separate lives but the notion of family has morphed into something that tribal traditions would never have expected, not to mention tolerated.
On the way to Kangemi for Sunday mass Brother Deus (as Brother Deusdedit is called) saw that I was fascinated by the private estates which dominate much of the land in the city of Nairobi. Although most of the people live in sections of the city like Kibera or Kangemi, most of the land is occupied by private compounds surrounded by thick high hedges (twice my height) or by stone walls with electrified barbed wire running along the tops of the walls. As we moved from one section of expansive estates to another Brother Deus would name people who lived in these parts of the city. The Mercedes and high-end Toyotas also spoke clearly about the people in these sections. Unlike Kibera, hardly anyone walked on the street in these parts of Nairobi. At one point I commented that these homes seemed too expensive for middle class people or lower middle class people. “Where do the middle class live,” I asked. Brother Deus responded, “There is not much of a middle class in Kenya, you either have everything you need or you don’t.” . There was nothing I could say, because that is literally the way life in Kenya seemed to be during my short stay.
At the beginning of our stay I had felt differently about the way of life here. Two days following our arrival in Kenya, the superior (rector) of the Jesuit Community, Fr. A. Orobotor, SJ, took Fr. Tom Scirghi, SJ and I to a coffee shop about one mile from the school. This was our first outing following our arrival. We even were able to ride the dreaded matatus for the mile journey. These are the well worn Volkswagen-type vans which are ubiquitous in Kenya and are the principal mode of transportation for most of the Kibera or Kangemi-dwelling public. The rides cost the equivalent of 2 or 3 cents. The adventure of riding a matatu can include being crowded with about 25 people in a space designed for 16. Since Kenyans are largely rail thin, this hardly becomes an issue. As much as I have come to enjoy my proximity to Kenyans, there is no possible way that I would ever fit into a crowded matatu. Another unexpected diversion might occur if you happen to share your ride with a small gang of criminals looking for a likely target. These groups may rob you during your ride or simply hijack the matatu to a place where riders can more easily and more comfortably be fleeced. Several of our Jesuit students have frolicked afternoons away in this manner.
Knowing all of the ways in which a simple ride on a matatu could become the adventures described above, Fr. Orobotor chose our outing in the middle of the day, when the vans had hardly any other passengers. The coffee shop was in a shopping complex called “Naku Matt Junction.” The complex was completely fenced in all around with painted concrete walls and decorative iron bars topped by an electrified string of four parallel wires. These barriers are at least 20 feet high, yet they enable those on either side to observe clearly what happens on the other side. There was also a guardhouse and a guard who scrutinized cars and people as they entered the shopping center through the single entrance. I found it hard to imagine a WalMart or Safeway or any shopping mall at home taking those precautions to monitor the entrance of cars or electrifying fences to keep people from entering.
Inside the shopping center there were more white people than I had thus far seen since my arrival. I could hear British, German or Scandinavian and American accents from the whites of mixed ages. The coffee shop at Naku Matt Junction was a popular hang out for groups of white residents or tourists taking the air. I didn’t dwell too much on that, since I knew enough about Kenyan history to remember that the country always had an attraction for European adventurers who ran the farms and hunted the animals and created for themselves a paradise within paradise. Except for the outside fence this looked like any fancy Starbucks with outdoor tables populated with tank topped, sandled, khaki-shorted post-college types taking the air. And I was there too. It seemed just like home.
After the coffee and croissants we walked into the mall and visited the Naku-Matt store itself. This was quite a revelation, especially on our second day in this country. What we saw were rows upon rows of perfectly stocked shelves extending for more than 100 feet from the entrance of the store. There were appliances, and cereals and liquor and rice and condiments and milk and home entertainment products and produce and junk food….all galore. “I’ve a feeling,” said I, “that we’re not in Kansas anymore.” What I saw before me belied any preconceived notion I had of Kenya as a struggling nation, battling with the World Bank for loans to feed its people, fighting off foreign interests whose only desire would be the rape of the country. I could not believe my eyes. I told the Rector that I have seen shelves of American stores much less well-stocked than Naku-Matt.
And if I had never ventured out to Kibera, which was much closer to the College than Naku-Matt, I would have held the image of that store as a clear statement of Kenya’s prosperity and its ability to take care of its people. But the Naku-Matt is not for most of the residents of Nairobi, it is for the ones who have everything. The electrified fence is for the one’s who have nothing. That’s why the hedges are so high around the estates. That’s why private guards are everywhere guarding the coming and going of those who seek access to men and women who have everything.
When Brother Deus and I reached the Church of St. Joseph the Worker for Sunday mass this week, I had a much better sense of what drives Kenya and what creates the dramatic contrasts which are obvious to everyone, except new arrivals or tourists who don’t see them. Money drives Kenya as does the desire to do whatever one must do to get it and keep it. That principal seems to apply equally well to those who drive Mercedes and to those who ride matatus.
While I don’t begrudge anyone the opportunity to enjoy fully the fruit of their labor, these economic contrasts far exceed any sense of fairness or equitability in the distribution of wealth. At one point I asked someone why there was not more social unrest in Kenya. One Kenyan Jesuit suggested to me that the current economic conditions were a hold over from the British colonial rule. When Jomo Kenyatta established the modern Kenyan state following independence in 1963, he did not quite dismantle social and economic stratification left by the colonizers. Instead the haves and have nots simply shifted.
I am impressed by the religious movements and efforts here. These organizations have consciously opted to serve those in need. HIV/AIDS has particularly left the country in crisis. I have written before about Jesuit activity in Kibera and the Jesuits in Kangemi are doing similar work. They have even built an industrial effort in Kangemi so that some of the female heads of households can earn better wages. These are not older Western missionaries. Rather these religious organizations are staffed by younger committed, often African, missionaries who live and work in support of the poor in Nairobi. I have directly encountered the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa’s nuns and brothers) who run a hospice in the middle of Kibera. I spent one complete morning with them at their Novitiate and found them to be the most genuinely joyful group I’ve come across. They are really fans of Barack Obama. There are also the Little Sisters of Jesus, who follow the spiritual writings of Charles de Foucault, the French mystic who lived and died in Algeria. These African women live, study and work among the poor and make common cause with their neighbors. They form communities of prayer with their neighbors and set up stalls for selling homemade goods in the Kibera market along with their neighbors. Theirs is a ministry of prayerful presence. There are also the Missionaries of Guadalupe, whom I’ve written about before. These are all young men from Mexico who have given their lives to support of parishes and other ministries in Africa. They run a parish right in the middle of Kibera. Each of these organizations have consciously sent their young people to Kibera to live and learn and help in the spread of the Word of God. In the absence of government initiatives to eliminate national conditions which give rise to Kiberas and Kangemis, these religious organizations are the face of human kindness in the middle of this very human tragedy."
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