I am sitting in my room in Ayani, Kibera, trying to summarize my impressions. The idea is that I will write a book about my time here (preferably during my time here), and it is important to be observant of everything different before it becomes “normal” for me.
I’ve been here for a few days now and I’m slowly settling into this reality. There is much that is different from life in Sweden.
First of all, there are the smells. People can say it smells like shit in here. This is because they are not used to natural smells. Our western societies are so antibacterial
the sounds.
I stood and washed the dishes for a couple of hours yesterday.
It gave me the chance to listen
The sounds.
I stand and do the dishes. The windows in the entire apartment are always open during the day and a fantastically varied and at the same time relaxing sound carpet penetrates. There is hammering somewhere in the neighborhood; a rhythmic pounding that changes character as the nail penetrates. A nail. One more. Then two more, before the hammering stops. An airplane thunders overhead and leaves a drawn out hiss that oscillates in various deep frequencies that slowly fade away. Through it cuts the occasional wail of a lonely, perhaps love-sick rooster. Sometimes there is an answer from far away. If you listen carefully, you will soon hear that it can be a whole concert of roosters at different distances participating in the singing exercise. The hens and chickens are considerably more discreet, but cackle and beep in the background.
The ibises have what I claim is one of the most stupid sounds in the bird world; a long drawn out “Hääääää…”. Every now and then an ibis is heard commenting on the outside world from a treetop in the neighborhood, and occasionally a whole flock of these dinosaur-like birds passes by, barking like a sheep.
Children. Children’s voices and children’s cries. The sound of children playing. If it’s too close, it can be a pain, especially terrified falsetto screams, but like this at a comfortable distance it testifies to life and to children’s hopeful joy of life.
Then we have the prayer calls.
As early as five in the morning, the first call comes. I am not disturbed by it, because I am fast asleep at that time. Then the exclamations follow at seven, one, four, half past seven and eight. Most of the time they shout for ten minutes or so. But on Fridays, it’s like there’s no end to it. They can go on for hours, with only short breaks.
At least it feels that way. Actually, I like it, but on Fridays they charge too much. And setting out to wake the whole neighborhood up in the pig’s nest (except me then…) is a damn way, quite simply. But other than that, I think that for the most part it feels soothing, and a bit exotic with the prayer calls. Especially when you can hear how the calls start from several different mosques in the area. Someone starts. Soon the next one is heard, and then they are spread all over the neid. You can imagine how the different prayer callers compete against each other in beautiful singing. With one or two exceptions, of course. One of “our” prayer callers is one such exception. It is probably a young man, who is completely unmusical. Not a clean note he can produce, but even so he must continue to attract souls.
Then the train comes. It is a narrow-gauge railway serviced by diesel locomotives, and the railway runs right through Kibera. The train whistle warns when the train passes through Kibera; here, people are often on the trail.
The trains can be long, and the rhythmic thump of the rail joints echoes between the sheds.
I finish the dishes when the sound of the train disappears in the distance. But it made me think about what is happening here in Kibera right now. It has changed since I was last here, six months ago.
Now Uhuru Kenyatta is wooing the people of Kibera before the next election, so now housing and roads are being built on an assembly line.
But what is happening is probably a giant gentrification – I suspect the great mass here will be forced off to some other of Nairobi’s many slums. I am thus a unique witness to how one of the world’s most famous slums is disappearing, and suddenly I see my task: To document, interview and try to capture some of the voices that are so rarely heard.
