Children of the Street

“It flies with whatever it finds.”
-Kikuyu saying

Mwangi, one of my good Kenyan friends, told me this expression one evening, which comes from his tribe, Kikuyu. In most contexts, it refers to the fact that in the rural areas, whenever visiting someone in their home, usually family, one must always be served food and eat. Kenyans are extremely hospitable and always try to serve visitors something. The saying basically echoes the sentiment that you never pass up a meal if it is offered to you, stemming from a country and a culture that has grown all to used to uncertainty. Mwangi laughed, as he told me stories of visiting all his aunts and having to eat nearly six meals in a day. But for me, in my time I’ve spent here in Eldoret with street children, the saying took on a whole different meaning.

“I saw you out in town today, talking with many of the street boys,” Daniel said to me, one of the dishwashers at the IU house. He asked me how I did that, how I related to them, what made me go out there and hang out with those street boys. He was genuinely and warmly curious, but also a bit incredulous. “I fear them,” he said to me. His sentiment echoed that of most Kenyans, in fact of most working or middle or upper class people in developing countries, and certainly nearly all tourists and visitors. They see street children, and they turn the other way. One can hardly blame them, I did too my first time here. As a social class—more aptly described as a tragic phenomenon of the developing world—they are at the very bottom; the lowest of the low, poorest of the poor. They are kids who beg, steal, live among trash, eat rotten thrown away food, wear rags for clothes, sniff glue, and wander the streets, some with their belongings in burlap bags slung over their backs, some with no belongings to sling. In a meeting I had with the District Children's Officer of Eldoret the other morning, he told me that "street kids are a forgotten lot." The developing world, Africa, Kenya has many problems, and for too many, street children are not a priority.

But street children are just kids, and as “just kids” they also just like to play and laugh; they have warm hearts and know the values of friendship and caring; they want to eat a good meal; they want to go to school or get jobs; in the 25 or so boys I met today, I didn’t hear one say he loved his life on the street. No one made the choice between food-clothing-shelter, a good home life, and living on the streets. It was a choice that was in all reality already made for them, by poverty, by AIDS, by orphanhood, by abuse, by family struggles. These social conditions, and others like them, poured their glass half empty, not half full. They were born into a family or situation with a predilection for this life…and now, here they are.

Virginia and Margaret, two of the Community Health Workers (CHWs) who work in Langas stopped by the OVC office at the AMPATH centre in late morning and we set off for town. First we had to find Kumau a total orphan who is now 27 but still living on the street. He arrived in Eldoret in 1992, displaced from his rural home by the ethnic clashes of the early 90’s that took both his parents’ lives and, for all intents and purposes, erased the hope of regaining his father’s land to which he was culturally entitled. He had training to work as a carpenter, but because he was displaced and had no documentation, he was unable to get a Kenyan ID card. Without a Kenyan ID card, you could be a Kenyan citizen, but you could also be a refugee, and therefore getting a job is next to impossible. Kumau was a leader of sorts among the street kids, and by walking with him we were free from being harassed by other boys, and also privy to their hangouts, to their world. We entered through a building on one of the streets in town, went down a set of stairs, through a hallway, and then were spit out in an alley behind the building. It was a bit remniscent of Harry Potter entering Diagon Alley, except instead of a street of magical wonder, it was a garbage filled, muddy back alley, lined by shops housed in wooden shacks…and street children. We encountered the first group among a huge heap of garbage, covering the hill extending from the street above. Some areas of the garbage were being consumed by flames. As we approached, boys came and gathered around us. Virginia, an amazingly strong woman, began talking to them, and I reached out and extended greetings to as many as I could. I just wanted to begin building trust, building relationships, making my face known to them. I chatted in my extremely limited and broken Swahili, and in English with some of the older ones, which was similarly limited and broken on their end. We walked from the garbage hill along a foot path which led to another alley. Several of the boys followed us and we met many more along the way. Halfway along the path we stopped at one of those wooden shacks; we had arrived at Steve’s place, a small paper recycling business where many of the street children hang out and sleep. One of the boys, Charlie, probably 6 or 7 years old, hung on Virginia like she was his mother. He had the best smile. At Steve’s place, we sat on large bales of recycled paper, talking with more boys, finding out some of their stories. There was nearly one universal: all of the younger ones, who made up the majority, wanted to go to school. Milton, who had dropped out of Class 8, wanted to return so he could take the Kenyan national exam in November, that all kids take before entering high school. I scarcely let myself think what he would then do after taking that exam; free education stops after primary school in Africa. Dennis, clearly a bit of a loner among the street boys, was much cleaner, wore clothes that really resembled clothes, and was quite shy. When asked, he admitted to never trying glue. He had been on the street nearly a year, and he wanted desparately to leave and go back to school. Anywhere he said, even the Rescue Center. Jackson and Chunu were older, rented a one room place together in Kumukunji, another slum, and both desired training as a mechanic; both their parents had died, and like so many, were forced on the street for lack of a better option.

At least half had the familiar small glue bottles hanging from their lips, a few hiding them in their shirts. The glue staved off hunger and erased their memories of pain; it did NOT feed a delinquent addiction. They were dirty, not dirty from a day of playing in the mud, but from months or years of sleeping in the dirt. They all wore familiar tattered gray and beige and black rag-clothes. Their eyes were curious and almost all would smile when greeted or smiled at. None were threatening; none were harassing; none were violent; very few openly begged to us, except for a few whispers from the unbearably cute one, Charlie, who asked for 20 shillings. Many of them sat around with us, others played and wrestled just like little boys do.

As we left, four of the boys followed who had been with us since we arrived at the garbage hill a few hours before—three of the little ones, and Milton. One of the little ones held my hand, practically skipping as we walked. These were the kids most people vowed as delinquents, kids most turned away from, kids most people were scared of. But they were just kids, kids who had fled from their home in search of a solution or a better life. They were hungry, but we refused to give them money. Rather, we took them to a small hotel (café) and bought them lunch. Ugali, sukuma wiki, and pork for each. They all washed their hands before eating, sat down, and grinned from ear to ear. Soon their bellies would be full. It cost me 120 Ksh to feed the four of them. A dollar and a half.