John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
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| 529. Some of these families are collecting water and others washing their laundry in what was once the city’s main reservoir, the Nairobi Dam. It is now choked with water hyacinth nourished by nutrients in the seepage into the river of waste water from toilets and wash basins in the adjacent Kibera Settlement and the dumping of garbage here also. The water in the foreground is slightly less polluted than that in the rear! |
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| 530. This is how the Nairobi Dam (built in 1953) looked in 1968 when it was the site of an exclusive club and used for water sports! The change since then is a dramatic example of the effects of uncontrolled pollution! |
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| 531. Fortunately something can be done to improve the situation. Here a community self-help group is building a storm water drain to dispose of both rain and waste water that would otherwise flood houses and turn the poorly formed dirt roads into impassable muddy tracks. |
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| 532. Here a vendor supervises a privately owned stand-pipe from which residents of the community can obtain water. The water comes from a distant pipeline owned by the Nairobi City Council, to which a local entrepreneur has connected a smaller line of his own! The woman is employed to collect the money. One jerry can of water costs between 10 and 20 shillings (30 to 50 when it's in short supply). In theory the volume of water sold should be metered and the Council paid accordingly, but this seldom happens. The Council, therefore, does not receive enough revenue to pay for services to be improved. Also, since the operator's pipe is likely to be cracked in places (because of cheap materials and poor workmanship), much water is wasted and that which remains may well be polluted. |
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| 533. An Environmental Officer from Australia visits a water point in Soweto, one of the ten villages that comprise Kibera. The supply, which in this case is metered, is again drawn from a Nairobi City Council pipeline but the Council is paid accordingly. Residents are still charged for the water they use but not as much: and since the facility was provided by a local self-help group, the profits from such sales are ploughed back into the community ... to finance improved sanitation and equip schools etc. In addition to the mud and potential sources of pollution, note the many improvised pipelines down the lane on the left. |
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| 534. One of the tributary streams channeling water to the Nairobi Dam. The stream is often choked with waste. Pigs feed on this and, when grown, are sold for meat in the local market. Since the narrow lanes of the settlement are impassable to trucks, garbage is not hauled away to a Council dump. Instead people throw much of it into the river. The buildings in this picture on either side of the river are actually toilets, which are emptied into the river when they are full. The water taken from the dam below (in frame 529) smells bad as a result. It is not drunk normally (though children may swallow it playing in the river). Instead it is used for bathing and for laundry, as water is too expensive to waste. |
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| 535. A family here will typically need 60-80 litres of water a day ... for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing and washing clothes. If all of this had to be purchased it would likely cost them 80 shillings a day, which is more than most of them earn ... which explains why not even heavily polluted water is wasted here. (Community-owned water point in Ushirika Wa Usafi Laini Saba Village.) |
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| 536. In comparison, wealthier people living in properly serviced areas are supplied with water by the Nairobi City Council at a cost of 35 shillings per 1000 litres and even less (10 shillings per thousand) for hotels, factories and swimming-pool-owners buying in bulk! |
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| 537. A typical house exterior. The lock on the door suggests that the occupant is away working in one of Nairobi's industrial areas. The containers outside the door are used for waste -- water from cooking and washing and, probably from the toilet also, and the bags contain solids (including some from the toilet). This is dumped on the river bank, by children who are paid a few shillings to do so: for if an adult was caught doing so he or she would be fined. |
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| 538. Kibera is jam packed with people so there is very little privacy. Children may squat in the street, but if as an adult you feel an urgent need to relieve yourself you have a problem: there are no trees to hide behind, your house will probably have no toilet, and the community sanitation block (if there is one) may well be too far away. What you do is pop into the store across the street, buy a bag for 2 shillings, fill it up at home, wrap it up and either dump it in the street or throw it on the roof! This is known as a “Flying Toilet” and the bag will eventually end up in the river and the dam. It is part of the harsh reality of life in an informal settlement-- something far beyond the experience of most people in Europe or America. |
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| 539. Children playing in the street outside a modern toilet block built by a NGO supported by the United Nations Habitat Program. The building on the left in the rear is a community hall built from money generated within the community from charges levied for water from their standpipe. It is used as a nursery school during the day. The toilet itself is equipped with a bio-digester and collects methane gas generated from human waste. The gas is piped under the road to the hall where it is used for cooking and heating. The machine in the background, provided by the UN, is used to pump waste from the toilet when it full and dump it in the city's sewers. |
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| 540. Typical back lane and drain choked with garbage. The pipes beneath the refuse carry water obtained illegally from the City Council mains. The pipes are in a poor state of repair, cracked and/or broken in many places and repaired with strips of rubber that provide an ineffective seal so that much of the water obtained in this way (and sold to residents of the slum) is actually contaminated. |
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| 541. A local water point supplied by just such a pipe. The boy collects the money on behalf of the pipe's owner. The 40 litres this woman will be taking home will have cost her between 30 and 60 shillings. The overflow here simply drains away as best it can. |
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| 542. Periodically community groups may join forces to dig out contaminated drains but in the absence of machines it is clearly an unpleasant and very smelly task. |
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| 543. Privately owned toilets in Kibera, kept under lock and key for their owner's use alone. Most will be owned not by individuals but by groups of neighbours who have pooled their resources. Where they go when they are in a hurry is a different matter, as their homes may well be a long way away! Note the seepage into the smelly drain and the mass of garbage people feel free to dump here. |
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| 544. Toilets and open drain. These toilets, again, can only be used if you have a key, and are each shared by a group of families. The developers, who do not live in Kibera but have been allowed to build houses here for rent, want to cram as many houses as possible on each building plot. By choosing not to provide each tenant with a toilet they can squeeze more homes into their subdivision. In some cases developers may provide toilets like these (at some distance from their houses) to be shared by the tenants of each block -- commonly 10 or 20 families. Other toilets are built by community groups and the money paid by those who use them is reinvested in the community. The drain in this picture is meant to carry both storm water and the waste from kitchens and bathrooms. |
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