KENYA 1996-2000
I arrived finally in 1996 early after a brief holiday in 1991. When I went home in 1991, I weighed 49 kgs. I dont blame people who havent seen me from those days when they have trouble placing me. In 1996, Kenya was a hard place to be for a fresh graduate with a degree and post graduate diploma and no experience. I settled back into life in our then home in Dandora ph 4. Life in Dandora seemed out of this world. Indeed there were 2 distinct lives that we lived there. The daytime normal life and the night life when we boarded up our houses and prayed that the night without the screams of another family being attacked by robbers.
During these chilling experiences, the men of the household would have to get out and go assist the stricken family. Failure meant that when your turn came the neighbours would avoid you. I remember getting out of the house at 3 am with my neighbour and walking to the distress calls. We would wait to hear the other doors open before we ventured out. I wasnt much help during these experiences. I just had to show up. In the morning when I woke up all that would look like a nightmare from a distant land. In most cases we only always got there after the thugs had left because, the distress calls usually were in the wake of the departing thugs and mostly also because neighbours didnt neccessarily rush out lest they meet the thugs.
Apart from the vigilante experiences, my other recollections of Dandora were of the loud loud music played night after night when the members of the Luo community lost a relative. No one really complained partly because Dandora was a noisy place anyway and we had learned to sleep through the ruckuss but also because there was some sense of security provided by these nightly vigils. It always seemed strange when the music was finally shut, usually after a month or so.
I made good friends in Dandora who believed in my quest for a better life.
During these chilling experiences, the men of the household would have to get out and go assist the stricken family. Failure meant that when your turn came the neighbours would avoid you. I remember getting out of the house at 3 am with my neighbour and walking to the distress calls. We would wait to hear the other doors open before we ventured out. I wasnt much help during these experiences. I just had to show up. In the morning when I woke up all that would look like a nightmare from a distant land. In most cases we only always got there after the thugs had left because, the distress calls usually were in the wake of the departing thugs and mostly also because neighbours didnt neccessarily rush out lest they meet the thugs.
Apart from the vigilante experiences, my other recollections of Dandora were of the loud loud music played night after night when the members of the Luo community lost a relative. No one really complained partly because Dandora was a noisy place anyway and we had learned to sleep through the ruckuss but also because there was some sense of security provided by these nightly vigils. It always seemed strange when the music was finally shut, usually after a month or so.
I made good friends in Dandora who believed in my quest for a better life.
posted by Stanley Ngaira at 12:45 PM
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