I will be living for three months in the slums of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya for the summer. To get myself ready for this trip I have been trying to learn as much as I can about the country, city and culture of the slums. One topic which has kept coming back up, from presentations earlier in the year of former Nairobi Beyond Borders alumni to hearing stories of people that have travelled to the city, is that Nairobi can be a bit of a pickpocket culture. Over the summer, I was in another of these cultures in Barcelona, renowned as a city that you can be robbed of your wallet or bag without even realizing. It didn't start too good; my traveling buddy Bruno got robbed literally within ten minutes of being in the city, wallet swiped out of his pocket getting on the subway. Even worse, we had both just reminded ourselves that we needed to be careful. We learned that lesson quickly.
This has given me some perspective to be aware of when I travel to Nairobi, a city that is called Nai-rob-ya or Nai-robbery, depending on who you talk to. I wish it was called Nai-(double)rainbow, but that isn't in the cards. Nevertheless, Nairobi's culture of pickpockets has a lot to do with the poverty in the city, its' increasing popularity for tourism, especially due to popular safaris, and a social infrastructure that is not strong enough to keep the majority of youth in schools, to which some might have to resort to a life of crime to make ends meet. Why does this pickpocket culture flourish in certain cities and not in others? What are the underlying factors that make Nairobi and Barcelona havens for these type of activites, from social systems to culture to economic factors?
I am going to do a lot of research on this topic this week, a project for myself to try to understand the situation I will be going in to. I want to know why Nai-rob-ya exists, what effect the city's poverty has on it, and what I can expect when I get there. But to leave you with one story that started this interest in Nairobi's dark secret, I will relay a story of my cousin Sean. He was in Nairobi about ten years ago for a photography trip. No sooner did he get off the plane did he look for a taxi and a fully dressed porter come up to him, offering to carry his bag. Though Sean refused, the "porter" hung around and as soon as Sean turned his back to talk to a cab driver, the porter grabbed several camera bags, going for the ones with the most expensive equipment, and if it wasn't for insurance, the $10000 price tag would have been a dark omen for the trip.
As I know from Barcelona, you cannot always be completely aware of your surroundings. I only hope that this preparation can give me the awareness for the unsavoury aspects of Nairobi city life.
Conor Brennan
This is very interesting because I have also come across information while reading about the Ukraine that says to be aware of this exact thing, as well as being asked by authority to present your passport... which means having it on you 24/7 (I will blog about this later)... but I wonder if it is a combination of what you were saying about the economy and poverty mixed with the assumption that if you have money to get to their country, then you must have extra money and won't be as greatly affected by loosing your wallet or cameras (in your cousins case). The whole idea that, because they will never have the money to see where your from, that you are of course richer then they are because you are able to see their country... is it sad or 'survival of the fittest'?
ReplyDeleteThat is definitely something I will be thinking about. I think it is a little bit of both, but how much can you really blame anyone for being put in that situation. After all, it is easy to criticize from the ivory tower.
ReplyDeleteI knew what your blog was instantly about from the title. I wonder if we will get mugged or our apartment ransacked. I wonder if this will be our greatest challenge. Interesting read Conor!
ReplyDelete-Sebastien :)