Africa, My Passion

by Corinne Hofmann

  Before we say goodbye, Joyce invites me to come and eat in her new restaurant, as soon as it opens. I’m delighted to accept.

  When we come back to Nairobi again five months later the restaurant is supposed to open. Klaus and I ring up Joyce and now we are on the way to have lunch there. I can’t wait to see how it looks.

  We drive through Nairobi’s industrial park near the airport. The restaurant is supposed to be in the slum district on the edge of it. But it takes us hours to get there, stuck in heavy traffic amid stinking lorries all heading the same way. It’s almost impossible to make any progress. Just a few kilometres takes two hours. Joyce has already called me on the mobile twice to ask what’s keeping us.

  Eventually we leave the tower blocks behind and find ourselves on the edge of the slum district, which turns out to be one of the better ones, not quite as filthy as some. We drive down a narrow little alleyway, gaped at by everyone we pass. We’re looking out for Babylon, the name of the restaurant, among all the advertising hoardings. Then we spot Joyce waving frantically at us. We climb out and she throws her arms around us, saying, ‘I’ve been waiting for you here since early morning! My sons have been laughing at me, saying I’ve imagined you were coming and I’d be better off inside working.’ We apologise for being so late. Her two sons say hello. One of them is an artist, the other an electrician who runs the business. We enter the restaurant and I can hardly believe what this woman has managed to achieve. It’s not actually due to open until next week but I can already imagine how it’s going to do. Everything is laid out beautifully, the benches covered with blue leatherette and red-and-white checked tablecloths on every table, while the walls are covered with jolly cartoon characters: Tom and Jerry, or Obélix with his fat belly carrying a big platter of roast meat. There’s a portrait of Bob Marley hanging behind the bar, and Joyce proudly tells us her younger son, the artist, painted it. There’s loud pop music playing from speakers, all of which was set up by the other son, the electrician. The kitchen beyond is huge and equipped with vast pots and pans.

  I’d love to see it all up and running, but Joyce needs to get the rest of her loan before she can organise an opening party with a big menu on offer. I have not the slightest doubt that it’ll be extremely successful.

  Joyce takes us round the corner to a little snack bar that is also part of her empire. Her two daughters-in-law run it. The few tables are all taken and there’s not much standing room. Our host tells some of her customers to shove over and make room for us. All the time we sit there chatting, she is keeping a watchful eye on everything.

  She laughs when she sees how much I’m enjoying my food and says, ‘You’re the first white people to eat in one of my restaurants. But you have to come back when the main one is up and running, then you’ll have much more to choose from.’

  As we leave I squeeze her hand and tell her how people back in Europe will be inspired by her life story and her success. I see a big smile break out across her tired face as she says, ‘Thank you and come again.’

  I promise myself I’ll do just that next time I’m back in Nairobi.

  Bernard and John – the gang bosses

  Back now to Jamii Bora, and the first day that I met Joyce and heard her story. We’re now introduced to the two young men in the room, the pair who sat there all along playing with their phones and looking bored. I turn first to Bernard, who’s sitting next to me, unable to imagine what sort of story he’s going to tell me.

  ‘My name is Bernard and I’m twenty-eight years old,’ he says in his soft voice. ‘Here’s what I’ve got to tell you: Jamii Bora came into my life at a time when nobody in Kenya had any use for me, nobody even wanted to know me.

  ‘It was during the last spate of terrible riots after the 2007–8 elections, riots that John and I here were at least partly responsible for in the area where we lived. You have to understand that when we have elections the politicians are always on the lookout for people to support them and help them win. Here in the Kibera slums there are hundreds of thousands of people whose votes can easily be won with not very much money. We’re from the Luo tribe, so we campaigned for the opposition. We got a gang together and worked the ground really hard, and reckoned when it came to voting day we were sure to win. Everything pointed that way. We’d been promised that when we won the election, we’d get jobs. That was how we got our gang of 213 people together and got them to make people vote the right way. But watching the TV on election night we could see that the politicians were all going wild and realised that there was some sort of electoral fraud going on. Gradually we could see that the victory we had all counted on wasn’t going to happen and we began to lose all hope.

  ‘We sat there watching the votes come in until three in the morning, still imagining that somehow or other we could win. But when it finally became clear that the election had been stolen, we just went crazy with anger. We all got together and started marching into the centre of the city, smashing anything in our path. We set fire to car tyres and set up roadblocks.’ He points at his friend and says, ‘John here was the general and I was his adjutant. We smashed up water pipes and electricity lines as we fought our way into the city centre to the main polling station. The whole gang took on the police. Five of us were shot dead. When we finally realised we weren’t going to get any closer to the city centre, we retreated to Kibera to think about what to do next. The police wouldn’t dare follow us back here. Over the next few days, they stopped any young people trying to get into the centre of the city, and gradually food supplies in the slums started to run out. Even young men went hungry because there was simply nothing more to steal.

  ‘One day, dying of hunger and racked with hatred, we decided to stage a raid on the main market where lots of Kikuyu came to sell meat, fish and vegetables. The market stalls were all made of wood and our plan was to smash them up and then set fire to them, then to take over the land they sat on and become landlords. We thought that would be a fitting punishment for the Kikuyu for stealing the election.

  ‘We set out that night armed with stones and pangas, but when we got to the market we found it guarded by some tough Masai warriors who had good weapons and knew how to fight. We tried charging them but were beaten back. The same thing happened the next night. The third day we tried again, fought really hard, and managed to set fire to one side of the market, which gave us a way through to plunder what we could before the rest all burnt down. We were determined to take the land, divide it up among us and build ourselves huts. But we had no money and we still had the police to deal with.

  ‘Then one day a guy called Andrew mentioned Jamii Bora. At first I wasn’t even willing to listen, but he kept on about it every day and said, “Look, Bernard, I know you well. I was born in Kibera too and there’s only one thing I have to say to you: What you’re doing is wrong and it’s dangerous: you’re stealing from people and taking away their livelihoods. It can’t go on. One of these days somebody’s going to shoot you too. I can make you a better offer. Come with me to Jamii Bora, they’ll give you something to eat and food to bring back to the slum and distribute. You know the people here, they’re afraid of you and that’s why you are the only ones who can come and go freely here. Neither the police nor the Red Cross can help the starving people here because they’re all afraid. And it could be a big opportunity for you to do something good.”

  ‘I was doubtful, but then I reckoned that this Jamii Bora guy was Luo just like me and just wanted us to hand out food to women and children. John wasn’t interested either at first and warned me against leaving the gang. He said it might be a trap. But I’ll let him tell you his side of the story.’

  I turn to John, interested in what he has to say. He’s a bit smaller than Bernard and seems more reluctant to talk. There’s something about him that puts me on edge. But when he starts talking I’m surprised at how quiet and gentle his voice is. I even have to ask him to speak up a bit because I can hardly make him out. Susanne, the woman from Jamii
Bora, smiles and says, ‘He’s our quiet man.’ But the name doesn’t exactly fit with what he’s telling me.

  ‘My name’s John. I’m thirty-two years old. Before we got to know Jamii Bora our life was anything but easy. From 1995 to 2008 I was the general of the hardest, most feared gang in Kibera. It was thirteen years of hell. During all that time I never once went to visit my mother while, as her youngest son, it should have been my duty to look after her.

  ‘I led a nocturnal life, never knowing what would happen next. The young men like me, living in the slums, were only interested in smashing things out of frustration with our lives. We were bad to know and most of the trouble was caused by us. I was a gang boss. I’m telling you, Corinne, it’s no easy job running a gang of 213 hoodlums, gaining respect from men who were all on drugs. You’ve no idea what it’s like trying to control the potential for violence.

  ‘When this guy Andrew from Jamii Bora turned up in April 2008, he was taking one hell of a risk. I didn’t want anything to do with him, but he kept on. He wasn’t easily scared off. And I’m glad. Today when I look back, I think that was God at work. I was still sceptical, but gradually Jamii Bora became part of my life. After he persuaded Bernard and me to distribute food in the slums, we decided to go along with them, if only because it might get us jobs.

  ‘A couple of weeks later the same people came to us and said they wanted to reopen the market again, which caused a right stink among the gang because it was ours, we had conquered it, and five of us had been killed in the process. We were landlords!’

  John’s voice has got louder and there is a cold glint in his eyes that makes it all too easy to imagine what he must have been like at his worst.

  ‘We had a long talk,’ he goes on. ‘It was only when they said they would talk to the previous owners of the market area and make sure that we would have a share in the new business that we came to any sort of compromise.’

  I can’t help asking the two of them how they managed to free themselves from drug addiction.

  John looks me right in the eye and says, ‘Listen, Corinne, I was tough, people were afraid of me. If you want to be a gang leader you’ve got to set the right example. I was the first to take drugs when none of the others had ever even seen any. When they got into marijuana I was already shooting heroin. There are only two rules: if you want respect, you have to be the bravest and the toughest. We looked after all the money, but we also divided it out equally. Some don’t do that, and it’s a mistake. They pay for it in the end.

  ‘When the chaos had calmed down we went to see Jamii Bora and talked over with Andrew how we might borrow money. He explained it all and how people had to vouch for one another and take responsibility for their debts. Obviously he was only talking to me and Bernard. There was no way he could talk to the rest of the gang. But that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? If you want to get something done, you have to talk to the bosses, even if they’re government ministers or presidents or whatever,’ he says with a wink. ‘But I didn’t really trust Andrew. I didn’t even like going to his office. It could have been a trap and I would have lost face with the gang. If it had all gone wrong I would have been tossed aside like a nobody.

  ‘But Andrew was as good as his word, and eventually we organised three groups of five gang members willing to vouch for each other, each one of them willing to take responsibility for the debts of the others. Even though I still had doubts about the whole business we all managed to put aside 5,000 shillings [€50] each, went back to Jamii Bora and could hardly believe it when they allowed each of us to borrow double that much. All of a sudden each group had 50,000 shillings [€500]. It was incredible.’

  I can imagine how it must have been for these kids suddenly to have a proper sum of money in their hands for the first time in their lives.

  ‘The first thing we did,’ John continues, ‘was to take our car down to the bar and say, “Hey guys, it’s party time.” Bernard turned up too, but then Andrew came as well and told us in no uncertain terms that the money was supposed to be spent on setting up a business, not squandered on drink and drugs. I turned to him and said: “Excuse me, but that’s not how I see it. We saved up and now we’ve got double our money. Anything else is your problem.” But then Andrew said that if we paid back the money, we could have double it again: 20,000 shillings [€ 200]. It made no sense to me, but all of a sudden the only figure anybody could think of was the 20,000 shillings. All of a sudden the 10,000 we had in our pockets wasn’t enough. Think how drunk we could get on twice that amount! We immediately started trying to work out what we could do to get to the 20,000. It was enough to send you mad. Of course, none of us were interested in actually working, all we wanted was to get more money.

  ‘So we sat down and talked it over and then decided we could make metal chests, the sort everybody needs to have in their hut to put food or clothing in so it’ll keep dry in the rainy season and so they can lock them up. So we spent money on the raw materials and went to work. At least a group of thirty-six of us did. Most of the rest were too afraid of being shot by the police or just didn’t want to give up drugs.

  ‘The problem was though that wherever we went people were still scared of us. Nobody believed we wanted to work. You need to understand, Corinne, after what we’d done – things so bad I don’t even want to talk about them – it was really hard for anyone to trust us. What we’d done were so terrible that nobody could easily forgive us, even though we didn’t show our faces as openly as we do today. Not enough time had gone by. But we worked hard and made one chest after another, selling each one for 1,500 shillings.

  ‘Since April 2008 we’ve managed to build up a proper business. I scarcely recognise myself when I look in the mirror. The rings around my eyes have gone, the wrinkles have vanished. Even the district officer, who knew us all and knew how wicked we’d been, could hardly believe the change that had come over us. We talk about it with him a lot. Lots of people don’t believe that it’s all because of Jamii Bora. Hey, y’know, we’re like honest businessmen!

  ‘By August we’d paid back the loan we got in April and actually did get 20,000 shillings. By then we had no more doubts. Imagine, Bernard and I currently have a loan of 150,000 shillings [€1,500], because we have so many orders coming in. We’re making guttering and water butts so people can collect rainwater. Business is good. I’m a happy man.

  ‘I’ve even made up with my ex-girlfriend, with whom I had a son back in 2004. It took me three months to persuade her to come back to me, but now we’ve got a daughter too.

  ‘In July 2008, four months after we started working with Jamii Bora, I went back to see my mother for the first time in thirteen years. She had found it really hard being cut off from her youngest son and then reading in the newspapers what a bad lad I’d become. People had told her the only time she’d ever see me again was when I was dead. She was delighted that I had come back to see her. I told her everything and she sat there and cried for three days. Then I told her about Jamii Bora and she said, “Introduce me to this man who has had such a good influence on you!”’

  And we all burst out laughing.

  I ask him if he is regularly in touch with her now and he says, ‘Yeah, yeah, I ring her ever day. Never a day passes but I call her at least once. She’s really proud of me. I can tell you, Jamii Bora didn’t just change my life, it saved it.’

  As we leave I ask John if he never worries that he’ll fall back into the bad old ways. He smiles and tells me emphatically, ‘No way. Not a chance. I’m a happy man these days. Once upon a time, I didn’t even understand what that meant. I live near Kibera and when I get home my children greet their papa. For me that’s as good as it gets.’

  No sooner has John finished speaking than I notice a bit of a fuss going on behind me. Ingrid Munro, the Swedish-born woman who started all this, the one they all call ‘Mama’, has entered the room. She’s unprepossessing in her appearance. Her long grey, almost white, hair is tied back behind her
neck, leaving her clear blue eyes as the centre of attention. We say hello and she immediately starts telling me, in a slightly hoarse voice, how it all began. She is very casual in her storytelling which is filled with anecdotes, many of them, despite the tragedy that lies behind them, funny enough to make us laugh. She is sixty-nine and really ought to be retired, were it not for the fact that the beggars whose lives she changed won’t let her go. ‘But Mama can never retire,’ they keep saying. ‘What would we do without our Ingrid?’

  ‘But,’ she adds, ‘I deliberately built this organisation up so that lots of the younger people would be capable of doing what I did. It’s not like it used to be in the old days, when we were a “beggar women’s club”. It started out as fifty street beggars. In the beginning I would take all the money myself, spread it out on the bed in the evening, count it up and write it all down,’ she says, reminiscing with a smile on her face.

  ‘Now these women represent the core of the biggest microfinance organisation in Kenya and perhaps the best known in the whole world. But they’re the ones who deserve the praise, not me. I just showed them the ground rules, got them motivated and then lent a guiding hand. We were never afraid of hard work or problems along the way, even though some people thought we were mad. We’ve given loans to thieves, beggars and prostitutes, because in the end they’re all human, have children to feed and a right to free themselves from poverty. None of them have become what they’ve become because they wanted to. Nobody is born a thief or a prostitute. Look at these two young men, John and Bernard: they were right hooligans and now they’re worthwhile fellow citizens. But there were problems enough in the early days and more than a few things went wrong. Lots of the women got drunk often and whenever there was something to discuss, they all started talking at once. Believe me, I know each one of them personally and we’ve been through a lot together,’ Ingrid says with a laugh.