Nyakacho

A place starts to seem more like home when you become familiar with its layout and its people. Although it takes between 1.5 and 2 hours for me to reach Kericho town, using three different vehicles, I’ve been there a few times and was beginning to feel like I’ve been here longer than I have been. It’s a great feeling to arrive at the station and then be able to walk to wherever I’d like to go, without having to ask for help and directions. It’s also nice to be able to board a bodaboda or matatu knowing I’m heading in the right direction, be it to Brooks, Poiywek, Kisumu or Litein.

I’ve gotten to see several places in Kericho, including small shops, a large store “Tuskys” (the Kenyan version of Walmart, except that it isn’t cheaper than the smaller shops), banks, restaurants, a hostpital—which included me watching a teenage girl in the trauma unit being stitched up as blood gushed from her leg and foot (yes…for those of you who know me well…that was really tough to do) and an HIV research center and its lab.

At the same time, just as I feel familiar with certain things, I’m just discovering others. I knew there had to be a poorer district of Kericho than the areas I’d been, but hadn’t seen it. Last weekend, Benard took me to Nyakacho—the city’s slums where the majority of the people reside. It was the part of KEricho most affected by the 2007 post-election violence. It reminded me in some ways of Peru—especially Lima’s outer districts and also of pictures I’ve seen of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

It probably won’t happen during these next few months, but I’d like to learn more about Nyakacho and other such places like Nairobi’s Kibera. I was just an intruder peering in on the lives of others: hearing people wailing as they mourned a death, seeing mothers and children carrying babies on their backs, women carrying food on their heads, men puling carts and a newly-wed couple parading down the steep muddy trash covered street. I felt ashamed to be watching them from the comfort of a car.