The pungent smell of chang’aa stings my nostrils as we push back the lace cloth covering the door. Inside a large bucket sits on the only table, from which 10 shilling cups of the home-brewed maize liquor are served; served to men who waste their days sitting and drinking to complete incoherence and oblivion; served by women who make their living brewing, hoping to earn enough at the end of each day to feed their children, and if they’re lucky, send them to school. This area of Langas is called Kambingurewe, kambi- meaning slum or village, and -ngurewe meaning a place where pigs are kept. The name seems ironically fitting. It is a large brewing area, where woman after woman brews and sells chang’aa, and in two consecutive rooms of one of the long, mud-wall rental houses, two single mothers qualify to participate in my research study. They qualify because both have children in their household who rather than going to school, go to the streets.
“I don’t know why they go to the street” both mothers tell me when I ask them the “Why” questions. They explain that there is enough to eat at home and primary education is free in Kenya. Indeed, there is enough food at home—both mothers are HIV+ and poor, and are therefore receiving food from AMPATH’s nutrition program. And indeed, primary education is free in Kenya, but the uniforms are not; neither are the books, the pens, the notebooks, the exam fees, the registration fees, sometimes not even the desks. But there is a more pervasive, and much more obvious reason why these children are on the street—the youngest son of one mother, and 4 younger siblings of the other sister who is head of the household, and a mother of a young baby herself. And that reason is continuing to sting my nostrils. The environment these kids have grown up in is simply not the kind of environment where one can have a pleasant, normal childhood, going off to school each morning and returning home to do your homework each night.
Should the mothers be blamed for raising their children in a “bad” environment? I find it extremely hard to place any sort of blame on people attempting to survive in extreme poverty. These mothers, supporting 10 and 6 in their respective households, wake up every day to begin brewing so that they can earn a couple hundred shillings. Their biggest expense is paying the almost daily bribe to the different police officers who come each day. Brewing chang’aa is “illegal” in Kenya, but the police manage the brewing areas in the slums more like personal businesses. The police come so frequently that each woman in the area takes her turn paying the bribe by borrowing from the other women, and then pays them back throughout the week, or just loans the money when it is someone else’s turn to pay the bribe.
We had to arrive early to conduct the interviews because by late morning the women were busy serving chang’aa, and we’d rather avoid questioning by drunk and stumbling old men. Although it was before 10am, as we were conducting the interview in the second home, a man walks in looking about 70 but probably only 50, cigarette in his hand, eyes glazed, wanting his first 10 shilling cup of the day. I was nearly sick to my stomach. The smell was overwhelming. The old man wanting this nasty alcohol was overwhelming. The mud floor, single bed, tattered mosquito net, few scattered dishes and dirty cooking pots were overwhelming. The small baby, half-naked, unable to breastfeed because his mother was HIV+, likely to grow up in this same environment where 4 of his older siblings had “chosen” life on the streets over life at home and in school was overwhelming. The man was told to wait, crushed out his cigarette on the floor, turned and ducked out the door; I regained focus and resumed the interview.
During the first interview, the older sister to the mother waked in briefly to say hi, and we learned that she too had a boy who went to the street. I was no longer surprised. She lived about 10 feet around the corner, and was also a brewer. We went to visit her after finishing the two interviews and began chatting about her son who was now a street boy. In the middle of our conversation, one of her young daughters, still clad in her school skirt and sweater, poked her head in the door and hurriedly chattered something in Swahili. At the end I picked up the word “polisi” and realized many of these young children act as scouts for their mothers’ illegal brewing business. Immediately, the mother jumped up from her seat, and with no goodbyes, no words, no nothing, she rushed into the kitchen and began frantically covering sufurias filled with chang’aa. Samuel, Virginia, Veronicah, and I all looked at each other wondering what to do. “I’m not dealing with the police,” Virginia said to me. “I’m not either,” I quickly returned. And with that, we jumped up and walked quickly out the door, and out of kambi nguruwe.
