The Street Boys

Some of the most disturbing/heartbreaking scenes I ever witnessed during my time in Africa came on Sundays when I would grab a matatu (one of the cracked out mini-vans referenced in the Nairobi post) with Davis and whoever else was up for it that day to go feed the street boys in Kisumu. Davis, who is in Maseno for a year-long commitment developed this program to feed the street boys on his own and pays for the food out of his own pocket. He was overwhelemed by the needs of these children, living on the margins of society as beggars and thieves at an age when they should still have mothers tucking them into their beds at night.

Click on the following link to read my Bits and Pieces post where I spent some time explaining my first week visiting the street boys and more about what has become of the older street boys.

http://kali-thelife.blogspot.com/2006/06/bits-and-pieces.html

The street boys of Kisumu, which is the largest city in Western Kenya, come from villages in the area when their parents die or they are kicked out of their homes to fend for themselves after being considered nothing more than another mouth to feed.

Most of them sleep on the beach of Lake Victoria. They develop family groups (sort of along the lines of street gangs) as a means of family and protection. They form alliances to protect themselves and each other and to try to somehow stay fed. A little boy out there on his own isn't going to last long if he doesn't have someone else watching his back. The younger boys seem to end up being connected with older ones who provide some form of fathering and protection while they teach the little ones the ways of the street.

The youngest are about five.

As I am writing this, it is the first and only time I have cried about anything I saw and experienced over there. I have nephews this age. They are complete mama's boys. They like learning about animals and trains. They still cry when they get scared or scrape a knee. They have never once had to consider what it means to be all alone in the world, what it means to survive on their own, because they will never have to.

And these precious little boys I saw every Sunday, sniffing glue to escape the reality of their god-awful lives, will never know what it means to be taken care of. This is what it means to have no childhood.

Davis started out with only having a few kids show up, but as he proved his consistency by showing up every Sunday, rain or shine, the group continued to grow. On my first Sunday there we had about 25 kids. On my last Sunday, five weeks later, there were about 50.

After getting off the matatu in downtown Kisumu, we would head in the direction of the beach. The boys would be scattered along the sides of the road waiting for us and would gather around in a big whooping crowd to join us for the rest of the walk down to the beach. On my first Sunday, I could tell from a ways off that most of them were high. I don't even know how to explain how I knew from 30 paces, but they just very obviously were. Their swagger and bravado were not typical of young boys, even those hardened by the streets. I would quickly have four or five trying to hold my hand or hang on to my arm or some part of my body to "escort" me down to the beach each week, in the way that people stumble home from Joe's at about 2am, holding on to whoever is near them, just for the heck of it.

Once down at the beach, complete chaos would erupt. We would always have a Kenyan friend with us to shout orders in Swahili, and several of the now-adult street boys would be waiting at the beach to get the boys into a line. They did this in hopes that we would also give them some food, but Davis' goal was to feed the children, and the food usually ran out anyway.

Our Kenyan friend and the adults would mold the boys into a single-file line while they shoved, kicked, and broke out in fisticuffs all throughout their ranks as they pressed toward the front. My first week there was the first time I have ever actually seen someone kicked in the face. For all these boys, it was their only guaranteed meal of the week. They were accutely aware that we had a limited amount of food in our bags. They had seen in the past how we would start tearing the bread in half if the supply got low before the line died down. These boys struck to injure and annihalte the competition. And when the food came out that's all they really were to each other - competition.

We fed the boys mandazi, which is a fried bread similar to a donut, a little bottle of juice, and little packets of Kenyan ground nuts for protein. As soon as the boys got through the line, they would hide the food deep inside their pockets and immediately try to shove their way back into the middle of the line to get another round before it ran out. You could tell who the tougher boys were because when they cut back into the middle of the mayhem, a few shouts of protest would occur but the other boys wouldn't dare mess with them. Our Kenyan friend and the street adults patrolled the line the whole time, pulling the offenders out, screaming at them not to trample each other, yanking the more violent ones away, and trying to pull the littlest ones out and bring them to the front so they were assured something. The weakest, smallest, and those with the lowest standing among thier street ranks ended up at the back of the line while others managed to sneak in again and again in front of them amidst the complete pandemonium. When I saw the looks on their faces as they stood on their tip-toes to see how the food supply at the front was holding up, I had to look away. It would take explaining all of the hows and whys of a broken world to describe that level of defeat on the face of an eleven-year-old.

By the time we got to the end of the line, the juice and packets of ground nuts would be long gone, and the mandazi would be ripped into ever-smaller pieces until that too was finished off.

As soon as the food was gone, we left. It wasn't safe for us to stay among those who knew we were capable of handouts. Every week, without fail, as soon as the line was through we would be surrounded by those with requests for money for this or that. With 50 of them standing there, you just can't start handing out money. They might be children, but they are also criminals who live by stealing, mugging, and whatever other means they need to survive. Usually before the last piece of mandazi was gone I would be on my way back up the hill.

Forming the line next to the fish shops

Shoving forward on one another so no one could cut in between people - this was scary to watch and made me question my own safety as things were always inches away from getting out of hand. Notice the boy with the long stick; he can use that to beat people if they get in front of him.

Lake Victoria - the largest in Africa - in the background

So strung out they never take the glue bottles out from under their noses. I cannot begin to describe what you feel the first time you see a ten-year-old high.

Some shove their food in their pockets and run off to eat it later in safety where they have less of a chance of getting jumped. Others are so hungry they can't wait. The little boy on the left has finally found a reason to take the bottle of shoe glue out from under his nose while he eats his mandazi. It is illegal to sell shoe glue to children in the country of Kenya, punishable by six years in prison, but as with most other laws in Kenya it is not enforced. The kids buy it for ten shillings (less than fifteen cents) and use it as their only escape from their daily reality of living in hell. We never took the glue away from them, because they would have just gone right back and gotten more and we would rather they use the little money they get from begging for food.

Twenty minutes of complete anarchy

This is Duncan, the leader of the street boys. Now in his mid-twenties, Duncan has been on the streets of Kisumu since he was eight. Davis met him early on in his time in Kenya and it is through befriending him that all outreach to the street community is possible. Comparable to American street gangs, in a system that on the surface seems to be highly anarchical, the street boys have a system of organization and ranks that runs deep. Duncan is the boss. If you want to get something done, be his friend. If you are not his friend, forget ever trying. You cannot walk into Kisumu without him knowing you are there. His eyes and ears are everywhere. It's a large major city, but no matter what day of the week or time of day you show up unannounced, Duncan will find you in less than a half hour. He's a complete crook and talks like the best of used car salesmen, but Davis realized long ago that Duncan is a necessary evil. You can be sure that there is a lot less pushing in line when Duncan shows up (epecially when he's holding a massive switch as he is here). When the street boys become too old to be cute enough to make any money from begging, they truely turn to the hard crimes they've been dabbling with for years as their only means of survival. The adults are very dangerous. Wouldn't you be if you didn't have any other way to feed yourself? All of them try to keep younger boys under their wings so they can keep their hands in the money the little ones bring in from begging and can send them on special assignments that younger children can more easily get away with. The system will never stop perpetuating itself.

This is one of the littlest ones, about five years old, searching through the trash in the shrubby area near the beach to find a bag to put his mandazi in. He'll go find a quiet spot to hide where he can savor his meal in peace. Today is a very good day for him.

Take a moment to compare this to your good days at this same age, and you may be able to begin to feel the injustice of this perverse scene. Leave me a comment - I'd love to hear the thoughts of others on this kind of poverty.

** If you are wondering where the street girls are, there are none. They don't last a month on the streets because that is where people go to shop for servants who they can keep as virtual slaves in their homes for years without ever educating or paying them if they are young and poor enough. Those who don't end up as house servants end up being bought and sold as prostitues. In some ways, the boys are the lucky ones.