As told by Sean Hewens:

Citizen Archivists in front of SIDAREC Community Center

Day 2 in Kibera starts much like day 1 in Kibera, with the SIDERAC shuttle arriving at 10:30 instead of 9:00. We are a bit wiser to the trick this time, however, and manage to plan our morning accordingly. Arriving at the SIDERAC community center in Kibera, we have added a new student to the mix, bringing the class to six people, which is where it will remain for the remainder of the training. The first training activity of the day is the Scavenger Hunt. We brainstorm ten photo and interview opportunities from the surrounding neighborhood and then the students are off, as Team Smallbean remains behind.

Kibera Movie Theater

When the students return, it’s much of the same conversation from the day before about how many folks in the neighborhood were less than cooperative, and how in a couple of instances, the students were forced to put away the cameras to avoid having them taken or smashed by unhappy residents. But what is also evident, however, is that our students are fine Citizen Archivists, even in slightly adverse conditions. Their photos are well composed, the brief interviews they conduct as part of the scavenger hunt are numerous and diverse. And best of all, what begins to emerge from the photos and interviews is another side of Kibera. Not the hostile “we don’t want you taking our photo” side, but a functioning and vibrant economy in the midst of Kibera, a side that isn’t so much hidden, but often lost in the chaos (at least to my neophyte eyes). The students conduct interviews of the man who runs the local movie theatre, which is a large TV in front of a small auditorium, with wooden benches as seats, expertly slanting upward toward the back of the auditorium. The movies are recent DVDs and cost either 10 Schillings or 20 Schillings to watch. The students also return with photos and a brief interview of the local barber, the baker, the fishmonger, and many others. The photos are really cool and make me confident that the Citizen Archivist Project can be successful in Kibera for five weeks and beyond.

Oral history interview of a local barber

The students work to upload their photos, video and audio footage to the computer. Similar to EWaus, a divide emerges in the class, with Steve and Ray having already mastered the fickle art of electronic organization of the data, even taking the lead in merging all of the various data we collect.

Interview at a fish stand

In the afternoon we begin preparing questions for tomorrow’s final oral history interviews. Unlike in EWaus, where the students essentially wandered into the Masai market and chose folks to interview largely at random (because just about everyone was that cooperative), the Kibera students are very careful and methodical in who they will interview on day three. Additionally, it becomes clear that Albanus (the SIDERAC coordinator participating in the training) thinks of the Citizen Archivist Project as a journalistic enterprise, encouraging students to choose interview subjects and then develop angles for their questioning that will make the interview compelling.

A young interviewee looks skeptical

Another interesting point that comes out during the interview prep is the issue of questions relating to tribes. Thus far my experience in Tanzania and Kenya has been that almost everyone you meet is both proud and happy to talk about the tribe from which they come. Additionally, the tribal dialect spoken by different Kenyans in different areas of the country shares the name of the tribe that speaks the language. So the Masai speak Masai, or Ki Ma as it’s called. The Luo (Barack Obama’s father’s tribe) tribe speaks Luo. The Luya speak Luya, etc. As everyone reading this blog hopefully knows, a huge part of the Citizen Archivist Project in Kenya is to collect oral history interviews in the various tribal dialects present at the sites where we are conducting the MobileCAP. Smallbean spent a lot of time before we left learning about the 42 tribes currently present in Kenya, where they are generally located in the country, and which of the tribal dialects are more endangered than others. So questions about the tribal background of interview subjects are both part of the core framework of Kenyan society and darn important for the MobileCAP initiative.

Getting back to Kibera- the seat of much of the worst post-election violence that occurred in 2007, and the location where almost all of the youth population (defined as anyone under the age of 35 or so) speak Shang (a mix of mostly Swahili, with lesser amounts of English and other tribal dialects thrown in), questions about tribe affiliation can be a bit stickier. It’s not so much that people are sensitive about the tribe that they belong to, but questions along the line of “what makes your tribe distinct from other tribes”, or “can you provide the history of your tribe”, or even, “can you talk about some of the traditions and celebrations that are unique to your tribe”, could be taken the wrong way. Finally, it’s worth noting that with the August 4th Constitutional referendum quickly approaching in Kenya, and with bits of the 2007 post-election violence potentially anticipated in places like Kibera, everyone agrees that too many questions on the issues of tribal affiliation could be a bad idea. We don’t come to any clear resolution on the issue except that the students will take the questioning on a case-by-case basis, depending on the interview subject and the situation.

Railroad Market

We’re shuttled back out of Kibera without incident and no large boulders blocking the road at the end of Day 2. Before boarding the bus, we walk approximately 30 minutes through the neighborhood, including a fascinating market along the railroad tracks. All of the stalls are pushed either right up against or actually on top of the railroad tracks. Shoppers walk down the middle of the tracks while browsing seller’s wares. What this means of course is that any time a train happens to come along, the market must be disassembled and pulled back from the tracks with lightning speed. The use of every square foot of potential real estate in Kibera is really amazing.