Slum residents homeless as bulldozers flatten houses

By Kenfrey Kiberenge and Joe Kiarie

When Gerald Mutiso’s bed violently shook at about 2am on Saturday, he thought he was having a bad dream.

He had no idea that a bulldozer bucket had just knocked down the wall of his dimly lit bedroom and was precariously swerving above his head.

When it hit him that this was anything but a dream, he scampered outside... just in time.

"As the bulldozer hit my house I shouted ‘I’m still in here please don’t kill me" a shaken Mutiso recounted on Saturday.

While hundreds of thousands of residents of Kyang’ombe slums, adjacent to Mombasa Road, were spared a nightmarish wake up call like Mutiso’s, the aftermath was the same.

They spent the night out in the cold after their houses were flattened.

By Saturday morning the area around the former shantytown was jammed by homeless men, women and children, who had spent the better part of the rainy night running helter-skelter attempting to salvage household goods or building materials.

KCPE exams

One woman pensively clung to her toddler, while yet another ran after her hen.

Young men were busy atop hundreds of shanties, hurriedly demolishing them in a desperate attempt to beat the destructive caterpillars that would be upon them in no time.

While some residents could afford to hire lorries and pick-ups to ferry their belongings to safety, the majority relied on mikokoteni (handcarts), wheelbarrows and their own backs in the scenes reminiscent of the Biblical exodus. Of course there are dissimilarities.

While the Israelites had heaven-sent leaders in Moses and Joshua, as well as an appointed destination, the residents of Kyang’ombe were on their own with neither a shepherd (not even the area councillor could be spotted in the vicinity) nor a place to go. The only shepherds to talk about came in the form of ferocious well-fed police German shepherd dogs ready to rip apart anyone who dared stop the demolitions.

Only a few people seemed to know where they were headed, as majority pondered the enormity of their misfortune.

Mutiso says he arrived home at 11pm on Friday after a hard day’s work. He says that while he saw bulldozers flattening nearby buildings amid heavy police presence on his way home, he thought he was safe as signs marking the houses had not been placed on his.

Unperturbed, he fixed his dinner and after two hours of unwinding he retired to bed, only to be cruelly woken an hour later. The earthmovers trampled on all his belongings. The motorbike messenger, was however fortunate that his young family had travelled upcountry a few weeks ago and as a result he did not have to worry about his children.

"I am thankful that I’m alive but I’m not sure how to pick up my life from here," he offers.

Deep within the slum stand ruins of what used to be Mwalimu Education Community Centre. Its proprietor, Ms Lucia Nduta, was untiringly directing some youths who were helping her salvage stationery, desks and iron sheets.

"This centre had over 100 pupils in Class One to Seven, all from Kyang’ombe. All their homes were demolished, and so was mine.

Nduta admits the residents had been issued with eviction notices but says the Government must permanently tackle poverty and landlessness.

"These people do not have options. We understand the trouble we have been courting but something has to be done," she states, swinging the now useless keys to doors that have already been wrecked.

A few metres away is what was once Airways Private Primary School, which admitted over 300 pupils. It has also not been spared the wrath of the heavy machines.

Thanks to the late night operation, 20 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidates might not sit their exams.

Joseph Mutuku also had a night to forget. The bulldozers knocked down the residential house he had rented at around 11pm. The businessman, his wife and three children spent the chilly night out in the rains.

"Luckily, I had taken precaution and evacuated everything from my wholesale shop," he says.

Mutuku’s daughter Elizabeth, was to sit for KCPE exams next month at Airways Primary School.

"This is confusing and unimaginable, but I am not thinking about the exams now since the priority is to have a shelter," he says.

At a neighboring compound on which a chief’s camp and a church previously stood, Jessica Gacheri desolately sits next to her luggage. She spent the entire night out here together with her infant son and daughter.

Ironically, his playful son feels like he is in dreamland after witnessing heavy earthmovers, probably for the first time.

"Nimeona tinga tinga (I have seen a tractor)," he merrily shouts, clearly unaware that the same machines are the reason he will be boarding the next matatu to Meru.

Gacheri came to Nairobi only last June and has been working as a casual at a distilling firm. She now says she has no alternative but to return to the countryside in