Rough draft.
This essay will discuss the troubles that people experience living in Africa’s largest slum, Kibera. The story highlights the story of Michael, one of the many people who inhabit the city, having been pushed by harsh conditions from their rural areas. The story examines a lot of issues ranging from political to moral decadence. As Michael’s story trickles, it unravels the folded chapter of life that most youths in Kenya, a county in east Africa, have to face to survive without education.
The story will start with Michael’s current situation waking up to a highly stressful job in the city center. “Yet when he wakes up every morning, blows his name and wipes a bead of cold sweat from his stubby face, to prepare for his long sojourn to the great sea of people to search for his destiny, his rickety joints tell on the amount of strain he is imposing on them.” It then examines the political, social, and economic reasons that brought him to his current condition through flashback. “Before the end of the thirty-eight-year rule of the independence party KANU, getting an education in Kenya was a humongous task that was left to the brightest students and those whose parents could afford.”
Going into the depths of his Rural home, It depicts Michael getting out of the village and finding himself in the city. In between are anecdotes on the political system that is corrupt and inefficient. “The funniest man or the one with the deepest pockets would win the contest to get lost for the next five years in the big city of Nairobi.” “Hiking a ride on a supply lorry heading for the city, Michael called a halt to life in the countryside and went out in search of his destiny.”
The next phase tours Michael’s slum life, having to do essential physiological functions most bizarrely. “It took him some time to contend with the normalcy of answering his calls of nature in a polythene bag and swinging them into the Nairobi River.” It also explores the political corruption that is harming infrastructural development. It elaborates on his working week and adverse working conditions. “Safety is always the last of everyone’s thoughts in the race to fill their stomachs and pay their house rent in the shanties of Kibera and other slums in the city lie Mathare, kawangware, Mukuru, Korogocho and Huruma.” The story rounds up by looking at the lives of other people like the poor women in the slums. It also explores the corrupt policing system finishing with Michael’s hopes and despair in the face of suffering.