Mathare boy, 5, begs for food as father too drunk to provide

You have probably met Mandiro in the streets, begging. The dirty, unkempt talkative five-year-old boy follows pedestrians begging for food. 

While media reports say many children are used by adults to get compassion from passers-by, that is not the story of Mandiro, who lives in Mathare.

Mandiro rarely gets enough coins to sustain him. Most of the time he runs errands for a pittance to augment what he earns from begging. Sometimes the errands are too demanding for his age - and often not worth it.

Mandiro lives in Mathare Area 4B with a father - George Mwangi - who, according to neighbours, is rarely at home.

"He comes in once in a while, often drunk," a neighbour said.

On two occasions, the Star failed to talk to Mwangi as he was too drunk to express himself.

When we eventually traced him in Muthurwa, he said he had given a certain woman permission to take care of his son as he is unable to do so.

He sat on a tiny squeky bed. On one side of the room were two jerricans and a bucket of dirty water. 

He picked a cracked plate and dipped it in the bucket, removed the bits of food stuck on it and vigorously shook it dry. It was his way of cleaning the utensil.

Then he served cotton white cabbages on it and pulled a plate of stale ugali from across the room. 

“I carry people’s luggage and take it to their destination. I get so little I cannot afford to maintain a child,” Mwangi said.

He said he does not have relatives to take care of his son, nor does he know those of his late wife.

“I met his mother here in Nairobi and we got one child before she died. I never met any of her people.” 

Those who knew the couple said the two were drunkards.

Mandiro says he gets to see his father once in a while in the house but mostly, at Muthurwa market.

“You might find him (his father) at Muthurwa today. If you don’t, just wait there he will come,” he said.

Most days, the boy gets a meal, courtesy of neighbours and sympathisers.

“Random people give me food. The other day, I was given stale githeri and later had a running stomach all day,” he narrated, laughing.

“If no one gives me food, I eat bananas. I am given many bananas by the sellers in Muthurwa,” he explained.

Residents associate the name Mandiro to the bananas.

Faith Adoyo, a Mathare Social Justice Centre the human rights defender, says Mandiro walks from the slum to Muthurwa every day and upon his return brings a bunch of bananas which he shares with the neighborhood children.

“That’s how he got his name. You’d be surprised how well known he is,” Adoyo said.

She said the boy's father does odd jobs for survival and had asked for assistance to bring up the child "but we are yet to find a suitable place he can go. A neighbour has temporarily offered to stay with him as we find him a place.”  

The neighbours said the young boy spends most nights alone. His mother died early this year.

Last month, they had to contribute to fix the door of the single-room house after seeing the boy sleeping in the cold.

“His mother died in the house sometime this year and it is us (neighbours) who contributed for her burial,” a neighbour who did not want to be named said.

Adoyo said the centre had taken it up to find the boy a suitable place to live.

“We have to follow all legal procedures before we can find him a home,” she said. He is temporarily staying with a neighbour.

He wakes up very early and leaves unannounced.

“His is a life of the jungle. To him, the young and old are all the same. He talks to children and adults in the same way,” the temporary guardian says.

“He’s getting better and now understands that there are rules that family members follow,” she added.

MSJC hopes the boy will start going to school.

And school is a word that excites Mandiro. “I will top the class if I’m taken to school,” he said smiling.