Kibera comes alive. Activities of an opportunistic kind have been going on for weeks. Loudspeakers mounted on pick-ups call residents to this or that meeting. They roar past, in different directions this Sunday afternoon – a rush hour of sorts.
An hour hardly passes before a pick-up, carrying dancing youth, wobble past on the rugged roads. The air is pregnant with expectations. Kibera has been rediscovered.
In another corner of Kibera's Lindi slum, an isikuti dance with huge belches of 'Mwana Ambere' tune can be heard across the area. Here lives a happy people, but shaky structures tell a story of deprivation.
The people are happy, in spite of the desolation. Rusting iron sheets of the Kaunda suit-type housing and the zigzagging alleyways flowing with a deluge of thick waste, tell another story. The excited folks along the rugged roads shall return to their huts when the sun goes down.
The songs are melodious. Drums are throbbing with high octane emotions. Some occasional benefactor must have fed these people. Some of the folks seem high on something. This energy, this enthusiasm, this bubble of excitement, is induced. The players cannot be doing this merely for fun.
Someone is paying for the show. The actors have a job to do. Coins earned this day have been long in coming to the makeshift stands around Lini Saba section of Kibera slums.
Mitura vendors enjoy an unusual seasonal surge in demand. The queues grow longer by the minute. The folks are sweating beneath the sweltering heat and clear blue skies this late September evening. There are no signs of short rains.
Those who have had servings of mitura enjoy their meal of the day. The eaters have the appetite for dripping helpings of mitura.
Chicken sellers at Makina market are enjoying the best of times. The supply of kuku kienyeji has risen. The demand is soaring. Assorted bars teem with original ingoho eaters from ingo. Steaming bowls of omusuma crowd rickety bar tables.
Meat roasters are doing peak business. The aroma of roasting meat waffling across the dusty neighbourhood say these are special times for Kibera. The people are enjoying every minute of it. Elections have come to this neighbourhood twice this electoral cycle.
Funeral harambees are attracting new donors. Donors don't need invitations. They come on smelling an opportunity to donate, even where the crowd is staged to con.
With many places to go, money to spend and time flying by, candidates deploy brokers to trawl the slum to deliver messages of solidarity.
Whether the donations reach wholly is another matter. Even messengers of politicians and parties have mouths to feed. This is feeding time for political brokers and voters.
There is no one to audit how much was given – and how much was delivered to the matanga committee in Lindi, Laini Saba, or Katekwera.
Bodies are transported upcountry in record time. Sometimes funeral meetings attract three or more seasonal donors. They come to spread handouts to trap votes.
Some of the donors are not even known to relatives of the bereaved. Once they have donated, they send the message: remember candidate so and so on November 7. Such events are many and scattered around the poor neighbourhood.
Sanitation is poor; water supply is erratic. Wrapped polythene bags litter alleyways. Drainages are clogged. But no candidate talks about how to turn around the situation.
Across in Ayany and Fort Jesus estates, bars teem with off-duty workers this Sunday afternoon. It's time to rest the body. Tomorrow is another day for the long trek to Industrial Area for daily wages.
Across in Kibera–Katikwera, candidates send agents to bars, saloons, garages, kinyozis and butcheries. Agents show up incognito to stage conversions around their candidates. Their paymasters need reports on which candidates are the talk of which section of the slum.
The things politicians do to traps votes have created palpable excitement across Kibra constituency. It's time to hunt and hope, for soon many shall cry when voters decide. They won't decide with their stomachs.
