Sunday 21st January. 23.19hrs Guesthouse in Westlands, Nairobi.

Today was once again a long day, but very exciting.

We travelled the 12 kms to the football stadium early this morning. Each of the various workshops are situated in the upper and lower sections of the stadium. Areas have been sectioned off one from the other creating a tiered conference room type setting. Some of the workshops that we had wanted to attend didn’t take place, I am not so sure why. The atmosphere was a little quiet, some stands had yet to be fully set up, maybe people have treated it as a day of rest, given that it is Sunday, or maybe we were early!. That said, there were thousands of people moving about, trying to find the events and workshops from a programme of events that had listed at least 100 separate ones. Later in the morning I made off for a nearby slum area known as Baba Dogo. Baba Dogo was originally an industrial area but a large slum has now developed around it, it is next to the notorious Korrogocho slums part of Mathare Valley. I was visiting a long-time friend of mine, Fr Tom Sexton, an Augustinian from Courtmacsherry. I first met Tom in 1991 here in Kenya, we have kept in contact since. The slums of Nairobi are notorious; at least 3 million people live in them. I have visited them in 1993 and more recently in 2002. The conditions are horrendous; at times the ‘streets’ narrow down to the width of two persons standing side by side. There is no sanitation with sewerage running down the centre of the laneways.

I was in time for mass in Kiswahili. A good few other delegates to the Forum had travelled to Baba Dogo so as to have contact with people living right out there on the margins. The mass was quite a celebration lasting 3 hours. People feel the forum speaks to them and gives them and their plight a much-needed spotlight. The gospel could not have been more relevant today. Jesus’ manifesto (as Tom called it) was to set prisoners free, to liberate the oppressed and raise the down-trodden from their misery. A revolutionary manifesto if ever there was one. Later after mass the community hosted the delegates to something to eat and various entertainment including song, dance and drama. One of the dramas depicted life in the slums with a life of uncertainty, unemployment, social problems including domestic violence, prostitution and grinding poverty. The drama also depicted the political class in Nairobi and its alliance with the landlord class who exploit the people at every opportunity.

Later that evening as we sat in Tom’s house we were joined by a Swedish journalist who was covering the Forum. He was interested to know what ordinary people of Nairobi made of all this. Tom described how people in the area suffer. He described how the local industries benefit from the wide circle of cheap labour with scenes of people queuing and milling about at the beginning of the week outside the factories in the hope of getting work. Attempts at unionisation in one factory last year led to the group of workers being sacked. The world is into free market capitalism with its free trade and open borders to the flow of capital. However once labour tries to organise and draw down its just deserves from the free market then the shutters come down, this is not part of the deal. Tremendous prosperity for some and grinding poverty for others. There must be a better way! People locally are engaged and engaging with the forum. Various communities in the slum areas that cover large swathes of greater Nairobi have negotiated a special rate of 20 cent (euro) per person per day to attend the Forum. A delegation of 200 parishioners will march to the forum tomorrow. They plan to highlight their plight and to take part in the many events that will be taking place.

Roll on Monday!