Eastleigh Street Life

A view from the Streets of Eastleigh

Looking back over our photographs, I thought you might enjoy a few street shots from Eastleigh. They do not begin to do justice to the colorful and varied experience of life in Eastleigh, Nairobi's largest Muslim ghetto, but we hope that they will give you a bit of the flavour!

Erica and I met this gentle musicman during the Eastleigh street march in September: He played us a song on his tin box guitar (and with his foot bells) while we waited for a street performance by children of the community centre. Street performers are actually quite rare in Nairobi, we usually encounter street preachers and hawkers.

This kind woman allowed us to take a photo of her fresh tomatoes surrounded by the various electrical moldings and sockets for sale around her. Her pink flip flops are a common type of sandal found throughout Kenya. In Dadaab, it is common to wear another persons flip flops. One night, a friend of ours was surprised to find a large pair of white rubber boots in the place where he kept his evening flip flops. He was very unnerved by the experience, thinking that there was some supernatural source to the alien boots. He was quite relieved to discover days later that a worker at the CARE compound had been over for a visit that afternoon and switched his boots for the light sandal in the hot sun.

There are two primary industries in Garissa, livestock (goat, lamb, camel and cattle) and charcoal: both of these products are in high demand here in Eastleigh and throughout Nairobi. Sadly, the popularity of charcoal has contributed to the rapid deforestation of most of Kenya. Much of the land around Kenyan villages and towns is denuded by the constant need for firewood.