Jambo World
The digital divide is recognized and measures are being taken to fill the gap between the western and developing worlds, however in some important issues the cities in developing countries are those that set an example for the western world to follow
Marcia Caines
photo Andrea Fazzorlari
President Kibaki told the Kenyans on Easter 2005 «Stop lamenting be thankful». Considering that sewage pollution, lack of drinking water and housing, disease, healthcare, waste surplus and poverty are problems of everyday life his advice seems somewhat futile.
Living in European cities today with a certain number of services, structures, infrastructures, rules, regulations rights and reservations available to the public, it’s hard to imagine life in the city of a developing Country.
Talk about and investing in improving our cities’ “liveability”, “sustainability”, “flexibility”, “mobility”, and all the other “bilities” is the norm. ICT systems, new technologies, planning and development are all key issues applied when imagining a better future for European citizens and their children thereafter.
On every street corner there is a kiosk selling something, and under the stairwells and in doorways there are bicycle repair services, fruit and spice vendors, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and blacksmiths reinventing used goods and turning them into utensils, household goods, tools and selling them on the street
Measures are being taken to ensure that set standards are met and if they aren’t there is at least hope of being heard, understood or at least acknowledged. All this is very well, but as time goes on it gets even harder to imagine the conditions that a large part of the world’s population lives in.
Take for example, Mombasa. Kenya’s second largest city, with around 795,174 inhabitants (38 percent of whom live in slums), and the bulk of the population lives in 55 informal settlements spread over the territory. Mombasa, once possessed by the Portuguese, the Ormani Arabs and last but not least the English, is a world all of its own.
In the stifling heat of an average working day morning on the equator, the queues to board the ferry to reach the Mombasa island division, the most developed of Mombasa’s four divisions and the commercial centre, seem never-ending, as does the constant coming and going of the ferries, picking up and dropping off, mostly foot passengers on their way to work, work of all kinds. On arrival at the island, the people aboard these packed ferries descend and spread out into their surroundings.
photos Andrea Fazzorlari
There is a buzzing atmosphere of busy people going about their daily business, inventing, creating, exchanging, innovating to make their daily bread. On every street corner there is a kiosk selling something, and under the stairwells and in doorways there are bicycle repair services, fruit and spice vendors, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and blacksmiths reinventing used goods and turning them into utensils, household goods, tools and selling them on the street. The streets are full of people, colour, aromas and activity. The streets are home, and their dwellers are faithfully committed to keeping the city alive. It seems as if the houses are empty, not many can afford to stay home.
Mombasa’s children contribute too, from the age of about 11 upwards they wander the streets unaccompanied, either approaching tourists using their language skills in German, French and English, offering themselves as guides or mobile tourist information points for a small fee, or rummaging through debris searching for things to recycle such as old car tyres for making shoes, aluminium sheets for making pots and pans and even empty bottles to fill with water or passion fruit juice.
The population is made up of three religions: Christian, Muslim and Hindu and apparently there is no animosity, it doesn’t seem like there is either. In the heart of the historical centre is the port. The old slave tunnel opens up here, in front of it a fresh water well, once used by the slaves for washing and drinking, before and after their journeys during the slave trade, one of the city’s historical sites. There are no signposts, placards, designated viewing areas or railings, indicating or dividing the area; the city dwellers actually wash there, do their laundry there and seek shade from the sun there in the mouth of the tunnel, it is a fully functional part of their urban context. Not feared or dreaded, worshipped or sacred but used.
Every now and then a chicken or a goat crosses the road.
According to Richard Sennett, “self-respect fades when we respond to the example set by others”; mine certainly did in Mombasa.
