By Maore Ithula
Some 52 years ago, Njenga Kariuki left his village in Limuru, Kiambu District and headed to the city in search of a job.
But since he had no skill worth talking about, Njenga landed at a quarry situated about 20 kilometres East of Nairobi.
The man at the helm: Njenga Kariuki outside his business premises that became people’s meeting point and ultimately a slum settlement for 200,0000 people |
During that time, Njenga and other new arrivals in the city lived in temporary structures built by quarry owners next to the mines.
Nonetheless, there was unoccupied land adjacent to the four huge quarries. The land, measuring up to 200 acres, was infested with all manner of wild animals.
Menial Jobs
A few months into a poorly paying menial job, Njenga started farming on the idle land. He did not know who owned it but that was the least of his worries. Besides, the property was not even fenced.
Njenga decided to do a little farming. He hived two acres for himself and produced maize beans and vegetables, which he sold to the quarry workers.
But wild animals started destroying the crops, especially at night. To keep watch over the crops round the clock, Njenga decided to quit his menial work at the quarry and build a tin shack to monitor things more closely.
His structure was multi-purpose in nature. It served as a home and store from where the workers would buy their consumer goods. He would later open a bar and butchery. Both are still existence.
Unknown to him Njenga had founded what would become one of the largest slums in Nairobi, with some 200,000 people, and immortalise his name for generations to come.
"This bar and butchery (Njenga Manyanga Bar and Njenga Manyanga Butchery) have been here for decades. However, they keep on changing location, size and shape depending on the circumstances," he says of his business that gave birth to the slum.
Delineate Mines
Because those days the quarries were literally located in the middle of nowhere, workers were either at their places of work, their quarters or at Kwa Njenga as his business premises were called.
Below, a disused mine in Mukuru. [PHOTOS: SAID HAMISI/STANDARD] |
Mukuru is Kikuyu for valley, and evokes the depressions that delineated the mines. When the miners exhausted and abandoned the four quarries, only deep valleys were left behind.
Life went on uneventfully until the mid-1970s when the Asian owners of the quarries decided to mechanise work at the mines. Many people were laid off. And since those retrenched had nowhere to go, a majority of them joined Njenga in the slum.
In an adjacent ridge, just across the railway line stood a few quarry mines almost the size of those in Mukuru kwa Njenga. The miners also left gaping valleys and jobless mine workers. Before long, they, too built shacks that they lived in. The allure of the city, not to mention their reluctance to return to humdrum village life, inspired them to stay on, laying the foundation for another slum.
To differentiate the two informal settlements, one was referred to as Mukuru kwa Njenga while the other was named Mukuru kwa Reuben. Residents say Reuben was a white settler who initially operated in the area before selling the property to quarry miners. He (Reuben) has since died.
KEI-APPLE FENCE
Similarly Mukuru Kaiyaba was founded by retrenched mine workers. The only distinction is that the mines were near a kei-apple perimeter fence around the railway workers’ quarters, and which inspired the name of the slum.
Njenga says although permanent structures fetch better rent than temporary ones, the former would be a big gamble on a land that one does not legally own.
Njenga has since abandoned farming and every inch of his land is occupied by all manner of makeshift structures. Njenga has 18 children from his two wives and 10 grand children. All his children were born and brought up in the sprawling slum.
