By David White

From the railway track that crosses Kibera, the view is of a sea of rusting galvanised sheets, the roofs of one of Africa’s biggest slums. The single-storey homes they protect are made of mud packed into rough wooden frames. Because there has never been a clear legal basis for building in this zone on the outskirts of Nairobi, none of the housing is permanent. The alleyways are surfaced with compacted refuse. An exposed water pipe sprays from a leaking joint. In the absence of city sanitation, sewage runs in open trenches down to the river. On the riverbank, a pig feeds under the outlet of a latrine.