The slum
also rises

His dad left home long before he was born, so at the age of two James had no option but to spend two and a half years behind bars at Nairobi’s Langata prison with his mother, convicted for robbery. At ten he dreamed to be a pilot but was already the youngest member of the gang in the Korogocho slum. He was smart. He was the lookout. And was the one who kept the guns. His older brother wasn’t smart enough: spent five years in jail and didn’t give up; he was killed in a holdup.

James rose quickly to the top in the gang. He was professional. He defied the police. He had safehouses in town; and a lot of money for girls guns and drinks. People called him Uncle, as a sign of respect. “When we decided to strike in town we came down by dozens and took over the streets. I was lucky” he says. “Most of my friends are now dead”.

You must be strong and brave to survive in Korogocho. Crime is no choice if you are born in the ghetto. Uncle was shot in the leg and stabbed a few times: he shows me the scars. Then shows me the place where he grew up. There are no public schools in Korogocho, no hospitals, no sewage system, no jobs. The Combonian fathers and some Ngos try to meet the basic needs. But the houses are filthy shacks, the youngs sit chewing the alcaloid mira, sniff kerosene and get drunk with home made chang’a. Most girls are HIV infected prostitutes and many are raped by their fathers. Rival gangs roam the streets, still divided along tribal lines: the Luos don’t like the Kikuyos. But they dig together in nearby Dandora: the huge, stinky, hellish dump site where they hungrily look for metal scraps, old shoes and plastic bottles to sell back in the slum.

All this is what pushed Uncle to change his life. At 23 he quit the gang and became a social activist, organizing sports tournaments to bring the youngs together and fight crime. Now, at 29, Wanjiru James Wainaina “Uncle” is proudly running for a county representative seat in the forthcoming March 4th national election with the National Alliance Party of Uhuru Kenyatta: he swept the Korogocho primaries with 1001 votes, by far outnumbering the other competitors. He is now campaigning full time, shaking hands, attending rallies, talking to the people. With an agenda centered on security and jobs and with a full understading of the problems of the youth he has a real chance to overcome the old ethnic divisions and find his way to the National Assembly.

Sure enough Uncle won’t be the first gangster turned politician: we see a lot of them around, not only in Africa. But he would be the first elected-grass-root-slum-activist in Kenya. A huge leap for the Korogocho kid, who instead of being a pilot now dreams to change his people’s lives in the ghetto.