"I had not sought these expectations but I had always fulfilled them."
"This culture of sharing was very interesting to me because in the urban town where I lived with my dad, this never happened. If you ran out of an ingredient, you had to go buy it or do without it. Nobody would even think to borrow salt from their neighbor."
"So out of necessity, portions in Kibera are just large enough to get you through the immediate moment of need, for the next moment is not guaranteed... In Kibera you buy a cube of cooking fat just enough for whatever meal you are making at that particular moment for nobody knows what the next meal would be or what it will bring with it. In the townships, French fries are portioned by the plate, but in Kibera you buy French fries by the teaspoon; just enough to trick your taste buds after months of salivating."
"The joke around our family was that my dad had the greatest ideas until he actually got the means to implement them, at which point they magically disappeared."
"For the first time now, I understand that the people living in Kibera are not losers as I had always thought of them. They are the people courageous enough to face indignation in an effort to keep their hopes of a better life alive. Kibera offers them the only real chance of living in Niarobi where all the jobs are, and while they could go back to their rural areas and not have to shit in plastic bags or pee on their door steps, they have chosen instead not to give up on their dreams and have taken a slap from Kibera smack in the face, but still keep going."
"So Kibera was really where people with nothing but hope and the audacity to do what it takes moved to keep their dreams alive."
"I will finally join the all those people waking up early in the morning to begin the long walk from Kibera to their various work places. I too have a job to go to. I too have something to walk for. It is not much, but it is everything. It is also a starting point. I will pour my heart and blood into it. I will cherish it and treasure it, because it is a job that will afford me the privilege of continuing my stay in Kibera,"
"Kibera had first shocked me, then welcomed me, toughened me, seasoned me, opened my eyes to a world beyond my imagination, chewed me, and finally threatened to take my will and desire to live again, to swallow me. With its stinking air that I had twitched my nose to and its infested waters that had given me bilharzias, I had come to rely on Kibera to live, just one day at a time, one moment at a time, penny after penny. I had learned to appreciate the now."
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