The Dumpsite Next Door

by Joyce Wachau Chege

There are days I leave work tired and all I want is to catch a sunset. So, I go to the rooftop of the building where I live and stare into the horizon, my bag still on my right shoulder, and take some photos of the sunset. To my far right, I can see the Ngong windmills, between them and me, lots and lots of houses. To my right, is a skyscraper of garbage, a mountain so high that it is almost the same height as some nearby buildings. It has become the unwanted neighbor who brought nothing but decay, flies and fetid smells.

The smell hits you first within a kilometer radius before you even set eyes on it. The horrid stench hangs on to the air like its life depends on it. At times, early in the morning when you board a bus, you are met with the rancid smell and your nose contorts into shapes you never knew it could and at other times, you can taste the smell on your tongue. I dread when it rains because when it does, drains are blocked and all that flows is streams of sewage and filth! That is the Kawangware dumpsite in Msalaba for you! An unsightly tower of garbage getting higher by the day. The pilling up is getting out of hand and the street boys collecting garbage have erected wood fences to prevent the mountain from toppling over.

It has been quite a number of years since I moved to the neighborhood and I have only seen garbage collection trucks twice. Back then, it was not as bad as it is. It has grown into a monster. Stories of it are spoken in hushed tones. Questions as to who is benefitting from having the dumpsite there are still unanswered. Someone is definitely making money off it because there is no way one would be aggressive when the locals demonstrate and raise concerns about the health and environmental hazards.

The garbage mountain has since displaced the shops that were close to it. The few times it has been emptied, by the following day, more heaps of garbage are dumped. Street boys collect garbage from apartments in wooden handcarts, one at the front and another at the back, for easier movement. The road at this exact position has been halfway blocked. A bump of garbage has formed and you can see buses dangerously maneuvering, since every driver, motorbike rider and pedestrian is in a fight with whoever is strong enough to pass first.

We say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but the rot has ripened and taken root in that very same ground. Or maybe that particular piece of small land was cursed that its belly would always be full with no rest, or that it would be damned to an eternity of being dumped on. Maybe it already gave up on ever finding redemption. The land probably thinks tomorrow died yesterday, like ‎Chimeka Garricks says in his book. There’s no hope of ever seeing the sun, feeling its rays penetrate the ground, feeling the rain pour on it. It has forgotten what human footsteps on it feel and sound like, forgotten what the smell of clean air is.

There are days when the sun shines hot but the earth doesn’t feel anything, it’s too hot from the piling garbage that keep its floors well covered and smelly, and whenever the wind blows cold, it doesn’t feel it because it has a huge blanket of assorted trash surrounding it, acting like a shield in battle. It breaks my heart to see children playing around the dump, emaciated stray dogs lying there scavenging and people still selling products around there.

Proper waste management remains to be a far-off dream. The dumpsite is in an illegal place, and should have been closed down way back, due to the hazardous implications it has brought with it. Despite the promises from the Office of The Governor, no action has been put into emptying the dumpsite. It has been a show for the cameras and once the cameras are put away, we go back to the same distress, the same worry, the same deplorable conditions, the same traffic, and the same insecurities. The promises are no different from the pungent smell hanging around. They reek of betrayal, and sadly we’ve been left to collect the ashes of the lies flung at us.