Jago of Mathare Valley

Binyavanga Wainaina

G21 AFRICA Correspondent

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Binyavanga Wainaina

My eyes hurt. I'm still not used to having the sun directly above me again. There is a truth in what you see in Kenya that is uncompromising - there is no soft focus here.

The Serengeti migration has nothing on Eastlands at rush hour. Eastlands is where the mwananchi (man on the street) lives. There is a whole ocean of people, moving like time has run out on them. A mish-mash of informal traders colour the streets with their wares. Eastlands has taken on a distinctly Middle-Eastern persona since half of Somalia and Ethiopia resettled here. There are bazaars, shops advertising henna, bui-bui -clad women, and lots of miraa (khat) on sale. There is a beauty parlour whose sign shows Mickey Mouse having his hands hennaed.

I am here because I am bored. Since I came back home four months ago, I have found my feelings for Kenyans somewhat barren. Everybody I know is 10 years older and conversations revolve around diapers and the size of cellphones.

To most, my dreadlocks and lifestyle in Cape Town are decadent and wasteful. Already tactful moves are being made to get me engaged to somebody, or at least in some kind of respectable relationship. Almost all my peers probe and dig and insist that my life has no fulfilment, no spiritual promise without baby poo and diapers. Every Saturday afternoon somebody is getting married or being baptised, or there is a baby shower.

I am bored. Bored with the endless political discussions, with going to the same old places and listening to the same 20 R&B songs the radio stations have been ramming down my soul.

Mathare Valley is Kenya's largest informal settlement. The name is so notorious it strikes terror into any owner of fixed property. It doesn't help that Kenya's only psychiatric hospital is called Mathare, too.

Last night I was in a bar. I sat next to a gentleman wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He turned out to be the councillor for Mathare. Brits small-talk about the weather; Kenyans used to. These days we small-talk about Daniel Arap Moi, our bewildering president, a source of endless fascination. To protect ourselves from revolutionary fury, we speak of him as if he is a well-known, slightly eccentric relation, calling him"Uncle Dan" or "Em-Oh-One."

Unfortunately I had picked probably the one person in Nairobi whose feelings for Moi were still an open wound. By the time we were on our fifth beer, the attacks had become personal.

• What do you know about how real Kenyans live?
• Do you believe what you read in the papers?
• Don't you know that 75% of people in Nairobi live in slums like Mathare? Have you ever been to one?

By the time he was finished with me, I felt like an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging member in Soweto. I had to see Mathare for myself.

The photographer I am with, J. Wambua, lives there, so I feel fairly safe. Also, this is probably the only place in Kenya where my dreadlocks are likely to be well received. Bob Marley is a god here.

Wambua tells me that Mathare has redeemed itself significantly in Kenyans' eyes since its football team made mincemeat of Kenya's best in the premier league. Started as a club to keep kids off the streets, Mathare United is now Kenya's leading soccer team.

Just as the sun drops behind the silhouette of the city in the distance, we turn off the main road. We enter another planet.

It is as if we are in a city of paraffin lamps and there are literally thousands of people milling about. Narrow paths zigzag between shacks. In front of the shacks something is being sold. Meat is grilling, chapatis are doing triple somersaults off flat pans and vetkoek are spitting with fury. The energy of the place is unbelievable.

There are piles and piles of neatly arranged tomatoes, red onions, mangoes and kale. Red, yellow and green bananas hang from ceilings. Mielies, Kenya's national snack, are being grilled. There are acrobats, charismatic preachers with mobile PA systems, butchers and fishmongers, second-hand book stalls, bars and every sort of clothing imaginable for sale. There is not a blade of grass, no trees or bushes.

It is only once I adjust to the frenzy around me that I notice the art. It is like the cover of a fantasy novel. I guess nobody needs to buy realism for their walls, it's free here. I notice that most of the better paintings have been done by the same person: Jago. He is sent for and after 15 minutes a diminutive young man with uncomfortably naked eyes joins us. There doesn't seem to be a part of him that isn't spattered with paint.

Jago is 19. He has only a primary school education, has never been to an art gallery. He just likes to draw.

He takes us around his favourite works. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have felt beauty so utterly.

When I was eight, we drove through Laikipia during a storm. My face was pressed to the window and a slow brandy warmth spread from the pit of my stomach. I had been through this dusty harsh veld many times, but the thunder and lightning had caught the area unawares and in the panic of fauna and flora I saw the big picture. For the briefest moment I felt part of something that could not be broken into the sum of its parts. To this day, the smell of rain on dust brings back this feeling of completion.

Jago's best work is of women. He manages to render what they want to look like when they leave a salon, without restricting himself to the usual clichés. He draws plump women; doe-eyed women; tough, strong-jawed women; all pruned and primed, their hair done just the way that suits them best. Expressions range from orgasmic joy to prim satisfaction.

Mama Njeri, a salon owner, tells me that Jago's signs have brought in a clientele who previously went downtown to get their hair done.

We go into a bar. The average age of customers here is 50. The language spoken is Kikuyu, not Sheng, that blend of Swahili and English spoken on this side of town. The murals on the walls show scenes of drunkenness. Grilled meat and drunkenness. Pastoral humour: cows with over-large udders, lush milkmaids. The dreams of rural immigrants. Escape here, says the commercial, sample a litle bit of home. I laugh at the drunks. Legless. Jago has drawn them with spaghetti legs.

I've been surprised when Jago has said his works are like photos. Many other people say so, too, yet his style is not representative.

He refuses to accept that there could possibly be an objective picture of somebody. Surely people are exactly how he chooses to see them? He therefore refuses to see the difference between his cartoon images, which distinctly reflect the character of the people he portrays, and photographs taken from the perspective of the photographer. It amazes me that he is able to discern this truth with such simplicity - it is one I grapple with often.

Jago is able to draw attention to what people see in other people, even laughing at the silliness of the stereotypes he potrays, but so subtly that his clients never notice. The guy at the telephone bureau will be happy that the picture will bring in professionals - Jago manages to show what he thinks of such people: a greedy glint in the eye, a frown of stress, over-bright lipstick on a hard face.

Does he like Mathare? Yes, he doesn't plan ever to leave. I look about and imagine him 20 years from now, never lacking a wall on which to hang his vision. I envy him.