Sundays in Kibera have an indescribably different ambience. Only then do the inhabitants live up to their cultural stereotype as strollers. On every other day Olympic high street is a danger zone filled with water-cart-pullers hissing for you to get out of the way and people literally running to work. On Sundays they are making their way casually to or from Church in outfits that make them unrecognizable from their everyday personas.
Eucharistic services in Kibera are moveable feasts. They can start early and end late and you can never really predict what stage you will come in at. I would put out there that most of the church goers who stay for the whole day are there for social reasons. In between the socialising though they can work themselves up into bursts of spiritual frenzy which can be heard from all directions as you stroll along the street.
Another demographic start their day in the chaang’a joints (Kenyan homebrew triple distilled) down by the river in Katwakera and migrate to the keg beer bars in Olympic when they open at 5 (a new rule). By 7 Garage Pub in Fort Jesus kicks off and the ding ding ding of the Luo songs can be heard by all around until Monday has arrived. As a result the peaceful meandering of Sunday morning evolves into madness by mid afternoon, a level of drunkenness which hands down beats anything that Friday or Saturday can offer.
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