The bookseller of Kibera

Khaleb Omondi stood looking at the empty plot in front of him. He gaped at the space where his bookstore once stood, on the northern side of the train tracks in Laini Saba, one of Kibera's 12 villages. The only thing the looters did not take -could not take-was the ground that had held up the mabati (corrugated iron) structure. It had taken 12 years to become the largest bookseller in Kibera, and in 12 hours it was all gone.

"Twelve hours," he told me. "That was how long it took for them to carry the stock that I had in my shop." He shook his head and smiled wryly, the sinister symmetry not lost on him. "That was how short it took to destroy my life." (...)

[Read Caroline Wanjiku Kihato's full article]
Published by Mail & Guardian, August 20, 2013.