By Wairimu Kiriro

They say Mathare is just a slum, but to me, it’s the best place in the world. It’s where I was born, where I play football barefoot with my friends, and where neighbors laugh like one big family. Our homes are made of iron sheets, close together like puzzle pieces, and the music never really stops.

However, on April 23, 2024, everything changed. The rain came down hard – too hard.

Water rushed in like it was angry, sweeping through our crammed streets, breaking down homes, and carrying away the things we loved. People screamed, some ran, and some didn’t make it. It was like the whole world turned upside down. I had never seen Mathare like that before. Water was tearing through the heart of our homes.

This wasn’t just my experience, others, my neighbours, my community was experiencing this too. Children were experiencing this too.

So, I take this opportunity to share the story of 12-year-old Maya (not her real name), as she narrates how this horrid night unfolded for her.

 

The night the water came

My eyes snapped open to a horrible guttural roar, as if the world was being ripped to shreds. It happened with a sound – a low, ugly roar that seemed to be a part of the earth itself tearing apart.

Lifting my head in bed, I stared into the abyss around me rather aimlessly. Initially believing it to be a clap of thunder, I was soon shocked with an even louder one, breaking, crashing, and rushing.

“Get Up! Get Up! Now!” Maya! Get up!

With water sloshing beneath my door, impulsively racing across the floor, it felt like a tidal wave, and it was living.

My mother’s voice was rough, frantic, and sharp.

I vividly remember seeing my favourite stuffed bear effortlessly rise alongside the slew of bobbing and floating shoes.

“Leave it.” My mom shouted as we tried to make our way to the door. To our utter shock, the front door wouldn’t open. The force of the water shoved against it, trapping us inside. We then turned to the window and forced ourselves through.

The first thing I recall noticing is that our neighbour’s house was not visible on the street. All I could see was the violent, furious river water full of our neighbour’s belongings. I clung to my mom, my arms wrapped tight around her neck as she waded through the water, chest-deep, with the water rising every couple of seconds.

I could feel her heart pounding through her soaked clothes. I could feel mine hammering in my ears. We didn’t know where to go. The closest shelters seemed too far.

At some point, we gave up on our pursuit for higher ground, all I recall is that we somehow got on to a roof top. We spent that night on this rooftop, soaked and shivering under a plastic sheet. We were not alone, there were other families crammed with us up there.

Nobody spoke much. Some people prayed. Some stared out at what looked like black water swallowing what we just a day before, called our houses.

I sat pressed against Mom, listening to the rain hammer the metal roof, feeling the whole world tilt and break inside me.

 

I learnt the taste of fear

That night, I learned what real fear tasted like.

It tasted like rainwater, salt, and the sound of my mother whispering, over and over, “stay with me, Maya. Stay with me.”

And I did. Because she was all I had left.

We remained perched on the rooftop until the sky started to clear. At around 6:00am, the rain slowed to a light drizzle. Someone pointed toward a church on the corner of the highway. We were able to recognize it, it was the Salvation Army Church. By the time we made our way there, it was already packed. We didn’t mind this, because it was shelter. It was better than where we had spent the night.

Mom wrapped me in a blanket that was wet and held me close. Neither of us spoke.

After what felt like a few hours in the church, help finally started trickling in. The first group I met introduced themselves as Muungano wa Wanavijiji. Our helpers brought with them crates full of food and water, others brought dry clothes. Others went a step further, with kind voices, knelt beside us and gently rubbing our shoulders to make us feel warm as they asked us how we were.

Bringing me packets of biscuits and sitting next to me, was a woman with braided hair and gentle eyes. “It’s acceptable to be scared,” she said softly. “And it’s totally acceptable to be angry as well.”

Silence ensued as I glued my gaze to my shoes, which were caked with mud. She didn’t pressure me. She just remained there.

 

The aftermath

Weeks passed. Weeks turned into months. The water finally drained away, but it left scars everywhere – on the roads, on the houses, on the people.

We didn’t go back to our old house. It wasn’t safe anymore. Mom and I moved to higher ground, into a small brick house with cracked windows and a sloping roof. It wasn’t much, but it was dry, and it was ours.

At first, everything felt heavy. Like the flood had never really left. It was just living inside us now. But little by little, life began to grow again.

One afternoon, while helping my mother with her job, I met a group of kids around my age. They called themselves the “Generation shapers”– a youth group. They cleaned parks, planted trees, and collected trash from the rivers. Not because it would fix everything, but because it mattered to try.

“Want to come?” they asked.

I thought about it. About the night the water came. About how small and helpless I had felt. I had to join them. I had to do something.

The first cleanup we did was at the riparian zone where homes were demolished after being evacuated because of the floods. We found broken bottles, old tires and rusted metal. We pulled them out with muddy gloves and laughed when some of us slipped in the mud.

I planted a sapling at the edge of the water. It was thin, a little crooked, but strong. The flood had taken our past. But we were planting our future, one tree seedling at a time.

End of maya’s narration.

 

Watching Maya after the floods, and hearing her story, was heartbreaking. The young girl, once full of life, who once ran through Mathare’s narrow paths with joy in her eyes and no care in the world, had now become quiet, withdrawn, and afraid. The trauma of that day still lingers in her mind like the waters that refused to leave our streets.

This is what climate change has done to us. It has not just resulted in us losing our homes, it shook young hearts, leaving invisible wounds no one can easily see.

However, resilience skills are getting to our community members. Maya has since joined a local support group – one started to help children like her face the fear and grief they couldn’t put into words. Through shared stories, laughter, and healing activities, her smile has started to return, she is even sketching pictures of her dreams and even helping younger kids feel safe.

Maya’s strength reminded me that even in the face of disaster, hope still lives here in Mathare. In our people. In our children. In our community.

This resilience building in our community is part of initiatives such as the Race to Resilience program brought to us by non-profit organizations such as Muungano Wa Wanavijiji – SDI Kenya, Basic Needs Basic Rights Kenya and Tabasamu Café. We have gotten to learn a lot about climate change and how it is linked to our mental wellbeing. Maya is one among hundreds in our community who are learning how to better cope with stressors that impact their mental health.

 

About the writer

Nimo, a resident of Mathare, is a mental health champion and advocate whose passion is to improve the wellbeing of the community through making sense of data collected in her community. She is also an Actuarial Science student whose main goal is to promote financial literacy and risk management amongst community members in Mathare.