This is an excerpt from an essay by Chris Lockhart of Utah State University, it is something the people at Amani Children's Home had me read when I started volunteering, it helps to understand just what kind of background the kids are coming from. It is a real eye-opener and I think it needs to be shared.
The Life and Death of a Street Boy in East Africa
Chris Lockhart
Juma spent the first six years of his life on his family's rural shamba -or farm- in Shinyanga District, one of two administrative districts that make up Sukumland. In 1996 (when Juma was four), the shamba included approximately two hectares of land that Juma's father inherited from his father in accordance with the customary patrilineal land-tenure practices of the Sukuma. Like most smallholder farmers in the region, Juma's father cultivated cotton and devoted a smaller patch of land to subsistence foods, including maize and sweet potatoes. At this point in time, there was not enough money or land to keep livestock. Household members included Juma's parents, grandparents, and two younger sisters. Juma also had two older brothers, both of whom worked for a large diamond mine in a neighboring district. They had not returned home for almost two years.
With only two hectares of land and no livestock, Juma's household was part of the lower income bracket. Moreover, there were strong indications that the shamba was coming under increasing stress. The cotton harvest had yielded steadily decreasing returns over the previous five years, a situation that locals attributed to deteriorating soil quality and the inability of farmers -including Jumas'father- to pay for fertilizer or keep portions of land fallow to recover from constant use. In fact, Juma's father had sold three hectares of his land in 1993 to make ends meet and to pay off the balance of a loan he owed to a private cotton trader. The trader charged a very high interest rate on the loan, which he provided under the condition that Juma's father sell his crop to him at a substantially lower price than market value. According to neighbors, this transaction with the trader -who by all accounts had a somewhat shady and manipulative reputation- had left Juma's father in greater debt than before.
In September 1996, Juma's uncle, aunt, and their three young children came to live with them, which caused an already vulnerable household to come under even greater stress. The circumstances surrounding their move -the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine incident- are noteworthy for the particularly egregious nature of what occurred there in the name of powerful corporate and state-sponsored interests. While the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine has a controversial and complex history, it is worth providing a brief summary of these events.
In 1994, and in large part because of SAP-induced changes to Tanzania's mining policy, a Canadian gold corporation purchased the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine in the Bulyanhulu area of Shinyanga District. Almost immediately, the corporation began legal proceedings to evict the residents who lived and worked in the area. Despite a ruling by the High Court of Tanzania against the Canadian company, the government of Tanzania, under intense international pressure, ordered paramilitary security forces to move agains the communities and commence the evictions in August 1996. According to some estimates, upward of 200,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes and communities (lawyers Environmental Action Teal [LEAT] 2003). The incident has since drawn international attention from dozens of legal, environmental, human rights, and social justice groups throughout the world who have highlighted a long list of legal violations and human rights abuses, including the murder of more than 50 individuals. Today, the mine has become one of the world's largest, richest, and most modern gold mines, in part because of financing provided by a consortium of commercial banks from around the world and insurance guarantees totaling over $345 million from the World Bank and the Canadian government (LEAT 2003).
Juma's uncle lived in one of eight Bulyanhulu communities that were razed to the ground as part of the forced removals. Having no where else to go, he turned to Juma's father, who was obligated to help his only brother and his family. As a result, household membership almost doubled in size, increasing from seven members to 12. It was obvious that the shamba could not support this increase, and in December 1996 Juma's father and uncle were forced to leave the shamba to seek off-farm employment. Both men found work in the same diamond mine as Juma's two older brothers.
Over the next year, Juma's father returned home once to help with the harvest. While it was apparent that he was physically very ill during this visit, he returned to the diamond mine to resume work after only two weeks. In Febrary 1998, Juma's uncle returned from the diamond mine with the news that his father had passed away.
Juma's mother believed that she should inherit the family shamba, but his uncle contested her claim, which led to a significant rift in the household. His uncle's argument proved to be the stronger one, however, because it was reinforced by the traditional patrilineal inheritance practices of the Sukuma. Juma's grandparents also pressured his mother to follow the traditional custom of widow inheritance and marry his uncle. She flatly refused to do this, and the rift within the household grew significantly. In the midst of their dispute, Juma's uncle made it known that his brother had died of AIDS and accused Juma's mother of infecting him with the virus. According to Juma's mother, there were also accusations of witchcraft against her within the community:
"People are just foolish and believe what they want to believe. They were talking behind my back, accusing me of being a witch, pointing at me, and spreading all kinds of gossip. But all of this was just a plan by my brother-in-law and his wife to kick me off the shamba because they knew there was not enough land to support all of us. Even if I agreed to marry my brother-in-law he would not have taken me as his second wife because it was not possible to support us, and his first wife would not have allowed it anyway. It was good for him to say I was a witch and that I gave my husband AIDS. I lost everything in this way...the shamba just rotted away beneath my feet." [Juma's mother, November 1998]
After two weeks of accusations, arguments, and increasingly violent altercations, Juma's mother began to seriously fear for her safety. During the first week of March 1998, she woke Juma and his two sisters late one night, and together they fled the shamba. She had made the decision that they were going to begin a new life in Mwanza.
Sex, Survival, and the Process of Becoming a "Nyenga Dog"
Juma's mother had only one contact in Mwanza: a male cousin with whom she had a relatively close relationship. While he was making preparations to move to Dar es Salaam when Juma, his mother, and his two sisters arrived in town, the cousin managed to secure a small room for them to rent in a neighborhood about one mile from Mwanza's downtown center. He also paid their rent for the first two months, which gave Juma's mother some time to find work and settle in. The only work she could find, however, was as a street vendor selling fish in the downtown center. The work demanded most of her time and required that she be gone from early morning until late evening each day. Unfortunately, she did not make enough money to meet the daily costs of living, including rent (which was almost doubled by the landlord after the initial two months), food, and school fees for Juma (his two sisters never attended school after the move to Mwanza). As a result, she pulled Juma out of primary school for half of each week to help his sisters with domestic work and household chores, while she engaged in part-time sex work to generate extra income:
"I accepted the offers of several men- but I kept it at a business level and made sure it was a fair exchange. I kept several boyfriends who gave me almost as much money as I made with my small business. But most were like all men and not reliable. Sometimes they were nice to me and sometimes they beat me and gave me nothing. I tried to find three stable boyfriends, but this was not easy because most men are not reliable." [Juma's mother, November 1998]
As apparent in the above quote, Juma's mother attempted to maintain a stable exchange-based relationship with a minimum number of "boyfriends," a practice she continually defined in terms of a core set of pragmatic, businesslike ideals. In fact, she often contrasted these relationships with those of "professional prostitutes," a distinction that was common among many widows on Bugando Hill.
In June 1998, Juma's mosther moved the household to Bugando Hill to be closer to Mwanza's downtown center and eliminate travel costs. She had befriended a Sukuma woman from Shinyanga District who was also a widow and willing to share the rent on her two-room mud hut where she currently lived with her two children. The move precipitated Juma's complete withdrawal from primary school, and he began to spend his days running errands for his mother and helping with household chores. Over the next several years, he became familiar with Mwanza's downtown center and befriended several street boys of his age:
"They [two street boys] were the only boys I knew who were my age. I didn't know other children because I didn't go to school and I was always working. But I would be [downtown] and see other boys, and we would go swimming or play soccer. Mama didn't like them and told me to stay away from them, but I didn't always do this because they were my only friends and they were fun to be with." [Juma, June 2006]
Juma's relationships with street boys during this time were relatively ephermeral and based in large part on entertainment and recreation.
By the end of 2002, the health of Juma's mother began to deteriorate noticeably, and she could no longer leave home or work. One of Juma's sisters had died of malaria the year before, and he was forced to seek work while his remaining sister took care of their mother. Juma turned to his street boy friends to earn money:
Mama was very sick and suffering greatly. She told me that I must find work and try to earn money for us. I began to wash cars with my friends because I knew they earned money in this way. I did other little jobs too. There was nothing else for me to do because there is no work in Mwanza. I also santed to be with my friends because things were hard at home and [my mother's housemate] only wanted my money for rent and chased me off if I had nothing." [Juma, June 2003]
Over the next year, Juma spent all of his days and roughly half of his nights living and working on the streets of Mwanza.
As a part-time street boy whose survival was now dependent on living and working on the streets, Juma quickly discovered that his relationships with other street boys were of a much different character than before:
"Many boys in my age group washed cars during the day. Older boys didn't do that. But they [older boys] took our money. If we didn't give them our money they would beat us. Sometimes other boys would try to steal our business...then we would get the older boys to teach them a lesson, or we would gang up on them. Only some of us were able to wash cars [in that area]. We didn't give or business away to just anybody who came along. [Juma, June 2006]
As Juma grew increasingly dependent on the streets for his survival, he was simultaneously initiated into the world of Mwanza's street boys, which was based on a hierarchical and well-disciplined network of power relations. Power and access to scarce resources were distributed among the street boys in terms of several key factors, including age, territory, time on the streets, and toughness.
In most cases, boys who were recent and untested arrivals to Mwanza's streets were easily noticed by other street boys, often within a matter of days. In Juma's case, however, his preexisting friendships with several street boys facilitated his entry onto the streets and, together with his part-time status, made him less conspicuous. Subsequently, he managed to delay for almost three weeks the more violent ways in which status and power were displayed and maintained among street boys. Once he began spending his nights on the streets, however, he was quickly noticed by a wider segment of Mwanza's street boy population and, like all newcomers, was "initiated" into street life through a sexual practice involving anal penetration known in colloquial terms as "kunyenga":
"A group of five or six older boys told me they wanted to show me a secret place among the rocks above town...I didn't want to go because I was scared. But I had no choice because I knew they would beat me if I didn't go. When we got there, they raped [in Swahili "nyengaed"] me. It hurt badly and I was bleeding everywhere. They told me to stop crying and be tough because I was going to have to act like a man if I wanted to be a "nyenga dog." They said, "We are by ourselves" [in Swahili "Sisi kwa sis"]. Then they started barking and acting crazy and throwing rocks at me and told me to run [to my friends]. I was really scared...I thought that maybe that was it for me and that I would die right there. [Juma, June 2006]
As traumatic as this event was for Juma, he often spoke of it in terms of how naive to the reality of street life he believed himself to be at this time, and as a means of contrasting how "weak" and "soft" he was to his eventual status as "one of the tougher guys on the street." In fact, kunyenga became a routinized part of his life on the streets, as it was for all street boys, because it was the most overt and widespread means of displaying and maintaining the power of hierarchy that defined their social networks.
In January 2004, Juma's mother was admitted to the AIDS ward of Bugando Hospital where, according to hospital records, she died of the disease three weeks later. Juma immediately tried to locate his sister and bring her to a local street children's shelter, but he learned from his mother's housemate that a male friend had taken her to Dodoma (in central Tanzania) to employ her as his domestic servant.
The death of Juma's mother precipitated his status as a full-time street boy and, at the age of 12, he became entirely dependent on the streets for his survival. His only option was to turn to Mwanza's network of street boys for support and acceptance and, in so doing, to embrace fully the mores and behaviors of life on the street.
As a central component of that life, kunyenga became a regular practice for Juma, and he participated in kunyenga activities with other street boys approximately two to three times each week. As was the case with most street boys, Juma rarely spoke of kunyenga as a sexual practice. Instead, he defined it in terms of toughness and as a display of power and authority over other street boys. In fact, kunyenga was inseparable from the need to develop and contantly maintain an image as a tough kid, which was an essential means of acquiring respect among the other boys. Juma continually referenced this relationship among kunyenga, respect, and identity when discussing his memberhip in a local gand, who referred to themselves as the 'Nyenga Dogs":
"I do everything with those guys [Juma's gang consisted of 15-20 other boys] because if I didn't I would be alone out here and easier prey for other guys, especially the older ones. I don't think I'd survive for very long. But we are the "Nyenga Dogs," you know? That's what we're called because everybody knows us as a group of guys who don't take shit from anybody. For me, the problems always come about when I'm caught out on my own, or if a group of older, stronger boys make a point to teach us a lesson for one reason or another. Then we're all fucked." [Juma, May 2006]
As a member of the Nyenga Dogs, Juma found a way to survive on the streets of Mwanza over the next several years while gradually gaining respect among street boys as a tough kid.
The Spatial Grounding of Life on the Streets
Space was an important structuring feature of Juma's survival on the streets as a Nyenga Dog. His gang was strongly identified with several blocks adjacent to the downtown center (which was itself a neutral territory where all street boys roamed). As Juma discussed on numerous occasions, his personal vulnerability increased dramatically whenever he ventured from the specific territory associated with the Nyenga Dogs:
"If I go to [another neighborhood] where I'm not known, whoever owns that place will want to hurt me. They don't know me and and maybe they don''t know I'm a Nyenga Dog. They only see me as a piece of shit who's all alone. It doesn't have to be other [street boys] either- people who live there, guards, police whoever...I'm just a piece of shit to them. But here it's different. [Juma, May 2006]
Throughout Mwanza, certain groups or gangs of street boys were associated with specific neighborhoods. Association with a specific territory was critical for survival, as it afforded individual boys like Juma a much higher degree of physical and emotional protection. It also strengthened their social networks, which were themselves important pathways for the flow of material goods and information critical for day-to-day survival. As gangs defined and policed thier territory, much of the violence experienced by Juma and other street boys- including kunyenga activities- was tied to the control of that space. Subsequently, the nexus defined by kunyenga, survival, and the search for respect was grounded in the politics of space and the struggle over specific territories between different gangs of street boys.
The spatial grounding of Juma's life as a Nyenga Dog was reinforced further by certain external factors. Specifically, as a result of ongoing retrenchments and extensive cutbacks in government services, Mwanza's social services adopted a somewhat unofficial policy of containing the city's street boys to the downtown center and surrounding neighborhoods. Boys who were caught outside of these areas were subject to arrest or fell victim to one of the city's infamous "roundups." A containment approach to the "street boy problem" was also practiced by armed groups of private militia composed of local citizens who patrolled Mwanza's streets at night. These groups, known as sungu sungu, arose in the early 1980s in response to an increase in crime across the country coupled with a growing disillusionment with the police force. These factors, coupled with the fact that the survival strategies of street boys depended on being in close proximity to Mwanza's downtown center, made it difficult for individual street boys like Juma to break free from the social behaviors and street culture that garnered respect and ensured survival. For Juma, as with most street boys, life on the streets was both spatially circumscribed and socially all-encompassing.
The Death of Another Street Boy
Late on night in August 2006, Juma was caught sleeping on the rooftop of a downtown shop by a group of sungu sungu. He had many prior encounters with the sungu sungu, most of which resulted in violent beatings and possibly several days in jail. This time proved to be no different: the particular group of individuals who caught Juma were notorious for their harsh treatment of Mwanza's street boys. They beat Juma severely, dumped him upside down in the open sewers that line the city's streets, stole what few possessions he had, and turned him over to the local police. The latter, who did not have the time, staff, or facilities to deal with street boys, immediately sent Juma to Butimba Prison on the outskirts of the city. Street boys were often sent to this facility, which in Tanzania's second-largest prison, where they shared cells with violent adult offenders for days at a time before being released back onto the streets. Accounts of physical and sexual abuse being inflicted on the boys by adult prisoners were commonplace. In this instance, Juma was placed in a cell with two men who beat and raped him repeatedly over a period of three days before he was released.
According to other street boys, Juma was in severe pain and attempted to get admitted to Mwanza's Bugando Hospital but was unable to do so because he could not pay the (equivalent of US $5.00) admittance fee. He also feared being arrested and beaten by the hospital's security guards, which had happened to him on at least two other occasions. On his last night alive (two days following his release from Butimba Prison), several of Juma's friends brought him once again to the gates of Bugando Hospital. However, they were chased off by a group of sangu sangu and forced to abandon him because he was in too much pain to move.
According to officials, Juma's body was found the following day on the banks of the Mirongo River about a quarter-mile from where he was last seen by his friends. No attempt has been made to piece together what happened on that night and, as has been the case with the deaths of many street boys, the official response to Juma's death was a mixture of ignorance, indifference, and expression of futility. When questioned, one member of the sungu sungu who was reportedly present that night shrugged and said, "He was found on the Mirongo River, right? Well, they don't call it a river of shit for nothing." While it was confirmed that Juma died of severe hemorrhaging, the exact details surrounding the final hours of his life remain a mystery.
