"Kill Me Quick": A History of Nubian Gin in Kibera*

There was also increased competition from other kinds of beverages and drags: from 1947 Africans were allowed to drink bottled beer,88 though traditional alcohol continued to dominate the local market. From 1955 spirits were no longer forbidden to Africans, increasing the competition from other liquors.89 Also miraa (khat), bhang, and other "modem" drags, won in popularity, further reducing the liquor market.

As a result, more and more Nubi women stopped the distillation of Nubian gin. This process started slowly in the late 1960s, but increased significantly in the late 1970s. In the 1990s there was still a small, and continuously decreasing, number of Nubi women distilling small quantities of liquor, but the "good old days" of the Nubian gin were over.

Kibera Today

Today Kibera is a sprawling slum with possibly more than 500,000 people packed in an area of 550 acres, where the Nubi form a small (but distinct) minority of about 10,000 people.90

The liquor business, still illegal in Kenya, remains an important source of income for quite a number of women in Kibera, though not for the Nubi. Today, the "newcomers" are running the business, and these are indeed destitute women. The distillate- now called chang' aa-is, sold mainly by the glass from home (usually just one room), which during the day serves as bar, and at night as a bedroom. However, prices and income are low, and much of the profit goes to the policemen that visit almost every day for their "commission." There is nowadays also a risk for the drinkers: they can be arrested, and with all the chemicals now being used to speed up the production of chang 'aa, their lives are in danger as well. In 2000 more than 140 people were killed in one incident in Nairobi, and this kind of incident is a regularly recurring news item. Of course, in these cases one can hardly speak of chang' aa as a distillate; rather, it is simply a concoction of chemicals sold as distilled alcohol.

Though some chang 'aa is still being produced in Kibera, much of the liquor sold there is "imported" from the Mathare slums, where men have taken over the manufacturing of alcohol from women.91 The Nubi women did not suffer the same fate; their men were not interested in taking over the alcohol business, and, like many other women in the early days, Nubi women transitioned into the lucrative rental business. That option is no longer open to newcomers, who have to make do with selling cheap chang' aa, often manufactured by someone else.

Life in Kibera is not as easy as it used to be for the Nubi; whereas in the 1970s the rent from fifteen rooms was enough income to live comfortably, today this is no longer the case. Rent levels have not kept pace with food prices, and moreover, much larger families, now with married children and grandchildren, depend on the income generated by the same number of rooms as forty years ago. Unemployment is high and for many Nubi families the income from rental rooms is their only source of income. Nevertheless, many Nubi families would have been in a much more difficult situation had it not been for the "good old days" of Nubian gin, which provided the capital to build the rental rooms.

A few Nubi women (probably fewer than five) continue distilling Nubian gin according to the old recipe in Kibera, but on a very limited scale and servicing a small, regular clientele. Even though their gin is more expensive than normal chang 'aa, and they must operate in great secrecy because of the police, their business is not bad. Although in general the "good old days" of Nubian gin are over, many Nubi women who had invested in constructing rental rooms have, up to today, been able to keep their economic independence.

* Most of the information for this paper comes from interviews conducted in Kibera from 2004-2006, many with "notorious offenders" (elderly Nubi women once involved in the Nubian gin production) and former Nubian gin consumers. Quite a number of people did not want to talk about the Nubian gin, considering it a shameful (un-Islamic) part of their past; the identity of informants is therefore not disclosed here, and all informants have been given numbers which are referred to in the footnotes when quoted. Observation and interviews bring up information based on opinions, impressions, and observations voiced by respondents- it is therefore sometimes hard to quantify information or back up all statements with "hard evidence." The author would like to thank Justin Willis and Jan Kees van Donge for their advice and support.

Source- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7573/is_200905/ai_n42041066/pg_10/