Escape from the heat, a luxury that not everyone can afford in Nairobi

Jane Kalekye is sitting in the only tree that gives her shade. At 67 years old, he has arthritis and the doctor has recommended that he not be in the sun, but in the modest neighborhood of Korogocho, in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where he has spent the last 47 years of his life, it is not easy to find shelter. just a few meters from home, and the heat is omnipresent.

It is three in the afternoon and in his lap he has a basket where he is removing seeds from the beans, which he will later plant. It will still take at least two hours to be able to enter the house. “You can't stay from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon, I have to find a cooler place,” says Kalekye. “When I was young it was much less hot and rainy more,” she adds.

In Korogocho no one can stay home during the day because of the heat. The sheet metal with which the

mabati,

as these precarious houses are known, are made, and the small size (three by three meters) make it impossible. A few meters away, Margaret Waweru and Lilian Katunge sit with their children in the little more than half a meter of shade offered by the former's roof. “We chase the shadow during the day,” they say.

Climate change and population growth pose a challenge in dealing with rising temperatures. 62% of the urban population in Africa resides in informal settlements, where urban planning and municipal services are often non-existent. Rapid African urbanization poses a challenge for cities to adapt. The United Nations Human Settlements Program estimates that the population living in informal neighborhoods will triple between now and 2050, from 400 million to 1.2 billion people.

62% of the urban population in Africa resides in informal settlements

The results of a study published last year in the scientific journal

Nature

indicated that the capitals of East Africa exhibit heat islands on the urban surface that range between one and eight degrees of temperature. However, until now there was no data on the differences between formal and informal neighborhoods within the city.

“We are concerned about climate change because it directly harms us, but there is no data on how it unequally affects the most disadvantaged,” says Ángela Abascal, urban planner and researcher in the Onekana project (which in Swahili means “make visible”), of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and financed with Belgian public money.

“The initial satellite results showed three degrees higher on average in the

slums

(informal settlements) compared to other more developed neighborhoods, but this only captures the surface temperature, not the air temperature,” explains Abascal. The heat that affects health is related to the urban typology, whether there are more or fewer houses and green areas, and their construction material, as well as overcrowding. The researchers seek to create a model with satellite data and their field work to map how air temperature, humidity and radiation unequally affect slums.

Kalekye says that in her

mabati

she lives with her husband and two of her children, who in turn have two children each: eight people in a space of nine square meters. “Within each neighborhood there is a lot of difference. A 60 centimeter road where not a drop of air flows is not the same as a main artery. The orientation of the houses, the material they are made of and the width of the streets affect radiation and wind,” says Abascal. “In heat peaks, a few degrees can even mean death in extreme cases,” she says.

The case of James Anko is unusual. In his small house, made of sheet metal, he put a double roof a couple of years ago. “When my sister gave birth, her daughter couldn't sleep during the day and she cried, so I did it,” he recalls. Anko is a community leader in Korogocho, everyone stops him on the street and his cell phone rings every now and then. He wears a red shirt with a timer on it that seems to indicate that time is running out.

Dozens of neighbors gather in his small patio and pay attention to him. The temperature is 30 degrees, but the sensation of heat is much higher. An air quality sensor spins in the wind. The sun burns and the ultraviolet index marks an extreme radiation level of 9 out of 11, with which it is recommended, for health reasons, not to expose yourself to the sun. In Korogocho, that is impossible.

When Anko finishes the explanation, the neighbors divide up to walk for two hours through the different areas of the neighborhood with a stick to which a small GPS and a thermometer are tied to measure the air temperature. One of those sticks also has a pyranometer, a sensor that measures radiation.

After several days of work, researchers from the Onekana project will be able to map the streets of informal settlements and see how the temperature varies street by street in three cities: Nairobi, Lagos and Buenos Aires. In the latter, it was the previous Argentine Executive who asked them to go to study the effects of climate change in informal areas. The ultimate goal with all the information they collect is to raise awareness with scientific evidence that heat does not affect everyone equally. The higher temperatures faced by those who live in

slums

add to their poor ability to adapt, which is why the project also seeks to investigate cheap measures to alleviate the heat.

Kalekye, however, knows that the heat is not created by the Government. “The smoke from vehicles and large companies causes the heat, I have heard it on the news,” he emphasizes. Despite his wishes, he is aware that the temperatures of the past will not return. A few months ago, he planted avocado and banana trees to try to provide shade in her area and be cooler. “In two years it will cover everything and I will be able to be home,” she says hopefully. For the moment, she takes shelter under a tree, far from her house, waiting for the sun to fall.