The Hidden Treasure of Mathare by Binyavanga Wainaina

My eyes hurt. I'm still not used to having the sun directly above me again. There is a truth in what you see in Kenya that is uncompromising - there is no soft focus here. The Serengeti migration has nothing on Eastlands at rush hour. Eastlands is where the mwananchi (man on the street) lives. Where the tourist rarely ventures. There is a whole ocean of people, moving like time has run out on them. Informal traders color the streets with their wares. Eastlands has taken on a distinctly Middle-Eastern persona since half of Somalia and Ethiopia resettled here. There are bazaars, shops advertising henna, bui-bui clad women, and lots of miraa (khat) on sale. There is a beauty parlour whose sign shows Mickey Mouse having his hands hennaed.

I am here because I am bored. Since I came back home four months ago I have found my feelings for Kenyans somewhat barren. Everybody I know is 10 years older and conversations revolve around diapers and the size of cellphones. Already tactful moves are being made to get me engaged to somebody, or at least in some kind of respectable relationship. Every Saturday afternoon somebody is getting married or being baptised, or there is a baby shower. I am bored. Bored with the endless political discussions, with going to the same old places and listening to the same 20 R& B songs the radio stations have been ramming down my ears.

Mathare Valley is Kenya's largest informal settlement. The name is so notorious it strikes terror into any owner of fixed property. It doesn't help that Kenya's only psychiatric hospital is called Mathare, too. A few months ago I was in a bar. I sat next to a gentleman wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He turned out to be the councillor for Mathare. Brits small-talk about the weather; Kenyans used to. These days we small-talk about Daniel Arap Moi, our bewildering president, a source of endless fascination.

To protect ourselves from getting insanely angry, we speak of him as if he is a well-known, slightly eccentric relation, calling him "Uncle Dan" or "Em-Oh-One."

Unfortunately I had picked one person in Nairobi whose feelings for Moi were still an open wound. By the time we were on our fifth beer, the attacks had become personal.

- What do you know about how real Kenyans live?

- Do you believe what you read in the papers?

- Don't you know that 75% of people in Nairobi live in slums like Mathare?

- Have you ever been to one?

By the time he was finished with me, I felt like an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging member in Soweto. I had to see Mathare for myself.

The photographer I am with, Joe Wambua, lives there, so I feel fairly safe. Also, this is probably the only place in Kenya where my dreadlocks are likely to be well received. Bob Marley is a god here. Wambua tells me that Mathare has redeemed itself significantly in Kenyans' eyes since its football team made mincemeat of Kenya's best in the premier league. Started as a club to keep kids off the streets, Mathare United is now Kenya's leading soccer team.

Just as the sun drops behind the silhouette of the city in the distance we walk behind the curtain of Eastlands buildings behind which Mathare lurks - another planet. It is as if we are in a city of paraffin lamps. There are literally thousands of people milling about. Narrow paths zigzag between shacks. In front every shack, something is being sold. Meat is grilling, chapatis are doing triple somersaults off flat pans and mandazi's (fried patties) are spitting with fury. The energy of the place is unbelievable.

There are piles and piles of neatly arranged tomatoes, red onions, mangoes and kale. Red, yellow and green bananas hang from ceilings. Maize is being grilled. There are acrobats, charismatic preachers with mobile PA systems, butchers and bars and every sort of clothing imaginable for sale. There is not a blade of grass, no trees or bushes.

It is only after I adjust to the frenzy around me that I notice the art. It is like the cover of a fantasy novel. I guess nobody needs to buy realism for their walls, it's free here. I notice that the same person has done most of the better paintings: Jago. He is sent for and after 15 minutes a diminutive young man with uncomfortably naked eyes joins us. There doesn't seem to be a part of him that isn't spattered with paint. Jago is 19. He has only a primary school education, has never been to an art gallery - he doesn't know what an art gallery is.

He takes us around his favourite works. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have felt beauty so utterly.

When I was eight we drove through the Laikipia plains during a storm. My face was pressed to the window and a slow brandy warmth spread from the pit of my stomach. I had been through this dusty harsh plain many times, but the thunder and lightning had caught the area unawares and in the panic of fauna and flora I saw a big picture. For the briefest moment I felt part of something that could not be broken into the sum of its parts. To this day, the smell of rain on dust brings back this feeling of completion.

Jago's best work is of women. He manages to render with precise humour what they want to look like when they leave a salon - without restricting himself to the usual clichés this style of art falls into. He draws plump women; doe-eyed women; tough, strong-jawed women; all pruned and primed, their hair done just the way that suits them best. Expressions range from orgasmic joy to prim satisfaction.

Mama Njeri, a salon owner, tells me that Jago's signs have brought in a clientele who previously went downtown to get their hair done. We go into a bar. The average age of customers here is 50 and over. The murals on the walls show scenes of drunkenness. Nyama Choma and drunkenness. Pastoral humour: cows with over-large udders, lush countrywomen. There is scene where people are trying to get a cow into a matatu. They are depicted with a sentimental ridicule, surrounded by scenes people must dream of here where there is no grass: lush lush kikuku grass, trees, and Friesian cows. Escape here, says the commercial, sample a little bit of home. I laugh at the drunks. Legless. Jago has drawn them with legs like spaghetti.

I am surprised when Jago has said his works are like photos. Many other people say so, too, yet his style is not representative. He refuses to accept that there could possibly be an objective picture of somebody. Surely people are exactly how he chooses to see them? He therefore refuses to see the difference between his cartoon images, which distinctly reflect the character of the people he portrays, and photographs taken from the perspective of the photographer. He is able to discern this truth with a simplicity I grapple with often.

Jago is able to draw attention to what people see in other people, even laughing at the silliness of the stereotypes he portrays, but so subtly that his clients never notice. The guy at the telephone bureau will be happy that the picture will bring in professionals - Jago manages to show what he thinks of such people: a greedy glint in the eye, a frown of stress, over-bright lipstick on a hard face.

Does he like Mathare? Yes, he doesn't plan ever to leave. I look about and imagine him 20 years from now never lacking a wall on which to hang his vision. I envy him.

After a couple of days I wander into Gallery Watatu Kenya’s best known Art Gallery - and make enquiries. Do they stock signage Art? I know there is a market for it, especially since Cheri Samba from Congo stunned the world with his pictures. I have seen West African Barbershop pictures in Galleries in a Cape Town and Johannesburg - I am told they sell very well. There are dealers in Europe, even in America who specialize in this. Nobody at Watatu seems to know anything. I get the impression they think something is wrong with me - talking about this unfine art.

I meet up with Jago again, not sure what to tell him. I am no art expert. I find out he is doing well - his art sells. He is busy every day. There are artists - good artists whose work sits around for years in Kenya, waiting for a friendly tourist. Still, in my mind I feel that those pictures, fading in the sun are treasures: National treasures drawn by a pure soul whose instinct is to record all our yearnings - to brighten a dark place.