What began as a visit to Lang’ata Cemetery turned into a moment that stopped one Nairobi resident in his tracks, after he came across a man who had quietly made the burial ground his home.
Andanje shared a video on TikTok showing the homeless man resting on top of a smooth-tiled grave fitted with a small shed.
A bedsheet was spread across the surface, with a few folded clothes serving as a makeshift pillow near the headstone. Scattered around him were empty plastic bottles he had collected to sell for food money.
How Nairobi man survives in Lang’ata Cemetery
Speaking calmly to the camera, the man said he felt neither fear nor cold during his nights at the cemetery.
“People come here sometimes, and they give me food or money to buy food; the family of the deceased whose grave has become my home has not chased me away so far,” he said.
He pointed out the few belongings keeping him alive, among them a container of drinking water and a single onion he kept as a last resort for days when hunger set in.
Despite the hardship, he held on to a quiet optimism, saying he was kept going by the belief that better days were ahead, even as some nights he went to bed without eating.
When asked whether he would accept help if someone offered to rent him a place to stay, he said yes, though his tone carried a hint of disbelief that such an offer would ever come.
Wearing a Maasai shuka tied around his waist and a black shirt, the man walked beside Andanje, who had brought him food. The well-wisher was moved enough to return the following day, this time with a promise to also provide warm clothing and find him proper shelter.
“This is not a place to live, this is only where the dead lives not the living, we shall organise and get you a house,” Andanje told him.
The man, who did not give his name, revealed he had been living at the gravesite for four years and had grown accustomed to his unusual surroundings, a detail that drew both concern and disbelief from those who watched the video online.
