birthday founded in 573 bc, the city celebrated with a parade of lee onnarrows, gladdaters, and barbarians. thank you for joining us on al jazeera america. >> nairobi is my city, well perhaps not exactly. i was born here and so were my parents, but i spent most of my life living overseas. i've been here now for less than a year, but the city has really grown on me. one of the most interesting things about nairobi is its diversity.

there are more than 42 different ethnic communities living here from all over kenya, and with them they all bring unique dishes, traditional foods and flavors. with all african cities, the divide between rich and poor is extreme and nairobi is certainly no exception. the well off may complain about rocketing prices, on the menus of their favorite nairobi restaurants, but the global food crisis has far more serious implications for the poor. judice mwango's customers may not have much money, but at least they have jobs. she prepares packed lunches at her home and then delivers them to office workers in the city.

>> we had moved away from traditional foods, because we had thought of them as a poor mans food. so, i'm trying to glamorize it to tell people to.... >> because of their relatively low cost, judice's customers may have little alternative but to eat traditional food, but kenya's best known tv chef susan

kamau extols their virtues for other reasons. ...traditional foods are much more nutritious. >> so this is an amazing market where you can get so many varieties of fruit and vegetables. >> yes, this is rebecca here and she has a wonderful stall with a lot of different herbs and vegetables. this is 'kunde' and it comes in a bunch like this she's told us it's 5 shillings a bunch and then there's something like this which is very beautiful, look at the difference, this is a 'kunde', small little leaves, this is what we call 'kuhuroora' which is the pumpin leaf. >> are you succeeding, do you think in your effort to get people to come back to these very organic, very natural, fruits and vegetables? >> i think so; i think we are succeeding, because especially now we have these people getting sick from eating the wrong thing. >> susan explained to me that the so called rich man's diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure are starting to appear in the sector of kenyan

society that can afford to eat at the fast food joints springing up around town. >> but susan there are factors addressing the availability of some of these traditional foods that you're trying to encourage people to eat right? >> yes, yes, this stall here handles lots of different beans. i was talking to the lady who man's this store and she says a tin like this, which is a common bean here, is a 170 shillings, that's like a days pay for many people. so you might find people who will buy that tin, take it home and cook it and eat it for the next 5 days, because they can't afford to buy one everyday. we've just had a whole selection violence just earlier on this year, people have been displaced, so there hasn't been farming, there hasn't been planting, the rainy season has just passed and so you will find a lot of beans which we do grow locally, have been imported. for example, this, this type of bean has been imported from tanzania >> and these are beans that traditionally would be grown here in kenya? >> yes exactly. so bringing it in from outside

makes it more expensive, and you know, it means that the person who'd be growing it home isn't doing it, which is a shame. you will find this in the central area techniques of cooking, its quite boring maybe, we do a lot of boiling a lot of mashing. in the western area you get a lot of vegetables like we looked at. but at the coastal area, because of the influence from the arabs for example who bought in oil to us, who bought in spices, you will find things like garlic, a lot of onions; we've got red and white, this is tamaric and that's ginger, and this of course is a coconut and i think in the coast they use this for almost everything they cook and i think we're going to take a step outside and we'll visit this restaurant where they do a lot of coastal cooking. so that should be fun! >> so most of the people eating

street food, aren't going to markets like the one we've been to, where are they getting their meals? >> well, they will go to these people who set up shops at the side of the road, they just put up their stoves and buy the charcoal, burn it and cook. there's one right there, something similar to that. >> milisinse has just been telling me how she cooks for the people who move around here, wether they are gardeners from the residential or the 'matata?' drivers who just want to stop for lunch >> can she show us some of the dishes? so, why is there a black plastic bag in there? >> she wants it to cook in one pot and so instead of mixing the beans and the main, she separates them in the bag >> is that only because she's only got one pot? >> so she's economizing by

cooking several things in it, and then also the wood, because she has to buy the wood or go collect it. >> so susan this is a typically coastal resteraunt, and just looking at this menu, words like biriyani, pelow, seems very indian >> we have actually in kenya had a lot of influence from the indian cuisine, things like pelow, biriyani, things like chapatti, cashumabri. if you ask the guy on the street, he'll actually think it's kenyan, because he's grown up with it, but those are indian things that we copied and we kenyan-ized we want to order something. is there anything you can suggest that is really nice? >> biriyani chicken, or the

biryani fish? >> would you like the biryani chicken? >> yeah, why don't we try both? >> you mentioned some of the snacks being typically coastal. what should we try from that menu? >> there's two types here 'lengu?' which is bean and theres 'kundu?' which is leafy green >> i think i'm in the mood for a bean >> what sorts of money are people looking at spend on food like this? >> well i just had some rice, fish and some vegetable, that's 250 shillings, which is about 4 dollars. that's expensive for most kenyan people.

but you know just to show the difference that we've got such a big range in nairobi. from where we were at milisinse were you're just paying 25 shillings, to this 250, to carnivore where it's a 100 times more! >> as the name suggests, a visit to this world famous restaurant is all about eating meat. it gained its reputation in a time before the phrase "endangered species" crept into our vocabularies. back then you could admire the savanna's majestic wildlife of an afternoon, and then come here and eat them for dinner. >> do not let this man pass you by, as he carries with him the ingredients for mixing a delicious cocktail. dawa is the swahili word for "medicine"...i will say no more!

>> all this week, trades near the speed of light... >> if you're not trading at those speeds, you're toast! >> billions of dollars at stake, is our economy insecurity now at the mercy of these machines? >> humans aren't able to receive information in that timeframe. >> we're looking at the risks, rewards, and dangers of high frequency trading >> there are no rules or regulations >> all this week on the new expanded real money with ali velshi helping you balance your finances and your life. now an hour, starting at 7 eastern / 4 pacific only on al jazeera america

>> on the next talk to al jazeera >> oscar winner sean penn shares his views on privacy rights, press freedom and his controversial relationship with hugo chavez >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> many kenyans i spoke to reckoned if the majority of the population could afford to eat meat all the time, then that is what they'd do. the maasai tribe is no exception.

20 kilometers outside nairobi there's another unique restaurant called olepolos they specialize in kenya's most famous dish, nyama choma. >> now let's talk about nyama choma, that why people come here? >> that's why they come here. >> why exactly is it? what is nyama choma? >> well, it's meat meat meat etc

>> as you may have guessed, nyama choma is really a kenyan style barbecue. lesinko tells me that his meat doesn't get fresher, as he has a government vet, a slaughterhouse, and a butchery on the premises. >> how important, how vital, how central is meat?

>> so you don't envision, you don't see kenyans becoming vegetarians? >> not in the near future. >> many suppliers of fresh produce to nairobi operate outside the formal sector. over 75% of milk, for instance, is supplied by people like rachel and not big dairy companies.

apart from the produce of her own cow, she distributes for other small farmers, moving around 350 liters per day into the city. >> rachel uses various forms of transport to get her milk to the city, starting with bicycling it from her farm to the national road. two connecting taxi rides then take it the 30 odd kilometers into town. >> once rachel arrives, she is met by rajab abdul, her nubian cart puller. they will then distribute the milk, first by cart, then by wheelbarrow through the winding streets of kibera, one of africa's largest slums. kibera was established in 1918 as a soldiers' settlement 5

kilometers from nairobi city center. plots were allotted to the nubian soldiers - who were from sudan - as a reward for service in britain's various wars. since then, it has been allowed to grow informally. kibera is now a town of 1 million people with its own vibrant internal economy. one of the most visible sectors of this is food supply, whether through the ubiquitous street vendors or the more established "hotels". in these days of skyrocketing prices, those who sell to the poor know best the thin line between profit and loss. fatuma is of nubian descent; her family has lived in kibera since its inception. in 1992 she started up her first hotel in kibera. don't be confused, "hotel" is the kenyan word for cheap eating-house, people don't actually rent rooms here. she now has a few branches around the slum, all supplied

from this kitchen. >> 20 liters of cooking oil i was buying at 11.20 now cooking oil i'm buying at 2400 that is double price and over. now it's time to sell things so that you get profit. you have to sell it at 20 shillings almost. and those people cannot managing to even get 20 shillings a day, because as things go by, salaries are low. >> after they announced the president, everything went astray from there. so many people lose their life, lose their properties , their work, their businesses >> and if you don't have any other business you don't have anybody to help you, you don't know where to get money, you cant get money, what do you do?

>> kibet malakwen is rachel's biggest customer. he buys 100 liters from her every day. like many small businesses in kibera, his was directly affected by the violence that erupted in kenya following elections at the end of 2007. he now has to boil his milk supply to make it last longer as his shop was ransacked and his fridge irreparably damaged. however, he is philosophical about the post election anger >> before elections we were together there was no hatred the elections people are demanding change, people want a government that helps people that gives people freedom. we ...all communities in the country. it was tribal, people wanted change, a government that represents all the tribes >> al jazeera america

presents a breakthrough television event. >> borderland long held beliefs... >> im really pissed off at the mexican government... >> give way to compassion... >> if you feel tired, would you turn around and come back? >> our teams find out first hand how treacherous the migrants journey can be. >> we make them take a trip of death >> it is heartbreaking when you see the families on top of the rail car borderland continues only on al jazeera america ly oa

>> we're now on our way to kenya's great rift valley, the country's breadbasket and there's an interesting quote in today's newspaper, for an internally displaced person who in kenya that says: "when hunger comes calling, as indeed it is on the verge of doing, it will not sort out its victims on tribal lines." passing these camps set up for internally displaced persons is a stark reminder that not only is africa living the same nightmare as the rest of the

planet in terms of the escalating food crisis, but it also has to contend with age old problems like tribalism and xenophobia that are proving disastrous to food security. thomas mong'are and his wife rose are representative of the many displaced farmers that are fearful of returning to their land. >> thomas is afraid of going back to his land because things haven't calmed down yet. instead he has rented a small plot so he can try to grow some food for his family.

>> while tribalism has cast its shadow over the lives, their story still offers hope. it's a story of how individuals can see past group rivalries and bridge divides. >> ...and is it possible that love can conquer all? well, i can't imagine it's the answer to all of kenya's problems, but a little more of it around here, might not go amiss.

>> well, tribal divisions in kenya are still healing, but there's a lot of positivity around. this song is by a very popular artist called eric wainaina and is about a kikuyu boy, that's one of the main ethnic tribes, who falls in love with a girl from a different community, a luo girl. its about his journey to her ancestral home in western kenya to persuade her parents of his undying love. >> it's interesting being a young kenyan at this time or young african. i think a lot of young people have a good idea of what they think is wrong with the leadership in africa. or the issues that continue to plague our development of lack there off. and so as a musician, i sort of feel the obligation to address these issues and to put a lot of people sentiments into lyrics and music.

the ...election crisis, a lot of people say it has everything to do with tribalism, i think tribalism was maybe a spark that got the fire going, but there are deeper issues. we can't talk about peace if people's accesses to the necessities of life have been curtailed; i mean there can't be peace without food, there can't be peace without sustenance, that's something that continues to elude the debate that the politicians are currently engaging in. avi ambo is an attempt by myself to talk about the issues of tribalism. i am from the 'equoi...' tribe, and i went out with a girl from the. alloua...' tribe. and my family members who i thought were quite progressive, said to me "that it's nice that you brought her" but my aunties were like "make sure she is not the women that you marry", so i wrote this song about

this guy who falls in love with this girl from another tribe and learns the language so that he can tell her parents that his love is true. for someone who is trying to communicate the message of love, of togetherness, of unity. my ethnic with the kikuyu have been known not to eat fish for some reason, we don't. and i thought i didn't eat fish, until i went to kizumu. there's a way where fish is made, where it's a whole fish, and i mean, we don't know what we're missing. we get called the potato people by other tribes because we eat a lot of potatoes. if there's one thing i'd wish we'd do more of, is be more adventurous in our eating. i think down in the coast the swahilis, the culinary culture is big and i think we need to learn with them because we just tend to boil stuff.

>> our current system has gone very far awry... >> there's huge pressure on the police to arrest and find somebody guilty >> i think the system is going to fail a lot of other people. >> you convicted the wrong person >> i find that extraordinarily disappointing... >> to keep me from going to jail, i needed to cooperate. >> the evidence was inaccurate >> they still refuse the dna >> somebody can push you in a death chamber >> it's not a joke >> award winning producer and director joe berlinger exposes the truth. from the inside... >> a justice system rum by human beings, can run off the rails. >> some say there's justice for all, but they're not in the system..

>> it shouldn't be easy to just lock somebody up and throw away the key >> ...nightmarish alternative reality, sometimes you can't win... >> an original investigative series. al jazeera america presents the system with joe beringer only on al jazeera america

. >> welcome to the news hour. these are the stop stories. we have a live update. >> the united nations insist rebels were behind the massacre in south sudan. the group denies any investment involvement. the u.s. investigate who is to blame for a gas attack in