By\u00a0Max Bearak<\/p>\n
MUKURU KWA NJENGA, Kenya \u2014\u00a0\u00a0With a nonchalance only teenagers have, the 13-year-old shook out the contents of a tote bag onto the table in the one-room shack she shares with her grandmother. Certificates and medals tumbled out.<\/p>\n
Sarah Momanyi has won national chess championships for her age bracket two years running.<\/p>\n
The slum where she lives, Mukuru kwa Njenga, is one of the grittiest in Kenya\u2019s capital, Nairobi. It makes headlines for cholera outbreaks, gang battles, prostitution rings and the\u00a0city government\u2019s constant threats to raze it<\/a>. It is built on a wasteland between two industrial zones. Every alleyway is lined by two open gutters.<\/p>\n Sarah\u2019s achievements come despite both her parents\u2019 absence in her life. Her grandmother, who raised her, said her own daughter is an alcoholic with severe tuberculosis and that she tried to sell Sarah as an infant to buy her next fix.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n Invitations have rolled in for continental and even global championships in places such as China. This year\u2019s\u00a0African Youth Chess Championship<\/a>\u00a0in Namibia is just a few months away.<\/p>\n But she has had to turn down every invitation, and not for lack of support from the charity that sends her to school. She\u2019s stuck because she\u2019s facing an opponent tougher than anyone who has sat across the chessboard from her: Kenya\u2019s stifling bureaucracy.<\/p>\n Like about 35 percent of Kenyans, Sarah doesn\u2019t have a proper birth certificate. It means she can\u2019t access almost any public services, let alone procure a passport.<\/p>\n