A trip to Kibera
Mambo,
Yesterday I joined a project that occurs every tuesday and thursday in Kibera which holds the 2nd largest slum in Africa. The project is called the feeding program. We brought food to families that are in the program that live in the slums. In order to get in the program the people go through an interview process to ensure they find the people that are in the most need. The people we visited all had HIV/AIDS and were too sick to work. The houses that they lived in were made of mud and sticks which was full of garbage. Some of the houses had tin walls or cement. The rooms were maybe 10x10 and in each household there was atleast 4-7 people living altogether. One house we visited had two rooms but most only had the one. The garbage that was everywhere was insane. The kids were playing in it and drinking brown water and didn't even seem phased by it. All the animals that were running around looked so sick and all the children looked very malnourished. Surprisingly, almost all the children were laughing and very happy to see us. They would run up to us calling us 'Mzungu's' which is the Swahili word for 'English/white person'. They would say to us over and over as we walked by 'how are you, how are you' almost like a song. I loved going up to them and holding their hand and seeing their smiles. It is truly amazing to see how happy they are even though they undergo so many challenges and hardships everyday. One girl was telling me she had watched a documentary about this slum before she came and the young girls had said they are always scared at night and make sure to not leave their 'hut' at night because they will be raped. I can't imagine living in that kind of fear everyday. We have been told ourselves to never go out after 9 or at night alone, especially because we are white, because it is dangerous for us. The anxiety I start to feel if we are still working or in Nairobi for the day when it is starting to get late out is something I cannot imagine living with everyday.
In Kibera there is three other projects started by volunteers. They have made a sewing school to teach women how to sew so that they can make a living as a tailor or by selling clothes they make themselves. There is also a jewellery/craft store which they make money off of and 10% of the funds from it goes to support the feeding program. The last project which is very close to my heart is the disability school. Volunteers created the school because they saw that the children with disabilities in the slum were either getting harassed by their peers and teachers at school or weren't being taken to school at all. They created this school in order for their to be a safe place to learn for these children. They are still working on a way to pick up the students from their homes to ensure they are able to come to school everyday because the parents are still not doing this. Also some of the students are in wheelchairs making it very difficult to get anywhere in the slum. The paths are very narrow and you often have to jump from rock to rock to get over a stream of i'd like to say water but to be honest I highly doubt that's all that it was. The school is very small but they are working on getting a bigger place once they can fundraise enough money. I am hoping to get a chance to visit their again or even maybe go work their for the last two weeks that I am here. There is a young boy with Autism at the school and the teacher is a volunteer who is not trained to work with Autism and really wants my help. Now that I am here in Kenya and finding all of these programs I don't want to leave. There is so much that I can do here, and so much that needs to be done. I am already planning when I can pull together the money to come back! Tomorrow and Friday I am going on another outreach project. We are visiting two different slums and handing out food. This will be probably the most memorable birthday and I wouldn't want to be doing anything different! I am very excited and can't wait to tell you all about it!
Much love from Kenya, Kwaheri!
Jenelle