Eyes Opened

After a whole day and a half of work in Kitengela, we are already off again to another community. This weekend we are taking part in Fadhili's outreach program that they try to run twice a month. These are the community's we visited:

The KCC slum. It has been nicknamed this as it is situated by the Kenyan Creamery Corporation. Here there is a New Zealander man named Marcus who was one of the original 5 volunteers who worked in this slum when Fadhili first started hosting volunteers. He has now returned and has been living at the KCC for almost two years. He seems to be well respected in the community. The slum is just as you would picture it. Large families living in small tin houses which they have built out of wood and corrugated metal. Resources are limited. There is no sewage system but a whole in the ground. Water is a long walk away and comes at a cost. You can only imagine the struggles and these are only a few of the issues with living in a slum. The main priority of most volunteer work in slums is education mainly for the children but they do try to hold some teaching sessions for adult also on pertinent issues. In the KCC the volunteers have built a school for the young children and are trying to register as an NGO so they can arrange for sponsors to send the children to primary and secondary school. They run a feeding program through the school so the children are sure to have at least one meal everyday. They have started encouraging the woman in the KCC to run small businesses to help sustain their families. We visited one woman who along with other women in the community makes jewelry out of recycled magazines. There has been discussion of establishing a water reservoir but the hope is that no slum is permanent so they try to build things that are temporary and movable. I understand the philosophy but when you here that these people have lived here for 31 years already I think I would be a yea sayer for the tank. Things do seem to be moving forward here though and the programs they have in place seem to be fairly well established. We enojoyed reading, foot racing, singing, dancing and playing games with the children and then we were on our way.

A baby in a bucket. Content as can be.

Where there is a muzungu and a kenyan child, there is a hand being held.

Singing, dancing and playing games.

Showing off his guns. Made of pure Ugali power.

Food for give-away.

Hell's Gate: I am not sure why it is called this as it is actually quite beautiful as I imagine Hell would not be so. This wasn't apart of the outreach but more about seeing the Kenyan sites. It starts out with a 7km bike ride; we thought the roads were bumpy in a car...my bum is still numb; three days later I still have to sit a certain way. Plus the bikes well they weren't top quality. Half way to the Gorge we stopped to view Pride Rock where they tell us that the classic movie The Lion King was filmed. I loved their wording as Lion King is a cartoon. When we reached the gorge we had a slurp of H2O and started our hike. I love Tom's shoes but they are not the best for hiking on smooth rocks that in some places are wet. A beautiful hike though aside from the shoe choice. On the way back some rode in the Matatu and others biked. And of course for some insane reason I decided to bike. Although pain came with every bump there was a sense of achievement when we made it back. Plus it was astonishing to be so close aside the wildlife as they started coming out as the day cooled. We came face to face with Zebras and rode past warthogs, water buffalo and gazelles. I felt like Pocahontas but on a rickety bike.

People kept laughing at my hat. I am not sure why but passing one guy I heard some utterances of "circus".

Internally Displaced People Camp. This is the home of many people who fled their homes and farms after the post-election violence in 2008. A community of people got together and bought a plot of land, subdivided it into plots and had to start a new life completely from scratch. There is more work to do here but the community seems to truly live together and help one another. Some live in tents made out of cloth materials such as recycled rice bags; the homes have been patched over many a times but still leak when it rains. And oh the heat. You can escape the sun but not the heat. Some have now ungraded in the past year and have houses made of mud with corrugated metal roofs, the are much cooler and spacious. Volunteers have encouraged people to start making things to sell to generate some income. There are a variety of things you can buy form different people: bags, bracelets, ornaments. They do seem to rely quite heavily though on volunteers buying the items more so than locals. A lot of work has been done here both by locals and volunteers in the past year. A school has been built along with a feeding program. Every child gets a cup of Ugi everyday (a sweet porridge made of flour, water, ground nuts and soybeans). The older children must walk 30-45mins everyday into a near by town to go to school. The most recent project was done by volunteers who donated money to buy piping to tap into the government water supply and have a holding tank for water for the days when there is no government water. The volunteers hired locals to do the piping work and building of the tank. The tank is almost completed and then the people will have a constant supply of water not only just to drink but will also help them be able to grow a wider variety of vegetables for consumption and selling. Although they are doing better each day they still rely on the outreach every two weeks as we hand out flour and vegetable fat. We also gave the children some of the balls we had collected from Carpenter High and Jonas back home. It is amazing how a simple ball can make the children flock. We were really touched by the hope and hard work of this communtity. We wish we could have stayed longer to ask people their stories.

A typical IDP tent.

A JSJH volleyball.

Garbage Slum: The home of this community is self explanatory. They live on a garbage dump. You could imagine how pleasantly all of our senses were stimulated. The smell of rotten food. The tickling of 50 flies legs crawling all over your body. The sight of garbage (ironically with a beautiful view of lake Nakuru straight across the way). The sound of children laughing and playing seems unfitting but this is their home. Their livelihood depends on what the people of Nakuru dispose of. Along side the biggest, most viscous looking bird scavengers they collect food, bottles, clothing, grocery bags which they disinfect and weave into beautiful bags to sell, and any other items that hold value. For the bottles they have to collect 1kg worth to earn a mere 1 shilling (one banana costs 5 shillings). A volunteer bought some pigs one year that have multiplied but because of the pigs diet they can not sell them to any of the large company due to heath regulations so they are bought by small buyers for about 1,500 shillings (a pig is usually worth 15,000). There was a school built by volunteers at one time but it is now in shambles so volunteers are now teaching the children in a near by  open field. This has it's challenges as it is hard to keep attention in an open field the children just want to run and play. They are hoping to rebuild a school soon as well as organize sponsorship for children to go to boarding school. If you are interested in sponsoring a child we can give you the information to do so. I think it is something like $700 a year. They have 20 children sponsored thus far. It is tough to know what to write about this place and it's people. The challenges of the people and the people trying to work with them are astounding, I can not list them all. The circumstance is shocking but more so is their joy. They were so grateful when we helped bandage a few people's wounds and handed out food. They sang and danced a thank-you song.

The outreach weekend was in a nutshell eye-opening. We did small things like food relief and playing with the children but we felt a little strange; like tourists of peoples homes. We have seen the main struggles and needs that people can face here in Kenya. Now we are eager to get our hands dirty. Hopefully now we will not only be able to see but also respond as our stay in Kenya continues.

I apologize for any typing mistakes. I did not have the time to read it over. Cheers.