slumdog millionaires

Home.

Home feels very nice.

I slacked on blogging about the remainder of the trip… I got so caught up in everything we were doing with the kids, and being tired at the end of the day, then we left for safari and there was nothing out there but cows, so… my apologies if I left you hanging.

A brief synopsis of the past few days…

After the weekend that ended with church and shopping, we started another week of VBS at another village school, this one called Baba Ndogo. This slum is a new community for Mary and Wallace, and the school contains only pre-school aged kids. We toured this school and slum the first day, but when we arrived we came from another direction and the sight of the trashy, dirty, child-filled dirt areas still shocked my senses. From where this school building was located, the slum looked a bit different- the building was on the outskirts of the village, and the white milky river was not the prominent feature….

The school building itself was a small gathering of a few six small rooms, made of tin and cement blocks, with a large, open dirt area in front where the neighborhood children and animals congregated as we arrived to put up a large tent for shade. The school was so small that almost all of us had to work outside, amidst the villagers. The medical team did their screening under the tent, and we were told to do games in the ‘grassy area’ in front of the tent; ‘grassy area’ in this case meant red dirt with a few weeds in it. Bible lessons were outside too; the pre-school aged children sat in rows of tiny, bright colored plastic chairs amid the gray walls and dirt.

Games were much harder at this school for a few reasons: we were competing with the noise of the fifty or so parents and crying babies waiting in line for medical screening, as well as trying to include all the school kids and ‘exclude’ all the neighborhood kids who were watching. A few times in Duck Duck Goose we actually tripped over a few of the village kids as we ran around the circle, and one even cried as she lay in the dirt. This was a poignant illustration of dichotomy I found in this trip; mainly, the interaction between the have and have-nots, and what arises in the drastically contrasting landscape. As the little girl tripped and cried, I wanted to reach out and hug her, pull her up off the ground and include her in the game. However, I was also aware that we were not ‘working’ with these kids, and we had asked them to move back many, many times in Swahili to make room for the running. I wanted to include them, but at the same time, couldn’t… there were tons of them, and only four of us running games. Plus, we weren’t ‘supposed’ to be. How do I play by the rules that I didn’t write, and still love on these kids?

The VBS ran smoothly these two days; after lunch at Babo Ndogo in one of the tiny rooms, we painted the buildings throughout the afternoon while the medical screening took place. One afternoon I gave up my paintbrush to help with the medical screening- I needed some time out of the sun and dirt and smelly paint. I thought I would be helping with weighing the children and taking their pulses; instead I sat under the tent baking in the sun, with fifty to seventy sweaty mothers and children with no deodorant, crying and screaming in Swahli, cutting out pieces of cardstock to make medical charts for the children. At one point, when I sat back in my rickety chair and concentrated on the smells, sounds, sights and feelings of the neighborhood kids touching my hair and skin behind me, the screaming kids in front, I had a slight feeling of panic. This is the real life, the reality of these people. How can I be helping just sitting here, cutting cards?

After these two days of VBS, we had one day of work left before safari... Wednesday was just a painting day at the Pangani center, so we showed up and began priming ceilings, painting blue walls, and cutting in the moulding. It was an easy morning, which was good because we had gone to an Ethiopian restaurant the evening before, and many on the team were suffering 'Ethiopian Aftermath', which is not pleasant with squatty potties and no flushing. We took the morning easy, but I painted as much as I could because I was enjoying it so much. Ben, the lead of the project, kept me busy and was sad to see us go.

The afternoon came with lunch, and two of our teammates going back to the guesthouse with insane stomach issues, dizziness, puking, you name it they had it. This was a major shame, however, because they missed the BEST part of the whole, entire trip... the secret celebration that Mary had planned for us!

After lunch we went to the large, open space that serves as the center's church, which is walled in on one side, and draped in tarp the other three sides. As we walked in we were hit with a surprise: colorful, long tubeshaped balloons and crepe paper streamers were decorating the whole area, and there was a colorful sign on one of the hanging tarps, with our church names and 'We love you!' written all over! Plastic chairs filled with school children were set up facing the stage, and about 20 white plastic chairs on the stage, facing the side. We were ushered to the white chairs on stage, and instructed to sit and wait. Barry Hallelujuah, the worship leader from church was there on stage, with his whistle, and began a song. The children sang, then a teacher came up and introduced herself to us and sang a song. The next teacher came up and sang, then introduced a classroom of kids that came marching in from behind one of the tarps from the back. They marched in and lined up in front of us, and recited some poems, songs and Bible verses. This repeated a few times for maybe six or seven groups of children, each marching in from the back tarp with a different song. One even sang the 'Banana' song that my sister sings at Coldstone for tips! It was a moving, beautiful 'entertainment portion', as the teacher called it.

After the recitations and singing, the teachers began singing and dancing in a circle and got all of us white folk to dance with them. All of a sudden they each had these Kenyan cloths and shirts, and as we were dancing, they each chose one of us and dressed us (women in cloths, men in shirts) as they danced with us. It was so touching to be dressed in their culture, literally and figuratively. Then, Mary brought out a large decortated cake, and had our three leaders cut it into tiny pieces, and put it on plates. Everyone in our group got a plate of cake pieces, and we were told to feed them to the kids. We got to go in and out of allthe chairs, feeding little sweets to the kids, who were so excited for cake!

After this, the kids were invited up to the stage area and they sang a 'Farewell' song to us, over and over, and then they invited us to come and dance. Thus began the best thing I've ever done in my life: Kenyan dance party. The kids each found our teammates and we all began to form little dance circles- some of us jumping, waving our arms, twirling the kids, swaying and rocking to jammin' Kenyan party music. The kids laughed and laughed, I laughed and laughed and sweated until I couldn't laugh or sweat anymore. We danced for almost an hour, just playing around in cirlces. Finally, it was time to go. The music ended. Our dance, and our work here, was over. We piled in our bus and waved our final goodbye to the children and teachers of Pangani and the Mathare Valley slums. As we left the slums for the last time, I felt like the most blessed, lucky girl in the whole world to have just had a Kenyan dance party, and to have experienced the people and life in the Mathare Valley. How am I going to bring this experience back into my life in the States, how is God going to use this to change me and make me different? I don't know that, but know that I am blessed and rich to have these questions.

Next up: dinner at the Java House with the group, and then safari in the morning. Rift Valley, here we come!